I don’t care what color they are. And I don’t believe this society should ever allow such people to call themselves citizens, to vote or serve on juries, or to be treated as fullfledged members of society.

I have seen enough in my life to know that people can maintain a certain level of civilization especially if they are made to understand – by their schools if not their parents – that terrible and certain punishments await those who go outside certain boundries of decent living (ie Lead Poisoning, Megan’s List, San Quentin, Bad Credit Bureau scores and having your cell phone turned off).

And we are not trying to transmit this knowledge (or a lot of other common knowledge) to certain people who the government is just too willing to allow to grow up feral. Regardless of who your parents are you should get educated by high school’s end in the common things in this society without having to go to a Delancey Street to learn it. The public schools used to transmit (and enforce) minimum standards, they can again.

For one thing they can resume using teaching materials that say clearly that certain behavior and values are good and right, and some are bad and wrong. And that those who chose the latter are to be shunned and avoided. This thread is on illiteracy – well the students can read about such things and kill two birds with one stone. The fact that some students have criminal or degenerate parents is no reason for the school to not explain the facts of life to them that their parents don’t. It is never an acceptable excuse for a school district to use the Parent’s failures for the kid’s failure.

School culture is more important than home culture…however, children reflect the negatives and positives of the environments they are exposed to…Remember, Oakland is the 5th most violent City in the United States…

There often appears to be like a “civil disobedient” internal feature among Berkeley/ Oaklanders (of any group) for anything that comes up, rather than a pause followed by critical thinking and then followed by quiet but thoughtful action…people around here appear to be so quick to jump someone…smoke their “xxxxx” with negativity etc, etc…and wanna “tag” someone with their own hate and negativity…

There are good schools engaging in positive change with many diverse communities…Take Osmond-Church School near JFK in NYC for one…

http://www.achievementalliance.org/files/OsmondChurch.pdf

I don’t think it is fruitful to apply such a broad stroke to all in the statistically low achieving ethnich groups…there are many reasons for success and failure…

http://www.martynemko.com/articles/core-reason-people-fear-mass-legalization_id1249

And that’s the problem I complain of most here. While immigrants legal or not come to the USA and wind up moving up the social and economic ladder, the home grown blacks are moving down the ladder. The public schools were once here to keep this from happening (1950s for example) and now the public schools are part of the problem.

The (urban) public schools are where ghetto culture is validated, where ebonics are perpetuated, where victimhood is engrained – the stories go on. Not so prior to the civil rights movement. Our society once used the public schools to iron out the lower class and to enforce middle class mores. They did it openly without a care or concern who didn’t like it or was offended. Now the black ghetto youth have to go spend 2 years at Delancey Street Foundation to learn how to speak, dress, and behave in public – after they get out of prison – if they are lucky enough to be accepted.

I disagree with you if you think the public schools can’t teach deportment and the english language. They have before and they can again.

I don’t buy that immigrant families are refusing to assimilate — in fact, I think they are trying harder to assimilate than immigrants of the past. I know a lot of people my age of Italian descent, and they all had grandmas who spent most of their lives here without ever learning English — or even trying to learn English. (They lived in neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Excelsior District, where the business of homemakers was simply done in Italian.)

By contrast, I have a couple of friends who teach English as a Second Language through community colleges, and Spanish-speaking immigrants (menial workers with little education) flock to their classes. They may struggle in the classes, but they’re trying — and those Italian grandmas in the Excelsior weren’t trying in the slightest. And my kids’ San Francisco public middle school (Aptos, total span 2002-2008) was full of Latino kids whose parents barely spoke English — but the kids were fully bilingual. Of course they’re assimilating.

And these people, these 1st generation immigrants did it with California public schools – Urban California public schools. Their children are also high performers albeit by the 2nd generation often but not always in private or church schools.

If they can do it anybody can do it.

Unrealistic my behind.

The problem with the black students (and the “Gap”) is largely black culture and being “black”… Sad but True. And our public schools have not the slightest intention of fixing that. Too bad, it should be fixed.

What schools are popularly expected to accomplish these days (supposedly preparing every single student for college) is totally disconnected from what it would actually cost for them to do. If they truly wanted the things they say, they would have to be willing to pay, at least, for inner-city class sizes of 8:1. I doubt that will ever happen.

The extremely unrealistic expectations are effectively distracting people, and are probably also a ruse for something else.

By the way, I want to recommend a book to you, “The Way We Were: The Myths and Realities of America’s Student Achievement” by Rothstein. In the section about earlier immigrant groups, he explains that what is expected now is unprecedented. “Americans have never successfully educated the first or even second generation of children from peasant or unskilled immigrant families,…” He details why there weren’t any golden, good old days of education.

As for the underclass, my heart goes out to Poissant and Cosby who are passionately trying to do their best. Maybe some inspired leaders will emerge.

Sharon: I am now an outsider and feel that I throughly understand the challenges of OUSD, having followed it for the past 15 years as a resident. I voted for all school bonds, until the past one. I will tell you that parents in many school districts would not tolerate the lack of leadership of OUSD. As long as this is tolerated there will be no change. Don’t even get me started on the school board!

That’s why literate, capable, financially able OUSD insiders & their children need to become OUSD outsiders ASAP!

Bon voyage

Could there be an issue now of immigrants refusing to assimilate – not making English a priority? Or maybe that’s not really now than then.

In any event, immigrants exist to serve this country, not the other way around. Balkanizing the USA by catering to and preserving Ethnic enclaves is a road to ruin for both sides.

When it’s sink or swim time, people take swimming lessons. I believe that the immigrants tend to do pretty well all things considered. It’s the home grown underclass that have the real problems. They speak English – at least nominally. What are we doing to get the underclass to move up in society? Teach them the rules of society? I wish the schools did that. Our schools have value free education.