In the 2008 Obama vs. McCain election, the story is that a canvasser knocked on a door in Washington, PA. When asked who they were voting for, the shout came back, “We’re voting for the n***er!”
Of course this story is on the Internet making its accuracy questionable, but it does illustrate a truth: many working class folks don’t worry about political correctness. The same can’t be said for higher income liberals.
What do liberals do instead of directly confronting issues of race? They find other excuses, which brings us to the issue of Bay View Middle and High School and the article by community columnist, Daniel Slapczynski, for the Journal Sentinel.
Slapczynski spends half his article telling us that the reason whites in Bay View will not send their children to the local high school has nothing to do with race. Of course race is not the only issue, it may not even be the main issue, but to say it plays no role is just plain silly.
Let’s be honest. The reason Bay View does poorly academically is because it is filled with central city black kids. If it were filled with middle class whites who live in Bay View, it would do better. There, I’ve said it.
Slapczynski says the community concerns are not based upon economics and racial prejudice but on concerns of safety and academics. But whites simply substitute one set of concerns for another. When they see a school filled with poor blacks, they assume that the school also has safety and academic issues. It isn’t good enough to say Bay View has problems. Slapczynski says it is the worst school in the state, which is simply not true. He has to double down on why he wouldn’t send his children to Bay View.
Slapczynski’s solution isn’t to deal with the problems of safety and academics at Bay View. He would simply stop bussing in students. “Dedicate a set percentage of its enrollment to local residents, supplemented with the best and brightest students bused in from around Milwaukee.”
Remarkably, Slapczynski doesn’t consider his solution, to augment the “superior” students in the Bay View community with the best and brightest from around the city, as a form of elitism. His defense? Bay View “… is liberal in ideology, diverse economically and committed to equality” so the community couldn’t possibly be elitist.
Kicking the students out from outside Bay View might save Bay View MHS, but what would happen to those students? Slapczynski doesn’t offer any solution but simply says that these students would be better offer if they stayed in their own neighborhood.
The fact is that central city schools usually do worse than schools like Bay View. Central city schools get the least experienced teachers and are in far more dangerous neighborhoods. Whites in Bay View may look on its neighborhood high school as a dumping ground, but for many central city parents, it is the shining school on the hill, far better than schools in their neighborhood.
There are good reasons why the school board wishes more parents to choose neighborhood schools. We would save some money from decreased bussing. Parents would have an easier time making it to parent conferences. A good school can help stabilize a neighborhood.
But we attract people back to neighborhood schools by improving schools where people live, not by kicking students out from other neighborhoods. Our job isn’t to save schools; it is to save the children in the schools. That means every child.
(Also read Jay Bullock’s response in the Journal Sentinel, April 18, 2012.)
