pinellas, nation still treating symptoms
From TBO: Idea Stirs Questions On School Diversity
“Separate but equal” faded as a guiding principle in public education after a U.S. Supreme Court decision five decades ago that forced racial integration.
But the idea, if not the phrase, is making a comeback in a proposal that would steer Pinellas County students to schools in their own neighborhoods - neighborhoods that remain clearly divided by race.
Most parents want it that way, the school district contends, pointing to surveys showing that schools close to home are a priority.
Regardless of your color, if you are bussed from your neighborhood to somewhere across the county, you are an outsider, and you will not be welcomed with open arms. No one in their right mind wants to see their children bussed across the county to be the representative of the underrepresented.
AND STILL, leaders want to talk about how we’re gonna get schools to the “proper” racial mix.
community leaders, teachers and some parents question whether racial imbalance will rob students of resources and exposure to other cultures.
Community “leaders” have been trying to “fix” this for decades. And hundreds or thousands of articles have been written about it. And in each of these articles is the answer, but no one wants to discuss the REAL SOLUTION.
Most of the county’s blacks, who make up about 8 percent of its 900,000-plus population, live in south St. Petersburg and in parts of Clearwater in central Pinellas and Tarpon Springs to the north.
… When students are assigned to neighborhood schools, enrollments mirror local housing patterns and become less diverse, national studies have shown.
Schools do not divide people by race. Cities do. Communities do. Neighborhoods do. People do.
The only true way to achieve complete diversity in the schools is to achieve complete diversity within your neighborhoods. Show me any community leader willing to work on THAT problem, and I’ll show you a real leader.
Tags: diversity, education, neighborhood, pinellas
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November 15th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Timberlane was destroyed about 10-15 years ago when the children were bussed to DOWNTOWN TAMPA. Everyone decided to just leave Timberlane instead, and it has now been replaced by our very own little ghetto.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
“The key is, ‘Are you giving each of them a fair and equitable education?’”
With resegregated (i.e. neighborhood) schools, the emphatic answer is NO! Studies and my own teacher eyes have shown that kids who go to school in a racially and socioeconomically mixed setting have more advantages and learn more.
If resegregation is allowed to happen, the powers that be will “forget” about high-enrollment minority schools. If you resegregate you must reallocate funds and energy toward economically disadvantaged schools. Good luck with getting that to happen.
Parents should focus on what is best long-term for their child instead of what is easiest short-term for them.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
busing did not destroy Timberlane, how uninformed. The downsizing of MacDill AFB is what changed the demographis in Timbo. 75% of the houses sold in Timbo from 1986 to 1997 were Govt sales. One military family moved out and sold the house to another military family. That all changed when Macdill was reduced in size by a large margin.
Combine the no credit needed no down payment neeed rush of the past five years and many undesireables with bad kids and bad parents moved in.
We now have drug lords and thugs roaming the streets. Parents have no control over their teenagers. The demise of Timberlane rests squarely on the shoulders of BAD parents and the Hillsborough County Sheriffs office who has done nothing to get rid of the dealers.
The dealers are now waiting after school in the neighborhood for the high schoolers and the middle schoolers as they get off the bus. They are recruiting new drug users to sell to and to get them to help deliver. They are mules.
The first week in February 2008 there was a showdown between dumb ass teenagers with guns drawn at each other pointed at their heads on Timberlane Drive at 2 am in the morning. And of course we had many spectators there as well.
Three cars broken into the past month.
Bottom line: Dont buy a house in Timberlane unless your doing drugs, then of course by all means come to the neighborhood, you definitly wont be bothered by the police.
I post this as a warning for any future home buyers considering the purchase of a home in the Timberlane subdivision. You have been warned.