The Civil Rights Act, under which all of the previous ways that schools were segregated were declared unlawful. The provisions of the CRA then led to school bussing and other integration plans, which led to riots in places like Boston. Parallel to the CRA were civil rights lawsuits like Serrano v Priest, which established the right to an education and the end to local hoarding of tax revenues. The response to the CRA and Serrano v Priest was the organized dis-investment of public services through ‘tax-payer revolts’ that helped Prop 13 pass in California, starving the state of tax revenue and forcing the collection of more regressive fees and taxes. Ronald Reagan was Cali governor during Serrano v Priest and oversaw the radical decrease in public funds for the entire California school system, from elementary schools to the University of California.
So, racism is why we broke our schools, and more racism isn’t going to fix a thing.
This is the zombie argument that’s always trotted out in favour of university fees in England, and I never get tired of pointing out that we already have a system that does just that. It’s called income tax.
Well yeah I know about that, there are roughly one million illegal immigrants in LA and OC. I was saying, LAUSD doesn’t publish stats about immigration status of its students. Obviously many of them must be illegal aliens because there are so many illegal aliens in Los Angeles but it’s probably a senstive issue for LAUSD to publish their own specific stats, because then people could start asking questions about impact of illegal immigration on class sizes and budgets. LAUSD (and public services in general in California) avoids publishing anything to give support to nativist arguments, like, “LAUSD spends $X on illegal immigrants”.
But what does any of this have to do with the strike? Neither the teachers union nor the administrators have said ANYTHING about immigration. Everyone involved in LAUSD (administrators and union) want to provide education to everyone, and not just because Plyler v Doe forces them to. It’s … irrelevant to this issue.
Huh? What? No I’m making it clear, education isn’t contingent on immigration status, it’s a non-issue. Especially in LA.
Would be interesting to know, how much of it is white flight (moving out of the district) and how much of it is paying the extra $$$ for private schools. But yeah, obviously this is a serious issue, that LAUSD has almost no white students left, but again… this strike has nothing to do with that. My personal view? Someone needs to propose two things: a 50% “sin tax” on private schools, to fund public schools; and forcing all the school districts in LA County to merge with LAUSD. That’s the only solution I can see to segregation in LA. But… no one seems to be proposing that.
I just meant, I’m an outsider in that I don’t really understand what the two sides goals are, if there really are two different sides, etc. Obviously all of this affects me, it affects all of us. And I clearly said that…
Sure, because they’re minors. Let’s protect kids, yeah?
Moving to a private school is part of white flight - it’s not always just about moving out of urban areas. There was also the so-called “tax revolt” in southern california, beginning around the 1950s, which has consistently moved money out of public funding for a number of things, but public education was hard hit by it…
I don’t know about the funding situation in LA, but I can speak to ATL, where public schools in some places (county run, usually) are consistently underfunded. I have a friend whose on a PTA, and they regularly fund raise for basic maintenance. Contrast that with City of Decatur schools (which has a much higher income bracket, in part because the public schools are so good - homes going for on average 800,000 or so).
Much like the university system, this is a case of underfunding schools (in part because it’s derives from property taxes), and I’d guess there is a spike in administrative costs as well (much like in the University system). I don’t think that a sin tax on private school is going to solve the problem (here or in LA).
Haven’t they said? They tend to discuss at least some of this in public yeah? It’s a public concern, after all.
