news Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage, Setting a New Standard for Big Cities

[realizm]

and what happens if more blacks simply study and pass the test? Won't better middle school and elementary do the trick? It starts with the community and better parental responsibility. Stop reproducing at young ages and getting pregnant as a teenager.

Ok I can see what you may be saying. However now we are definitely delving into racial politics and the history of the United States. I can carry on and explain my viewpoint if you like: We had a very controversial social and political history where it pertains to human rights violated due to racial discrimination. From the days of slavery onward, to today. You should have known this.

 

We still live in a segregated country, however not held down not by chains but from a forced status quo. Feel free to add to this.

 

Hush. Let me finish my short essay that basically says the same thing.

Why did you even bring up the situation in regards to racism and the elite schools? That wasn't what I were focusing on when I alluded to 'checks and balances'. I didnt know that had anything to do with a wage increase in the sleepy town of Seattle...

[CenSin]

What are you implying since Stuyvesant is mostly an all white and Asian school? Can you clarify?

It should stay racially segregated?

Since we both agree that education is where it all starts, and that reform is needed, what do you think needs to be changed?

 

I don't want to spoil your opinion by providing my own first, so skip the rest of the post and start your response if you have something in mind already. I'll just cut the crap and post the short answer.

 

IMHO:

Intervention should start before kids even attend school, and it's almost too obvious why that should be so. Consider why a high school school that uses a fair method of admitting students ends up with a student population that doesn't look like the city it is situated in. How old are the kids that are applying? They are 12~13! If they do not make the high standards then, one might wonder why they should be placed with those who did—especially after the intervening 9 years between pre-K and 8 grade. Underachievement is cumulative. It builds up over the years.

 

I'll give a real life example starting with me. There were actions that I took to get me here today—actions that anyone could have taken. As far back as I remember, I spoke no English at the age of 5. Dragging my feet through pre-K and kindergarten was the best I could do. And, predictably, at the end of kindergarten I got held back. That was until I moved to a new school. At the new school, the standards were so low, they put me back into the first grade even though I clearly flunked the criteria for that level. Yet, it offered many free after-school programs which almost nobody took advantage of. My parents, though, were quick to seek out these freebies since they were slaving away most of the day to bring home food. They thought keeping me at school for a few hours longer would make me smarter (in addition to the free babysitting), and I could go home after all the cartoon shows and other distractions at home ended. I didn't like it much (honestly speaking), but being bored to death sitting in a classroom with few other people made me pick up dictionaries, storybooks, and other literature just to pass time. During those long hours when all the other kids were watching Power Rangers, playing video games, or causing trouble (like sending other kids to the hospital with broken noses), I would be studying things ahead of my grade level. It's a wonder how much more interesting "boring topics" are when you have been insulated from the more interesting distractions. By third grade I was the best student in the entire school. And because all classmates and school staff members expected me to be studious, I became studious out of pride—even after the after school period. Imagine if my fellow classmates exerted that kind of peer pressure on each other instead of only me? How much better would they be doing if they opened up to the possibility that they could also be smart—if they instilled the same attitude in each other that they instilled into me? So, that's me.

 

Who's the other real-life example? She was a fellow classmate of mine—and one of the underachievers—from the same school. She's now living in a crapshack with her adoptive parents not too far away from my home, raising a kid that she made as a teen, and unemployed. Things I remembered her doing in school included cheating, printing online encyclopedia articles from the school computers and submitting them as her own work (plagiarizing), skipping class, … I only know how she turned out because I run into her randomly. I don't see any other former classmates.

 

So answering your question, I do not think it is racially segregated, nor do I promote segregation for the sake of racial segregation. But I do promote segregating by merits, and the resulting racial make-up is merely a side-effect of a fair process. If members of any racial/socioeconomic/religious/gender group are left out of high-standard high schools because they've been underachieving for 9 years, then they should stay out and not lower the collective standards and contribute to demoralizing other students that did better. Mayor de Blasio's proposed goal can only tarnish the names of great schools. As I've seen and experienced while growing up, the determinators of success are introduced early in life. If anything should be done, it should be to the clean slates that need the proper nurture today.

[CenSin]

Why did you even bring up the situation in regards to racism and the elite schools? That wasn't what I were focusing on when I alluded to 'checks and balances'. I didnt know that had anything to do with a wage increase in the sleepy town of Seattle...

Because it parallels the situation in Seattle. The mayor wants to meddle in something that should not be meddled with. It should also be obvious that racism, poverty, and other ills that plague society are all part of the same vein. So correlated is race and socioeconomic status that an attack on the poor is often seen as an attack on African-Americans and Latinos. The mayor sees it the same way.

[realizm]

Because it parallels the situation in Seattle. The mayor wants to meddle in something that should not be meddled with. It should also be obvious that racism, poverty, and other ills that plague society are all part of the same vein. So correlated is race and socioeconomic status that an attack on the poor is often seen as an attack on African-Americans and Latinos. The mayor sees it the same way.

 

I'm actually glad you brought this up. Those are the factors that plague all cities, in the US that is. Now as for your view that the mayor is meddling in something that is not... how about your congressmen in office who halted a government into a shutdown over a an issue having to do with affordable healthcare...

[Orion VII 4 Life]

That school is seriously racially segregated. That was why DeBlasio is trying to bring back multicultural diversity to that school. Its been that way ever since I was in high school. Its been a so called elite school for decades. Much like UC Berkeley, it has similar problems where it comes to racial tensions. Something needs to be done.

I seriously can't stand people who think the test based admissions are racist. Jesus Christ, cause it just so happens that most of the people who pass the test and are admitted are asian and white it's racial profiling? It just turned out that way, there's no big conspiracy to "keep the black kids out of Stuy", there's no racist KKK robe wearing white guy in a back room just throwing away the tests taken by black students, most of the people smart enough to make it into the school just so happened to be asian and white! The tests are there for a reason and when they get rid of them there will be students of much lower intelligence (from all races and walks of life) admitted all in the name of "diversity" and it will affect the quality of the school. That's not a racist statement either before you call it that, I said very clearly the kids wjll be from all walks of life. That's some real BS and it could very well end up with more families leaving for the suburbs like it's the 1990s or sending their kids to private schools if they can't get the educational opportunity they want for their children.

 

And for the record, I don't go there, or Sci, or Tech, or nothing. I see why the test admissions are in place and I'm saying my damn opinion. Anyways, that's not what this thread's about and I don't even know why this crap came up.

[realizm]

I seriously can't stand people who think the test based admissions are racist. Jesus Christ, cause it just so happens that most of the people who pass the test and are admitted are asian and white it's racial profiling? It just turned out that way, there's no big conspiracy to "keep the black kids out of Stuy", there's no racist KKK robe wearing white guy in a back room just throwing away the tests taken by black students, most of the people smart enough to make it into the school just so happened to be asian and white! The tests are there for a reason and when they get rid of them there will be students of much lower intelligence (from all races and walks of life) admitted all in the name of "diversity" and it will affect the quality of the school. That's some real BS and it could very well end up with more families leaving for the suburbs like it's the 1990s or sending their kids to private schools if they can't get the educational opportunity they want for their children.

 

And for the record, I don't go there, or Sci, or Tech, or nothing. I see why the test admissions are in place and I'm saying my damn opinion. Anyways, that's not what this thread's about and I don't even know why this crap came up.

 

I was not talking about the tests. I was alluding to the fact that its well known that with schools and universities the racial tensions are high to the point that there is a degree of voluntarily segregation overall, in response to Censin's 'side point'. 

 

Who brought this crap up? Well if you would care to reread the posts you will see why we are having this discussion. I did not bring this subject up, wasn't interested in going there.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Oh please with this "leveling the playing field" with checks and balances crappola.  We live in a Democratic society where people have to want to better themselves.  That is done through hard work, not through handouts or by inflating salaries.  When I was in college I had several side jobs and worked on my breaks to always ensure that I had money and could take care of myself.  That's the way you do it.... Through hard work and through obtaining an education.  The problem is that certain groups of people don't believe that education is important and then they grow up believing that and thinking that somehow they're going to make it big doing nothing.  Doesn't work that work... That's a big problem with today's current generation too... 

[realizm]

Oh please with this "leveling the playing field" with checks and balances crappola.  We live in a Democratic society where people have to want to better themselves.  That is done through hard work, not through handouts or by inflating salaries.  When I was in college I had several side jobs and worked on my breaks to always ensure that I had money and could take care of myself.  That's the way you do it.... Through hard work and through obtaining an education.

 

That's sincerely what I believe those who are poor should do: Dont despair but work hard to get themselves out of the poverty trap - by means of a formal education. Late civil rights leaders in the 20th century movement here emphasized on this as critical to success many times.

 

 

The problem is that certain groups of people don't believe that education is important and then they grow up believing that and thinking that somehow they're going to make it big doing nothing.  Doesn't work that work... That's a big problem with today's current generation too...

Which groups are we talking about here? Lost me a bit.

[CenSin]

Who brought this crap up? Well if you would care to reread the posts you will see why we are having this discussion. I did not bring this subject up, wasn't interested in going there.

I'd like to add that everything said so far revolves around this:

"level the playing field" simply isn't possible.

…and has been the point I'm driving home. The kind of help that minimum wage hikes and racial quotas for college provides is a terrible waste of resources since levelling the playing field at that point is too late. The levelling should have started long ago.

 

And you may or may not be interested in going deeper, but I don't think there's such a lack of educational resources that it's difficult to get ahead. I hung out at the library as a kid (surprise, surprise) and you would probably be shocked to hear that the percentage of Asians in the library did not match the percentage out on the streets. It's a lack of promotion (by the mainstream media and parental figures) and thus, a lack of demand/consumption (from kids). Anyone who's been on the subway as seen advertisements from a multitude of colleges offering quick degrees for skilled jobs or tuition assistance. What should be there instead are advertisements targeted at kids promoting the merits of education, because they are the ones who really need the message. I heard a lot of things from my childhood days that I would expect to be familiar in today's underperforming schools, only with worse grammar:

"I hate school/homework/classwork/math/…"

"School sucks."

"I'm going to kill the teacher when I grow up."

 

So where are we now in the discussion?

 

→Seattle minimum wage hike

→Minimum wage hikes in general and how they are bad

→Education as the real fix to employment problems instead of levelling the playing field

→How Mayor Bill de Blasio is trying to level the playing field in higher-level education

→How the problem with education starts, and how societal and parental attitudes start the problem

→How to fix it problem

 

We're gnawing at the roots now.

[CenSin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-the-way-to-beat-poverty.html

[R68 Subway Car]

I am glad that Seattle did this and I hope this effort will expand around the country.