| Author | Message | ||
     John Davenport Citizen Username: Jjd Post Number: 120 Registered: 2-2003 |
Interesting posts, Cynicalgirl. I have often thought that your views must represent a sizable portion of the "middle" of Maplewood, cutting across racial lines too. Your point, I take it, is that a get-tough investigation of suspected illegal students might have more "cultural" value for our high school than simple tax dollar savings. This is a more persuasive hypothesis, because even if the savings from (say) 150 removed students exceeded the PI and legal costs (plus potential class-act lawsuits etc), we might have to do it every two-three years to keep 'the problem' from reappearing very quickly. The tax savings, as JF says, are likely to be small relative to our overall budget in the long run. The idea of saving a "culture" of high respect, discipline, rigor, excellence etc. at our high school is much more appealing. However, we have to realize that starting down this road will divide the town, causing deep animosities. In principle, I'm for zero tolerance of illegal students (at the level of pure procedural justice, that is obviously right); but do we want to be on the Star-Ledger p.1 as the center of a race war? That will certainly be the result. If anything like the private investigator route is taken, I would like to ask that it at least be coupled with the creation by our school Board, and maybe the Community Coalition, of a Maplewood Committee for Irvington and Newark. We have lots of problems that need attention from Trenton -- such as a property tax system that rewards each township according to its rateables -- but Irvington and Newark have problems that obviously dwarf ours. What can we do, or encourage our state to do, so that people in Maplewood are not having this conversation again in fifty years. Something must be done now to show that people in Maplewood and South Orange really care about major improvements in Newark and Irvington, and are not interested only in building a Berlin Wall between "us" and "them." I don't see a lot of discussion of that, and I know why: most people have despaired of any solution other than insulating themselves from the ghetto. We have to do better than that. Cynical, are you or your friend interested in running for the BOE? | ||
| harpo Citizen Username: Harpo Post Number: 1075 Registered: 6-2001 |
Cynicalgirl, You seem to want to pre-dismiss all possible discussion at variance with your own, but I want to underscore that the woman you talked to can obviously afford to send her children to private school: she's doing it. Private school is obviously an affordable option for the majority of parents in Maplewood. After a couple of years of reading MOL, I find myself stumped as to why those so exercised about the public schools won't put their kids in private school. I was thinking this morning it must be nearly 15 years since the publication of A Nation At Risk, predating the birth of most children in the SO/M schools. Surely today's parents were aware of the problems before they even had kids! Most working conservatives have given up on public school education, and write books about it. I don't understand the conservatives here, who are usually so quick to follow their leaders. It seems to me that either the schools here actually do provide a good and safe education for the overwhelming majority of students or the overwhelming majority of parents can only be described as bizarrely indifferent to finding and paying for the safe and good education their kids need. For every taunt of "move to France!" on MOL, I'm beginning to think it's time to respond "put your kid in private school already!" to the people who keep claiming the M/SO school they are sending their kid to is failing their kid. (Why people are so emotional about other people's kids grades is beyond my ken.) To those who would reply we don't want whites leaving the school for the sake of the school, I say: Do people really keep their kids in a school they think is failing their kids for the sake of the rest of the school? John Davenport, I would predict a well-justified discrimination lawsuit if some of the posters got their big wish of launching large scale investigations into the homes of black students attending the schools in a quest for "the facts." And I have to disagree with anybody who thinks laying out facts about the myth of the illegals destroying CHS is going to put this to bed once and for all. Like the reval, this is not about facts or research. It's about emotions. People will see what their emotions dictate. Many people in Maplewood and South Orange are very sophisticated about the racial divide and the racial dialogue in America. The constant drone by a vocal handful of whites that the blacks they see are illegal or gang members or potential troublemakers and criminals -- or anything but the same mutlifaceted unpredictable human beings we are -- is something that could do with some private "investigation" first. I'm sure with a little thought and good will, people will either re-commit to making the schools a welcoming, emotionally safe place for all children or bail out and let others move on without them, for their own kids' sake and everybody else's sake. | ||
| Cynicalgirl Citizen Username: Cynicalgirl Post Number: 283 Registered: 9-2003  |
John Davenport, I appreciate your explanation, especially as regards a race war and appearance in the Star Ledger. I'm still trying to figure out/learn what past experiences around here have brought the debate to where it is today -- having only lived here scant 1 year. To do so, I follow these discussions in MOL, but also try to talk to parents of my daughter's friends and I've joined the PTA at Clinton to check my reality. The PTA mostly has parents of elementary age children, and not all have direct experience as yet with CHS. I've probably had this kind of conversation with a total of 10 parents thus far, and I do go carefully because I don't know the lay of the land. I'm not ready to run for the BOE, and I don't think I know enough still about how things work here (structure of education, funding, etc.). I also don't think my concerns would best be carried by a White parent for the reasons you cite. That's why I look for non White parents with the same concerns, and I would be very interested in voting for and supporting an African American BOE member who shared them. It is awfully easy to turn this into a racial issue when I believe it to be a values, or maybe class, issue. Ever see the film Bullworth? In many of these kinds of debates I think it's far easier for the right and the left to turn members of the working and middle classes in each other along racial lines than to examine what's really going on. Suits their position. Funny you say that about helping Irvington/Newark. I'm not interested in a wall, but I do wonder about the principals of the schools some of the "illegal" students should be attending. What are those schools like? Are they "bad?" What problems do they face? What would happen if the districts were combined? Certainly if one district had to pay another to have it's kids sent there, rather than the "illegal" student's parent, that would invest the home district in the solution. Backdooring kids into M/SO schools keeps the issue hidden. I do find myself wondering what conversations or meeting happen between the 2 on this point. harpo, I'm not clear on what you think people who share my views should do. When my daughter gets to CHS age, we may send her to private school. I would think investigation of the true numbers of illegal students would be helpful, especially if M/SO could either recover money for them by making them legal or some other, or send them back to their home district. I also think some manner of survey of parents with school age children would be useful, year over year. I get the impression that the real estate market is volitile enough that no one can really tell how many parents move due to the schools, or send their kids to private school. Every once in awhile a thread comes up, but I don't get the feeling anyone really knows how often it's a choice for, say, parochial school v a choice away from CHS. I know that if my kid ends up going to parochial high school it won't be because we've suddenly turned Catholic. | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4293 Registered: 5-2001 |
Harpo, have you checked out prep school tuitions recently? Most of the people we know sending their kids to private school are ponying up $15,000 plus a year and for someplace such as Newark Academny much more. I don't think this is really affordable for the average Maplewood family with an income around $80,000 per year. Cynicalgirl, the view of your co-worker is not that unusual for many SO and MW families of color, not all of whom are doctors, lawyers or investment bankers btw. Many feel, probably correctly from my observation, that their perfectly normal, reasonably well performing kids get lumped into the ghetto group simply based on skin color. | ||
| ffof Citizen Username: Ffof Post Number: 1810 Registered: 5-2001  |
J D. "we have to realize that starting down this road will divide the town" Not if positioned correctly, anyway, this is what Steve Latz would want you to believe. Where's our colorblind society? If the illegals ended up being mostly black, so what? They're illegal. harpo- I believe Cyngal's lady is sending her kids to parochial school. In the minds of many non-Catholics (and even Catholics?) Catholic (parochial) school and private school are two entirely different things, ie, catholic school is just not an option. Also, NA and MKA and Pingry etc are all well over $20,000 per year at the high school level. Catholic school is less, but I don't know what the cost is, anybody? Oh and one more thing, as harsh as this may sound and certainly not in all cases, but many students of color receive scholarships (for smarts or sports) because the schools want the diversity. | ||
| Tom Reingold Citizen Username: Noglider Post Number: 1731 Registered: 1-2003  |
I don't know that much about race relations, but I have a theory that says that black kids are more likely to be sucked into ghetto culture by black kids than white kids are. I think we tend to gravitate towards people who look like us. In other words, this tendency could be part of a teenager's natural urge to rebel against his parents. A well raised kid can fall to bad influence from peers, and this could be more likely if those peers look like him. If this is true to any significant degree, then parents with black kids of high school age in this school district have more reason to consider pulling their kids out of CHS than parents of white kids. Of course, this would be true only if there really is a ghetto sort of culture. My sense is that there is a wide variety at CHS. There are trends, and there are exceptions. Given that some are unhappy with CHS and some unhappiness comes not from experience but from perceptions, I have to ask myself if I'm satisfied with the schools my daughters go to. I have to make the decision to keep them there an active, conscious one rather than a passive one. I have to justify my decision and maintain it or change it. Am I satisfied? Well, I'm a newcomer, so I don't know the whole picture. My younger daughter is in 6th grade in MMS. She has made lots of good friends, is challenged in her classes, and is achieving very good grades. She plays trumpet in the band, and that seems to be going very well. My older daughter is in 9th grade at CHS. She is suffering from what might be a learning disability. Her teachers and the administration have been very supportive and patient. She doesn't like school, and I think it's because her needs haven't been addressed yet. I think she has fallen into a viscious cycle of low confidence leading to failure, leading to low confidence. But the school is willing and eager to help, and special needs testing is under way right now. She respects all her teachers but one, so I don't think it's an attitude problem on her part, though it does appear that way. How do I decide if a school is suitable for my child? I think it's important to look at the aggregate and the individual. While test scores are said to be falling, this is reason for concern, but it's not reason for alarm. There must be a bunch of reasons. The percentage of kids that go from CHS to a four year college is still very high. This sort of thing tends to have momentum in a positive way, just as ghetto culture has influence. But these influences might and might not affect any particular kid. In the end, it's a gamble as to whether a good or bad thing rubs off on my kids. So far, they both seem to hang out in good crowds. As far as I'm concerned, the "bad element" may actually increase their strength to resist bad influence on their lives. I hope this perspective helps cynicalgirl and other ambivalent people like her. Tom Reingold the prissy-pants There is nothing | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1223 Registered: 6-2001 |
So what exactly is the issue here? Again, I am hearing stereotyping and scapegoating, amidst some acknowledgement that we don't have a good sense of the size or nature (definitions of legal or illegal) of the problem. And again, I suspect the size of the problem is not as great as many fear John likes "The idea of saving a "culture" of high respect, discipline, rigor, excellence etc. at our high school". Cynicalgirl quotes a neighbor troubled by "Hip Hop music, ghetto behavior, kids swearing around teachers, not respecting school." And all of this is attributable soley to illegal students? Hiring private investigators to follow *suspected* illegal students will achieve this? (And what if here as elsewhere the majority of suspects turn out to be legit?) Eliminating all illegal students from our system will simply and magically restore proper values, behavior, musical tastes, and rigor and excellence? (And I really doubt eliminating the problem is possible here anymore than it is in other districts who continute to wrestle with the problem.) Folks, this is classic scapegoat logic and it's ugly. | ||
| Tom Reingold Citizen Username: Noglider Post Number: 1732 Registered: 1-2003 |
Sorry for my thread drift, but it stemmed from cynicalgirl asking broad questions about how good the school district is, and she wondered if she'll be sending her daughter to CHS when the time comes. Getting back to the issue of illegal students, jfburch, I don't think anyone claimed that eliminating them would make such huge changes to the flavor of the school. And I think your point about how investigations would create racial strife are just as unsubstantiated as claims that any investigation would be cost effective. Do you know any stories of programs that aimed to eliminate illegal students that resulted in increased racial tension? So here I am sitting on the fence on this issue. Tawk amongst ya-selves. Tom Reingold the prissy-pants There is nothing | ||
| Cynicalgirl Citizen Username: Cynicalgirl Post Number: 284 Registered: 9-2003 |
I think illegal students *may* be just one piece of the issue. No, I do not think eliminating 1 or 100 illegal students will solve everything. Isn't there a concept called "over-determination" in science or medicine, where, there a many inputs to a problem and it can be tough to figure out which are key to a solution? I'm just saying that if there are a series of problems, that may in aggregate lead a problem greater than the sum of its parts, why not start follwoing each of the threads to resolution and then see what you have. | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1224 Registered: 6-2001 |
Tom, I haven't made any claims about investigations and racial strife; some others have. And, as I quoted above, there seems to be a linkage (and this has come up before) between the perceived problem of illegal students and perceptions of what ails the HS. cynicalgirl, fair enough, but then we need to be precise about just what issues and problems we are talking about and what directions we are going to find solutions. Discussion about the illegal student problem frequently lacks that--as harpo noted, it's often about emotions, not facts or analysis of problems. | ||
| Montagnard Citizen Username: Montagnard Post Number: 358 Registered: 6-2003 |
JF, please stop trying to look for racist motives in everything. We all pay taxes and we all want what's best for our children. If programs that we value have to be cut because of losses due to fraud, then we want something to be done about it. If you were a member of a racial minority, I could possibly excuse your excessive language as coming from some personal experience that I probably wouldn't share. As it is, however, you just sound shrill and tiresome. | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4299 Registered: 5-2001 |
Why is it that the people who argue against strict enforcement of residency laws don't have kids in the schools here in general and at CHS more specifically? Talk to student and talk to teachers who know you aren't going to rat them out to the Academy Street gang, and there is a problem. The iossue is enforcement and the courts. The SOMSD has gotten their ears pinned back by the bleading heart liberal and racist courts in Essex County on this issue. I don't know what the answer is, but pretending there is not a problem I do know isn't the answer. | ||
| Tom Reingold Citizen Username: Noglider Post Number: 1739 Registered: 1-2003 |
Who's pretending that there's no problem? Tom Reingold the prissy-pants There is nothing | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4300 Registered: 5-2001 |
Ok, so maybe I should have said minimal problem or even unsolvable problem.  I do tend to get carried away sometimes | ||
| NinersMan Citizen Username: Ninersman Post Number: 14 Registered: 9-2003 |
"Page 1 of the Star-Ledger..", "race war"..."law suits"....Hmmmmm. Last time I checked, 1 man = 1 vote. If you don't legally reside here, by the definition designated by the State, then you have no right to an education here, and the BOE has an obligation to remove them. Even if it costs $100,000 to remove 1 'illegal', and then save $50, it's worth it, to at least address the issue and move on to the next issue. WAKE UP!!! It doesn't matter if illegals are good or bad students, or good or bad people, or white, brown, black or tutti frutti. There are more than enough issues to deal with, besides this. Bad press is already happening in this town. Remember building the wall between Maplewood and Newark streets??? The purpose of the BOE is to provide a safe environment conducive to learning. Only when we get past this issue will the bigger issues be addressed. GEEZ | ||
| ffof Citizen Username: Ffof Post Number: 1812 Registered: 5-2001 |
TomRTPP, you said "unhappiness comes not from experience but from perceptions". Nail on the head!!! We have been happy with the quality of education at all of the schools. This does not mean there are things that I wouldn't like to see changed, etc. What bugs me is that because of the falling NJ MOnthly ranking over the past 7 or 8 years, the PR (in and out of the district) about CHS is that it is a failing place. We may not care about that ranking, and we may say "well this is why and that is why and it is still an excellent place", but to those not there, perception is everything. I'll go out on a limb and say that there is not really a racial achievement gap, perhaps it could be more of a racial test-taking gap. So with the make-up of our student body changing over the last 12 years from 75% white/25% black to 45%/55%, it is understandable that scores and ranking measures have caused us to be perceived as "going to the dogs" or "bad". MSO may try to adress this problem, but we probably won't solve it. There have been some changes over the last few years like the alternative school (get non-performing kids out of the averages, tyvm) plus lengthening of the teaching day, that I sincerely hope betters CHS' standing in that stupid NJ Monthly ranking. Call it smoke and mirrors, but perception is everything, imho. ps. trtpp- re: illegals: the boe is pretending there is no problem. | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1225 Registered: 6-2001 |
Once again Montagnard, I have not brought up race, much less made claims about anyone's motives. bobk, I had a chat a while ago with someone with kids in the upper grades who's way more relaxed on this issue than any poster here, so I don't know that your logic holds. And it's not about enforcement or non-enforcement. Reasonable people can disagree about approaches to enforcement, and the "best" way to deal with the problem--which is larger than our district and does involve parties like the courts that we have no control over. Disagreement is why we keep having this conversation. I for one don't deny there's a problem--I just think that the perception probably doesn't match the reality and that the tendency to tunnelvision and scapegoating around this issue is a problem in and of itself. | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4301 Registered: 5-2001 |
I think we might go a long way to easing any perception if we simply call these students "out of District students" or as Fringe does, "guest students". | ||
| Cynicalgirl Citizen Username: Cynicalgirl Post Number: 285 Registered: 9-2003 |
Would it be so impossible to survey all Maplewood residents? Or all parents of students registered in schools, to discover level of satisfaction? Is there no way to find out, in a more statistically valid fashion, what people think? The lady I talked to on the train is not an MOL denizen, for exammple, and not everyone messes around in local politics. I'd pay money towards such a survey if I thought it was legit... | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1226 Registered: 6-2001 |
Anything's possible. Doing it right enough and paying for it would be the issues. Verona just did something like this, though the sample was small and it was on-line which skews the selection. And they've done something like it in the past. Small sampling shows Verona residents satisfied http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/essex/index.ssf?/base/news-4/107397786026440.xml |
