Public education has various purposes that separate it from education alone. Some here think parents should have free choice to send their children to the school of their choice, which they very well do have.

For instance, Pierce v. Society of Sisters held that you can send a child to parochial school. States also allow you to home school. The Supremes even held there was a constitutional right to remove an Amish child from high school (at least the last two years) if it clashed with religious principles. There also is no 'constitutional right' to send your child to the public school of your choice. Nor is there a constitutional right to dictate what the public schools teach. Sorry creation scientists and radical leftists.

This last point is important. The public school was established as a means to promote good citizenship. This means something special in this country. For instance, public schools have an open admissions policy. They cannot teach sectarian religious principles or lead students in prayer. They (should) promote American values like free inquiry and principles found in documents like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

And, they overall bring us all together. Once upon a time, many urban schools used the Protestant Bible, causing great Protestant/Roman Catholic divisions. Rulings such as Engel v. Vitale underlined the problems with this technique. Again, parents can send their children to religious/private schools. But, public schools provide a means of having children of all creeds coming together. For instance:

authorities have perceived public schools as an "assimilative force" by which diverse and conflicting elements in our society are brought together on a broad but common ground.

If there are limited slots, promoting such diversity in some fashion as but one factor in the selection process can be a good idea. Ditto things like neighborhood, ideology, educational level [see, e.g., a recent story thread in the comic strip "For Better or For Worse" concerning 'special needs' students] and so forth. Diversity promotes the ends of public education. If you don't like it, or don't like your kid being taught evolution or whatnot, you need not send them to public school.

The same applies to racial diversity. It is legitimate for schools to optionally promote this end, bringing together all races along with other groups.* It is not the only concern though you'd think that from some rhetoric on the other side. But, it surely can be one concern. Bringing together different groups is a core value of public education.

How can we properly understand and learn to live with fellow citizens if they are but strangers to us from early years? As with all 'different' groups, including sexual and political in nature, separation promotes prejudice, misunderstanding, and other wrongs that a diverse education can help prevent. Promoting diversity requires some recognition that we are different in some ways, or is trying to get all points of view in class illegitimate because it causes division between people inherently all alike?

The program here does in part address the problems of racial inequality. But, looking at the actual beliefs of those behind Brown, such as Thurgood Marshall, we also saw a broader version. A unifying vision of education, one in which separate but equal is not compelled just because the state did not directly cause it. In fact, it was a violation of the very principles he fought against.

Some question the means argued by the dissent here, which to me is problematic,** but worse are those who seem to miss the importance of the end. They think race conscious programs are sometimes necessary when the state mandates segregation, but not when its action allow it to go on indirectly. But, if the end result is the same, is this not akin to saying the rich and poor both cannot sleep under bridges? Equality, like the varied purposes expressed in the Preamble of the Constitution, sometimes requires, to use a phrase, affirmative action.

Surely, the state can try on their own to take a different path. At the very least, the goal is correct. Sadly, some fail even to seem to think that is true.

-j

---

* Likewise, like it or not, in some fashion segregation in fact tends to be in some fashion a result of state action ... which can very well be the active choice to not act:

"But if, after such detailed and complete public supervision, substantial school segregation still persists, the presumption is strong that the school board, by its acts or omissions, is in some part responsible."

The fact we can lie to ourselves and ignore the connection, notwithstanding.

** Frayster Degme, e.g., notes the problem with only using economic solutions. Even conservative leaning fraysters, such as 123Oscar (to reference a thread from a few years ago), asked 'if not this, what?' viewing things from a perch of watching history pass by and knowing a thing or two about education overall.

Until the intrusion debacle of the federal government into education which culminates in No Child Left Behind(NCLB), parents had tremendous say into what their children were taught. Government of schools was and to a larger extent still independent of other forms of local government even to the point of being the largest taxing agency in most areas. This allowed parents to directly participate in managing education in an ad hoc fashion.

While diversity is good, heterogenous grouping is not. Both ends of the educational spectrum, the gifted, and the special education student lose. Instead of teaching students to strive for excellence, this system at best strives for mediocrity and many times is reduced to the lowest common denominator. Instead of helping needy students, the students are placed in the limelight of comparitive failure constantly without hope of change.

NCLB strikes again by requiring the impossible:

Although it is universally acknowledged that it takes 5-8 years to acquire a second language (especially at the academic level which requires more than how to say, "Where is the bathroom?", ESL students after 1 year are required to perform at a level of native English speakers. The result? Ingrained sense of failure. Yet under NCLB the subgroup of these students is required to be "proficient".

The lunacy of special ed is even worse. There was a student who had a learning disability which prevented him from reading. The verbal portions of mandated assesments required however that the student read the multiple choice answers and read test directions. The test administration directions specifically directed the administrator to read or explain the directions. Yet under NCLB the subgroup of these students is required to be "proficient". The test may be discontinued if the student is getting frustrated (special ed students may also be emotionally disturbed as well, so that such frustration may lead to physical violence. The test manufacturer is covering themselves from law suits. Oh, yeah, the test score of the unfinished test still is counted.

If these subgroups continue to be below proficient, the school is subject to action up to and including being taken over by the state.

Until the intrusion debacle of the federal government into education which culminates in No Child Left Behind(NCLB), parents had tremendous say into what their children were taught.

Neither my parents or grandparents had a 'tremendous say' into what their children were taught except to the degree their had the right to change schools. To the degree some parents do, they still do in a diverse number of ways as shown by the diversity of curricula out there.

-j

As usual Ranger, you assert as "factual" or "universally recognized" things that are at their most charitable, describable as "spin". However I will grant you that my take as well as the general exprience with NCLB "proficiency" isn't that far off. But that is a far cry from the supposed "tremendous say" that parents had in public ed.

No, it does not take 5-8 years to acquire a second language beyond the level of "where is the bathroom". If that were the case, then 7yos (2nd graders) could not be reading "chapter books" - since their language acquisition didn't really begin in a cognitive sense until their 2nd year. Similarly graduates with a 4 year degree in a foreign language would not have sufficient fluency to take jobs as translators, guides, docents etc. Nor would the DLI be able to graduate military advisors after only an 8 week course but hey, because your name is "Ranger" we know that you know more about DLIs programs than what their own website does.

Now that fallacy aside the striving for mediocrity simply isn't true either. Yes the system IS designed in a manner that actually only serves about 30% of the population's learning modalities - but well prepped teachers understand this and work around it.

"the system IS designed in a manner that actually only serves about 30% of the population's learning modalities"

Enlighten us, degs. Most of us don't know as much about education as you apparently do.

From a prior post of yours, I presume that 30% of the student population can learn from the traditional "perch and preach" method (as I believe you referred to it).

How does one impart information to the other 70%?

Another question. Can a kid learn how to read proficiently if he is not taught how to sound out the words?