WTF/ Omaha Unreal

[ls317]

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/369648.html

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - In a move decried by some as state-sponsored segregation, the Legislature voted Thursday to divide the Omaha school system into three districts - one mostly black, one predominantly white and one largely Hispanic.

[autorank]

1. Why are we surprised. Wonder what Sen. Hagel will have to say? n/t

[benburch]

2. History recapitulates itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Riot

[Maraya1969]

3. Can someone spain to me how this paragraph makes sense?

"Chambers said the schools attended largely by minorities lack the resources and quality teachers provided others in the district. He said the black students he represents in north Omaha would receive a better education if they had more control over their district."

What exactly are they talking about? Usually if a school is in a poorer district they have the worst schools.

[acmavm]

4. And right now they do have the worst schools. I can't see this move

withstanding a court decision, if it ever goes to court. I think what Chambers is trying to do is make the city divide up education dollars and allocate them equally between the districts. Because right now the North Omaha schools are taking it in the shorts. And they have, by far, the worst test scores as well. I know about the last, as a temp I worked on the project that collected the data that was released to the public that showed the breakdown of the test scores of OPS students.

edit: I don't think it's only money. I think that he does want the North Omaha community to have some say in the way their schools are run. Right now they have zip, nada, zilch, nihil, none.

[Ecumenist]

7. I don't know if I can "spain" it to you...

but if you'll excuse my "french", I'll try to break it down to the basci facts.....
This is a case of poor people, some of whom happen to be predominately of colour, swallowing, hook line and sinker reinstatment of segregation in the guise of doing what's best for the children. It's absolutely ridiculous and chilling, as it bodes badly for the spread of de facto apartheid for other parts of the country.

[OneBlueSky]

5. an abberation? . . . or an ominous trend? . . .

the Voting Rights Act of 1964 is set to expire, and now we have a city openly challenging Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark SCOTUS case that outlawed "separate but equal" schools . . . and, of course, there was the blatantly racist non-response to Katrina . . .

makes you wonder if we're heading backwards on the issue of racial equality . . .

[wordpix2]

10. in CT, there's no racial segregation but the economic segregation is

obvious, with rich v. poor school districts and the results you'd expect.

[Solly Mack]

6. " ensure that their children are not shortchanged in favor of white

youngsters"

That statement says:

White students are favored above non-white students and the only way to not be marginalized if you're non-white is to have your own schools.

Which means:

It's intentional marginalization based on race (that's called discrimination, in case anyone was in doubt)

Which tells us:

Instead of working to teach that racism is wrong, Omaha wants to teach that more racism is a solution to racism. Got racism? Heap more on!

What history has taught us:

"Separate but equal" ain't equal - funds still favored the "white" schools - which made the education received at "white" schools superior.

[Skidmore]

8. Has anyone bothered to find out that this change is proposed by

a black state leglislator who has grown sick of trying to battle more affluent whites for resources for schools attended by mostly blacks? Has anyone noted that Omaha's schools are de facto segregated now? How about holding the white community responsible for it's "we got ours" mentality rather than a frustrated black legislator trying to effect real change and control for the schools that young black students have ended up in. I understand his frustration. Pressure needs to be brought to bear on the wealthy in all communities.

[norml]

9. No! No! No! You're Getting the Omaha School District Story All Wrong!

Actually it's a victory for that poorer blacker district.

Now the right wing radio clowns have picked up on it as an opportunity to bash "Those who would divide us by race and class".

This started out as a fight to keep an annexed wealthy white suburban community out of the Omaha school district.

There's been a lot of rural opposition to school consolidation.

They say their communities are better served by smaller school districts.

State Senator Ernie Chambers put forward the proposition that maybe all the communities would be better served by smaller school districts.

Right wing radio clowns bash any mention of race or class as "Waging race and class warfare".

Don't buy their lie.

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Law to Segregate Omaha Schools Divides Nebraska

By SAM DILLON
Published: April 15, 2006

OMAHA, April 14 — Ernie Chambers is Nebraska's only African-American state senator, a man who has fought for causes including the abolition of capital punishment and the end of apartheid in South Africa. A magazine writer once described him as the "angriest black man in Nebraska."

Kent Sievers/Omaha World-Herald

Ernie Chambers, the only African-American in the Nebraska Legislature, was a major force behind a law enacted this week that calls for dividing the Omaha school district into three districts defined largely by race.
He was also a driving force behind a measure passed by the Legislature on Thursday and signed into law by the governor that calls for dividing the Omaha public schools into three racially identifiable districts, one largely black, one white and one mostly Hispanic.

The law, which opponents are calling state-sponsored segregation, has thrown Nebraska into an uproar, prompting fierce debate about the value of integration versus what Mr. Chambers calls a desire by blacks to control a school district in which their children are a majority.

Civil rights scholars call the legislation the most blatant recent effort in the nation to create segregated school systems or, as in Omaha, to resegregate districts that had been integrated by court order. Omaha ran a mandatory busing program from 1976 to 1999.

"These efforts to resegregate schools by race keep popping up in various parts of the country," said Gary Orfield, director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, adding that such programs skate near or across the line of what is constitutionally permissible. "I hear about something like this every few months, but usually when districts hear the legal realities from civil rights lawyers, they tend to back off their plans."


snip


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/15/us/15omaha.html?hp&ex=1145073600&en=5967d6e8f52a9362&ei=5094&partner=homepage

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2225546&mesg_id=2225546

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x938165