@Lash,
Why wouldn't the administration be puzzled that busing hasn't worked as they expected?
This is the precise reason why the children have been bused to your school - so they could have the benefit of the same education as kids in the less affluent part of town. They argued it would work, they counted on it working, and now that it's not they are wondering why. Their current curiosity, if not their original plan, makes sense to me.
Of course the home conditions you describe are some of the reasons it hasn't worked. Others might be that the kids are exhausted when they get home each day because of the additional time they have spent commuting, their attitude about learning is challenged by the sense of social inferiority they experience in a school where the locals (including those of their own races) are far more affluent and materially privileged, or the near and more distant cultural influences they experience in their community that not only do not include an appreciation of education but contain a thinly veiled disdain for it.
Some might think that two years has not been long enough for the program to be successful, and that's certainly a possibility. They may also assume that since the parent's of the 8 students being bused had to choose to send their kids to your school, that they had de facto expressed interest in their children's educations, but that is by no means a certainty.
All three of my children spent their entire public school careers in a system that involved either children being bused to their neighborhood schools, or their being bused to schools in what you would call a ghetto.
This was for considerably more than 2 years, and, with limited exception, parents had no choice. At the end of all those years the system administrators were also curious as to why the results they expected hadn't been achieved.
There was a rather sizeable group of parents from the less affluent communities who came to the conclusion that for a number of reasons (some which have been stated) their children were not being served by busing and that they preferred to have them attended neighborhood schools, even if that meant racial re-segregation. I'm sure that you will not be surprised that there were already a group of parents from the affluent communities who agreed with the assessment that busing wasn't serving the needs of their children either.
For years, before these parents took advantage of their votes, the city's racially mixed school board rejected their request and stuck with busing, and expectations were not met. The plan wasn't working.
I attended a great many of the board meetings and there were plenty of parents and board members who argued that the plan was not only sound, it was fair, and the only legal option available. They were confident it would prove successful, and by the way, we could be proud that our city had shown the way for years to the rest of the nation, and especially the South.
There were also parents and board members who made it clear that whether or not the plan had any chance of working, affluent (and predominantly white) families were not going to keep their kids from coming into their neighborhoods.
There were also plenty of parents who expressed support for busing as the correct and fair approach to take when their children were in elementary schools and the less affluent children were being bused in, but who sent their kids to private school when they hit the middle-school years and were subject to being bused to the
ghettos.
Eventually, the program was modified to the extent that affluent children were no longer bused to less than affluent neighborhood schools and new schools were built in affluent (predominantly white) neighborhoods that didn't have less affluent children bused to them. Not surprisingly, many of the affluent parents who moved to these neighborhoods remained solidly in favor of continued busing of less than affluent children to the older affluent schools. After all, despite what the growing bloc of less than affluent parents believed about neighborhood schools, busing was the correct and fair approach.
This was the state of the school system when my youngest graduated High School and we moved out of state not long after. I believe that some busing may continue but the approach of neighborhood schools (in all neighborhoods) is now predominant. I'm afraid I don't know if the overall educational results have improved or declined.
I totally agree with you that no child should ever be considered “substandard,” nor do I believe they should be relegated to what essentially amounts to holding tank classes until they reach the legal age at which point can drop out. If alternative teaching methods can be shown to be effective, they should be employed so that even children who have achievement difficulties (whatever their source) get a very good chance at obtaining the education they deserve and need.
We should never allow a system where the “smart” kids get the good teachers and the “dumb” kids get the bad ones. I think an argument can easily be made that the most challenged children should be taught by the most highly trained and skilled teachers, but an essential foundation of this argument must be that we no longer allow systems to have both “good” teachers and “bad” ones.
I totally disagree with you that so-called “honor” classes should be discontinued.
I didn’t see your reasoning for doing away with them. If I missed it, please point me in the right direction, and if I didn’t, would you mind elaborating on it?
If honor classes are disproportionately one race or another then spend the time and effort to determine the true reasons for the disparity and attempt to properly address them. Properly addressing them does not mean establishing racial, economic status or other class quotas, nor does it mean coming up with “new and innovative” ways to identify “honor” grade students, the sole purpose of which is to enable quotas.
Just as challenged students should not be ignored for the good of the individuals and society , gifted students should not be short changed. Using them as resources for the education of challenged students is acceptable only if it can be clearly shown that such an approach is in their best interest as well. In other words, doing away with honor classes so challenged students will sit in the same classrooms as gifted students is not acceptable.
