Marin County Folk - They Crack Me Up
There's an absolutely (though unintentionally) hilarious article linked without comment on Jerry Pournelle's Mail page about the Sausalito-Marin School District. The article, in the Marin Independent Journal, discusses the exodus from the school district by local residents who are displeased with the quality of the education, despite a $22,232(!) per pupil budget. The article goes on vaguely discussing how bad the schools are, and how determined they are to change it, but no one seems to know what to do, and how people are just giving up on them.
Stratigos, a former city councilman who grew up in Sausalito, said that based on anecdotal evidence, he estimates 50 families a year leave Sausalito and Marin City in search of better schools. That has been happening for at least 10 years, he said.Of course you know the answer (which is finally revealed in the article) - it's the same as it always is to the question of why a certain school is 'bad' - but it's quite entertaining reading all the hand-wringing anguish of the good people of Sausalito trying not to admit it - although "trying" stops short - here as it does everywhere - of actually sending their kids to the schools.
posted by ziel | 6/13/2006 11:20:00 PM
16 Comments:
Off topic: Anti-war ex-(Regan)-Republican Jim Webb took the Democratic nomination for Senate in Virgina over Wealthy Democratic neocon hack Harris Miller.
Webb was outspent 2:1.
This is *big* news.
Webb is a democratic that paleo-cons can work with.
It is good to see the anti-war faction of the democratic party finally assert itself.
Uhh, just a hunch, but...could it be all those not-so-assimilable illegal immigrants they have in Sausalito? Speaking of which...
I see that Steve Sailer is particularly ticked off these days by the stream of propaganda for increased immigration being issued by (usually) libertarian economists that offer the usual dubious theoretical arguments in favor of it.
Well I just came across one of the most objectionable articles in support of high immigration levels I've seen in some time. It is by a couple of economists by the names of Harry Dent and Rodney Johnson, and was posted yesterday at Bill Bonner's Daily Reckoning site.
I'll summarize the authors' assertions (I kid you not):
1. Immigrants pay far more in taxes than they receive in government spending and, as they usually come to the U.S. as adults, are a greater economic plus for the country than American-born children as they don't require educating.
2. Immigrants are a boon to the economy because they have large families and therefore are better consumers than the American-born. "This creates a self-reinforcing cycle in which new immigrants are attracted to areas by the growth that has already been partially fed by immigration."
3. Having millions of illegal immigrants in the country helps ensure a steady supply of dry cleaners, which keeps dry cleaning cheap.
4. "The flow of workers to our economy, workers who perform services as well as consume goods and services while here, that helps us to grow and to do so without the curse of inflation."
5. Restricting immigration will slow growth during our current economic boom, and will slow growth during economic busts so severely that we will have a depression, as the Great Depression was caused by having too few immigrants in the U.S. in the 1930's.
6. A drop in immigration will result in "real estate and growth prospects in high-price, high-immigration coastal cities like New York, Boston, D.C., Miami, L.A., San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle" taking a hard hit.
7. Immigration has always been great for America, and immigrants always assimilate to become good, productive, urbanized citizens, with the exception of the Amish ( and we know what an anti-social bain to America those damn Amish are!)
8. "Today's immigrants will, most importantly, join the financial mainstream, the biggest force for assimilation and national bonding."
9. While Europe's immigrants are non-assimilating troublemakers, ours are the completely virtuous opposite.
While this article is so factually and counterintuitively absurd it can't be taken seriously, this is nonetheless what is particularly disturbing about it: Not only was it carried as the feauture article at one of the most popular libertarian financial sites on the internet, but the chief author of the piece, Mr. Dent, is an extremely well respected economic forecasting consultant, whose clients include a who's who of top corporations and leading financial publications.
It is one thing when a Main Stream Media hack like David Brooks blathers on about the benefits of limitless immigration, as few people take self-important windbags like him seriously anyway. But when a heavyweight in the world of financial advising like Dent confidently makes patently false arguments for more immigration, legal and illegal, it only gives more ammo to the Open Borders zealots down at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and their stooges on Pennsylvania Avenue.
just a hunch, but...could it be all those not-so-assimilable illegal immigrants they have in Sausalito?
You're thinking too hard...the answer is more obvious - more 'traditional' as to the reason for the school's being 'bad'.
Anyway, I appreciate the rest of your comment...pretty amazing. But I still think the good news is how desperately pathetic their arguments are becoming - even from allegedly 'respectable' pundits.
If there are a lot of ex-military victors among Democrats this year, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact they have on the party.
If the wave does not stop, the woman's complaint in the linked article will be more and more legit concerning "not enough diversity" because of a LACK of white kids.
As usual, many who favor "diversity" in our schools either have no children, send their kids to private schools, move out to the sticks and cheerlead the invasion from there.
Wanna make a little something clear thats off-point. Crime is up, its just the beginning. One good recession would see it explode. The powers that be will statistically link hispanic crime numbers with whites to disguise it. Watch for it.
Could there ever be a statement that encompasses liberalism better than this one from the article -
"Strietmann said she struggled with the decision, and knew that if she sent her children to the Sausalito public schools, it would improve racial integration in the schools and would "make the world a better place."
So she/they believes the right thing to do is send her kids to public schools but she's not about to put them through that ordeal. How sending kids to school to get beat up and receive a bad education makes the world a better place is a tad puzzling, but hey, why let reality get in the way of a classic liberal philosophy!
"Wanna make a little something clear thats off-point. Crime is up, its just the beginning. One good recession would see it explode. The powers that be will statistically link hispanic crime numbers with whites to disguise it. Watch for it. "
This is from a cnn.com report on the sudden increase in crime:
Several experts cited an aging population and stiffer sentencing as key factors that contributed to the gradual reductions in crime throughout the 1990s and into the start of the new century. But some leading criminologists say those factors are changing and they are not surprised by the new numbers.
“There is an ‘echo boom,’ with an increasing number of late adolescents, particularly blacks and Latinos,” said James Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University. “Also, more people incarcerated in the ‘80s are now being released to their neighborhoods, and some are back to their old ways and old gangs,” Fox said.
But you are probably right, the media will for the most part attempt to spin this and make it look like white guys are behind it.
Our friend Steve Sailer has been pointing out for years that there is what must be a deliberate effort by the news media and entertainmenet industry to give the general public the false impression that it is overwhelmingly white males who are responsible for serious crimes, even though the U.S. Justice Dept.'s own statistics clearyly show otherwise.
Ever notice that your local newspaper never shows photos of minority perps, but whenever a white guy has been charged they run his mug shot? I also have to laugh at these commercials for home security systems you see all the time these days, where the home invader is always a clean cut looking white guy. Its the same with the movie industry. Like Sailer says, think of all the juicy bad guy roles that should rightly go to minorities, that these actors are being denied solely due to the convoluted racial sensibilities of guilty white liberal casting directors.
So, Ziel, what you are saying is that the Sausalito school district has Louisiana's educational problems, not California's.
Glaivester has it right. This is the Baton Rouge experience all over again. One sentence, buried in the middle of the article with no illucidation, says it all:
In 1990, the school district was evenly split between blacks and whites. Now, just 15 percent of students are white.
This is a terrible "circle jerk". You start with some "white flight" leaving more black kids. As a result of the flight, the school's performance scores go down, serving as a basis for yet more white flight and the downward spiral begins in earnest.
Apparently it has really taken hold in this affluent county where white parents can afford to send their kids to the expensive private schools.
Louisiana is not by any means an isolated case but is a good illustration. We hear constantly that "I'd like to send my kids to public school but they are so bad that I just can't." When you suggest that if more white kids stayed in the public schools and the white parents stayed involved and insisted on improvement that the problem would resolve itself, you are met with blank stares. They want the schools fixed without their involvement.
Could it be that affluent (and, increasingly middle class) white parents view the schools as babysitters for their two income households and just want their kids in white, adolescent nursury schools/daycare. Think about it: day care is pretty well segragated across our great land.
Sorry to break the mold and be "on topic" but I thought I'd share my thoughts. Having no kids, I really don't have a dog in this fight but I can't see public schools getting better as long as there are affluent whites with an alternative. Currently, public schools work best in small, rural areas where there are no options so that parents are forced to channel their energies to making the public schools work for all the kids.
Harlem, I think you're buying into the charade - that schools are 'good' or 'bad' because of some magical qualities of the teachers or administrators. These can have some marginal impact, I'm sure, but the quality of the school - measured almost exclusively by test scores - is pretty much a function of the quality of the children.
I think the main reason for white flight is the disruptiveness minority kids bring to a school. A recent UCLA study found that bullying decreases with 'diversity' - i.e., the more white kids, the less bullying. Lots of liberals just love the idea of their kids being in school with minorities - but once their kids come home crying from harassment, it's game, set, match.
Lack of white parental involvement isn't the problem. It's just the opposite. A 50/50 divide can only work when both groups share the same values,ethics and concerns. If this is not the case, then inevitably the one half with the ability and wherewithal is going to seek better options elsewhere. Here in Indianapolis the ever-flowing deluge of illegal Mexicans are helping to fill in the gap left by fed up white parents. In the very near future the Indianapolis Public Schools will probably be 50% black,40% Mexican and well... you do the math. Brian
All I want for white, liberal parents is this: mandatory public education. Lefties who want the hispanic invasion shouldn't be free to send their kids to private schools or home school.
Id like to see their faces when their son comes home, gang beaten beyond recogniton. Then their faces when their daughter comes home from the same. When the grades suffer, and the kids cry at being made to go to school. I want to see the same lefty-idiot-feel-good-parents find some way to blame conservatives for their kid's plight. But no, they just hypocritically pull their damned offspring out of public schools that poorer whites HAVE TO send their kids to. So typical of hypocritical liberals.
Nameless mentioned how whites are "the bad guys" in movies. Yup, sure are.
Nameless, you know there is proboably another reason for this too. Movies are escapism. I know a woman (used to date her) who is a city employee. She works in information systems. Makes lower middle class money, college educated, recovering liberal (In her thirties). She, even before she saw the light past her professor-dominated college years) would drive to the wealthy part of town on the county line to shop and especially see movies. Even to go to Walmart (and she'd even DO HER GROCERY SHOPPING THERE). "You wished you lived out here, and could afford this life you used to diss", I accused her. She stood there, guilty as a kid with candy in her hand. She wanted to shop, be entertained, and dine around her "own" kind (I.E. english speaking-whites). She'd never admit that in a million years, but drove she did. 20 extra minutes. I suspect whites like white villians for the same reason. They like the movies to have a majority of whites. They dont want to feel "threatened" as they do in real life when they are the "minority" and wonder if others around them are "gang members" or "aggrieved racial-animus-bearers". I noted she just loved OLD movies wherein ALL the characters are white and art movies where they are all Euros. She'd never admit it, her subconcious real racism, but she had it as bad as a damn Kluxer would.
She's a registered Democrat.
Lefties who want the hispanic invasion shouldn't be free to send their kids to private schools or home school.
They have an alternative approach - they move to existing white communities, push the housing prices up to around $1m or so, and - voila - they've got 'good' public schools!
I don't think this story is as simple as some of you are making it.
Many white parents would still move their kids from a school even if the new ethnic group produces good students.
According to this Wall Street Journal article, white parents started moving their kids from a CA school because the Asians kids were too good as students:
http://modelminority.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1061
So there is a non-trivial number of white parents who move their kids just because they don't like the new ethnic make-up. This is more than just a question of under-performing black students.
Lams - not surprising. Most people prefer to be around their 'own kind' - and so a sudden influx of a different ethnic group will cause stress in many people. Even NYC Italian culture can be still be upsetting to N.J. Suburbanites.
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