To Samantha, the answer was obvious: race.
She remembers looking around her neighborhood that year and realizing suddenly how race explained so many of the divisions in her life. On her street, she noticed for the first time that Hispanic families like hers lived in cramped apartments with no shrubbery and problematic plumbing. Meanwhile, white families lived across the road in apartments withgrassy courtyards where Samantha was never allowed to play. She remembers watching the superintendent, who regularly ignored her parents’ phone calls, walk to the courtyard apartments to fix their toilets.
Comments at WP:
* And of course, it never occurs to these kids that when you come to another country illegally, and without education, skills, and a knowledge of the language, and make no attempt to learn, well, maybe you don’t get good jobs and maybe people don’t respect you.
* Actually Samantha, the difference is explained by social economic status, race is the legacy of that (oh and by the way Hispanic is not a race, Samantha, its a cultural identifier). Those with more money, predominately those whose DNA is derived mostly from peoples from Europe prior to 1500, live in fancier housing, whereas those who are poorer, whose DNA is derived mostly from peoples from Africa or Central America prior to 1500, live in rundown crappy housing. Social division resulted the racial legacy set up by the conquering Spanish (encomienda system) in Central America, and African Slavery by the ruling English/Dutch/French/Portuguese/Spanish where Indian populations declined and could no longer be enslaved.
* Failing school, failing students, failing president. Perfect fit.
* This is why some of us support birth control and Planned Parenthood.
* I got worried when they implemented a speech code and started suspending 1st graders for micro-aggressions.
* And now the children reap the whirlwind of a system which confuses the things children really need to know, reading comprehension, English composition, and arithmetic with a “visionary” system that acquaints them with resentment instead of education. School is not supposed to be entertaining. School is about learning, about being bored and doing what you’re told to do anyway. We don’t need to “engage” children. We need to teach them to perform tasks, to follow instructions, and to obey rules, while learning the fundamentals. Some children will have an inclination to higher pursuits. Some will not. Not every child is a precious snowflake, but each one needs to become a responsible adult. So much for the glamour of going to a school named after a special president. Those children would have been better served learning nothing more than math and English.
* How has Antigua fared since renaming Boggy Peak Mount Obama?
* Not a great lead in photograph.. A 400 lb school employee is not the example you want for your children. Represents poor choices and slovenly demeanor.
* “Change for the better at Barack Obama Elementary has been elusive as well. Since its renaming, the school has seen four principals, with one fired under such contentious circumstances that it ended up in court. Betty Cross, the school board member who pushed for the new name, was removed last year amid allegations of voter fraud, which she disputes. Meanwhile, test scores have remained frustratingly low.”
Sounds about right. Oh, and the Russians control 4 of the classrooms, the entire computer system is shunted to the Chinese government, each student costs $400 billion to educate, and the playground is filled with homeless people. Otherwise everything’s great.
