Danny Westneat posted a new column on Sunday discussing racial segregation, or more specifically, the argument of needing to consider race when assigning school admissions.
It’s an interesting column, but I fear that the true solutions to school admissions, and finally getting beyond a necessity to consider race, are being ignored or considered impossible.
As an example, read this excerpt from Danny’s Column: “To me, there’s another way out of this endless debate: Give admissions preference to poor kids.” It’s a shame to think that poor over minorities over any other criteria are considered in order to send a child to a ‘better’ school.
Shouldn’t the true solution be “Let’s improve all our schools so every child has the best possible educaction opportunity, regardless of income and geographic location?” Is this solution, something I’ve always felt was the most basic answer, a solution at the core of the problems, is this solution so difficult and financially impossible that we’ve abandoned it and now have to look towards using a ‘pick and choose’ or lottery or other such random selector to pick the ‘lucky ones’ that will go to a ‘better’ school than the one in their own neighborhood? If there are 100 students that are either poor or in a minority, but the ‘better’ school can take only 10 students, which 10 get selected? Do those students have such a greater opportunity for success (which Danny’s article suggests via the examples of Seattle Supersonics players backstory) than the 90 left behind? Is it fair the the remaining 90 students will have a life limited by their income or their geographic location, or worse, the color of their skin?
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