Wow, degsme. Thanks for the great posts. So, what's the plan? How do we solve this? (I hope I wasn't the one who name called, for goodness sake, we haven't stooped that low, have we?)
On many of these issues we are just in disagreement. I will always think my grandparents worked in a diverse environment in Eastern Washington because as a city kid it looked different from mine. They had students coming in to class covered in smuge pot (?) grease and often not wearing shoes. When my grandmother died, one of the first visitors to their house was a Native American former student who lives in Toppenish. Another of my grandfather's constant companions was a Japanese-American man he taught with. From the outside these areas may look "undiverse." Sure mostly everyone looks the same, but does that really mean they aren't diverse? That they don't interact, intermarry, etc.? My school teacher grandfather belonged to a golf club where he was the only Democrat among a sea of Republicans. He made friends, he argued with them, and he often got fighting mad at them. They all looked the same on the outside, but they definitely weren't the same. And I'm sure there have been incidents with the hispanic population in the lower valley, but the culture is there. The impact is there. It isn't ignored, nor is it necessarily reviled in the way you describe.
I guess I have stories like this for all of my assertions. You can disagree, but they are still the facts that I know.
I never said the SSD declined in quality. It hasn't. But since its intergration policies started in the 1970s it lost half its students. It was "gutted" in the literal sense of the word. It lost its contents. Those 40,000 students didn't disappear in to the ether. They went somewhere. We can disagree about what precipitated this, but I don't believe the kids are actually gone. They just aren't in the SSD. In 1987, when my parents bought their current house, I was the only kid in a three block radius. (I was probably the only person younger than 40, but that's just supposition.) Today, there are 13 children on my parents' block alone. Only one of them attends a school in the SSD. The families are there or are returning, but they still question the SSD. Again, my experience, but there it is.
My point about suburban districts again was one of experience-people I know who had school aged kids in Seattle and moved East. They didn't trust inner city school districts in DC, NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc. But I suppose if we looked at wealthy students on the UES, they aren't being shipped to Washington Heights or Spanish Harlem. I could be wrong, but what wealthy parent is going to send their young child to these neighborhoods, really? Especially when the alternative is to go to a) a good local school or b) a private school. I don't know how the racial tiebreaker works, but even with it the NYC schools have huge racial imbalance, (the elementary school a block from my apartment is 99% black) but parents in places like the UES will send their kids to good local public schools if they can. Also, I'm aware of a case pending in Brooklyn where a young Indian girl didn't get into her magnet because it was already oversubscribed with minority students. Is this right? I don't think so.
I don't particularly like the term "white flight", but it happened across the country and in Seattle only less because there have always been a lot of white people (post-Indian days, of course). Places like Issaquah didn't really exist when I was younger, and Seattle once had a few more white people. So I don't know, what do we call it? White migration? Middle class movement? From what I've heard, Seattle a generation ago looked more like an Issaquah. Why are these families choosing Issaquah over say Beacon Hill or Columbia City or even Lake City? Perhaps it has something to do with schools. Perhaps not.
I agree that performing arts have helped integrate schools like Garfield. The jazz band and other programs are a terrific examples of this. But not everyone can go to Garfield. And you do have to get in to have these benefits. The neighborhood has also been iffy over the years--shootings, fights, etc. It's wonderful that such a fabulous school was put in the heart of a once--if not currently--economically disadvantaged neighborhood. But one has to wonder why neighborhoods like Queen Anne and Magnolia have been without a high school for 20+ years. (Okay, The Center School but it's not a traditional high school.)
Yes, there were problems across the country with red-lining. I don't know how we can get over that. But I also know that Seattle produced Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Judge Richard Jones, and Ernestine Anderson. (And was the movie Ray wrong, or was it Quincy Jones who persuaded Ray Charles to boycott segregated clubs?) Seattle has also been the home to such luminaries as August Wilson, Jacob Lawrence, Gwendolyn Knight, and Charles Johnson. In a city that is 10% black, I think this is remarkable. We have celebrated all of them in every way we know how. If there were racial problems prior to 1970 in Seattle, I guess I'm unaware of them. I'm sure it occurred, but did sending my ten year old self to Leschi help matters? Really?
And I used the term racial quotas while Roberts called it racial balance. It's still the same idea. Using percentages to compile a "diverse" student body. The question is how do you define diversity without using percentages (i.e without using race as the sole factor)? I'm not being cheeky. I really want to know. And I think the majority wanted to know as well. For Roberts, specified racial make-up (however defined) is not a compelling interest. And even if diversity is, the policies have to meet this goal in a way that doesn't use race as the sole factor. From my limited reading of the opinion, I believe the dissent wanted to rely on history to support the notion that yes, in fact, using race is okay if diversity is the goal whether or not this diversity is actually achieved. (In other words, it doesn't matter if it's just a numbers game becuase we've had problems with race in the past so these policies are okay.) I have problems with this.
I agree that diversity is important, but when I have kids I will want to send them to a school that is close to home so they can make friends, walk home, have time to hang out, etc. Oh, and I want it to be a good school too. Are these only white feelings? I don't believe so, and I don't think the SSD's policies ever did enough to take these important factors in to account. It deeply bothers me that in a city that is 70% white, only 40% of the school district is white. Why is this? What can we do about this? How do we get real diversity without falling in to the trap of the appearance of diversity? Ideas?
