Alternative High School Proposed for Berkeley

About fifteen years ago, I saw a documentary about (what was then) Berkeley’s only high school. It was fairly diverse in race, between whites, Asians, blacks and Hispanics. Yet, even in uber-liberal Berkeley, where “Our Diversity Is Our Strength” might as well be a holy commandment, it was one of most auto-segregated schools around. There was one school, but there were really four.

Here in CT we have the Sheff vs. O’Neal court case that resulted in what amounts to forced integration of the schools due to the “evils of racial isolation”. It’s actually amusing to watch the liberals flip flop from forced integration on one hand to racial segregation on the other while they stubbornly refuse to accept racial differences in intelligence that are the root cause of the performance gap.

Alternative high schools (holding pens for the disruptive and unruly students) are overwhelmingly minority in terms of their demographics. In essence, these young persons have to be separated from the rest of the student population to allow the others an opportunity to receive instruction without the interference of those who constantly interrupt classes.

I have strong doubts about any actual teaching taking place in the alternative schools. I have seen students in such classrooms playing cards all day long. For the education bureaucracy, all that matters is that these delinquents are physically in a school building and they are counted for the purpose of receiving tax dollars allocated on a per capita basis for students enrolled in a K-12 program.

the school would serve kids from grades six through 12 who traditionally fall behind: students of color scoring well below their white counterparts.

White students “fall behind” in integrated schools, too - when they’re physically assaulted by “students of color” who are otherwise busy “falling behind” the white kids academically.

So why not establish schools for white kids too? The white kids would benefit in so many ways: academically -by not having dumb, disruptive “students of color” interfering with their learning-; emotionally -by not having hate-filled, violent “students of color” harass and attack them in or outside of school; and even physically -by separating them from racist “students of color” and thus assuring their health, well-being and safety.

This is a great idea! The kids that need extra help will get it and the kids that are up to par or excelling will not be held back by kids who are not on the same level. They used to do this in schools but when the “rights” people got in on it they thought that it would damage kids self esteem if they were placed in classes that were to their level. This will also eliminate many of the behavior problems.

How can such a learning gap exist, in the most liberal city in California? Race means nothing, Berkeley tells the rest of us. We are all equal, they say.

If that were the case, shouldn’t all of Berkeley’s students get the same grades, all the time?

Don’t you love the way these people try to change words but the meaning remains the same?

When our schools were declared ‘segregated’, they were evil. Now that they have seen that integrated schools weren’t the answer (and may have made thing worse) they redefine the term ‘segregated’ to ‘alternative’.

I have no doubt that those in the know realize that integrated schools have been a disaster for blacks but they have painted themselves into a corner and they can’t bring themselves to publicly admit they were wrong.

Hence the wacky word-play.

This is surely a clever ruse by an awakened liberal to get the NAMs away from their kids. Good move.

I went to an alternative school in Berkeley. At that time it was for students who were particularly gifted. The Bay Area has many such kids. Many went on to be outstanding in their fields and famous in the arts. My goodness, how times have changed! I wonder if the BUSD does anything at all for those kids. Something tells me they don’t emphasize the uniquely talented children anymore. It was already fading fast in the late 80’s- the language and arts alternative school I went to was closed by the time I graduated high school. No doubt because entrance was based on some pretty tight standards, and there were never blacks or Latinos accepted there.

They always did have a “problem children” alternative school, called East Campus. As far as I know, that still exists. Considering what awful basket cases were in the public schools, we used to wonder how bad you had to be to get sent to East Campus.

Oh, well. If they can get more of them away from normal kids, I guess that’s a good thing. I don’t know if it will accomplish much other than removal.

I loved the alternative school I went to. Can you imagine what that was like after years of being terrorized at Malcolm X Elementary and Martin Luther King Jr. High? Free of blacks, free of blacks- thank God Almighty I’m free of blacks!

“I saw a documentary about (what was then) Berkeley’s only high school. It was fairly diverse in race, between whites, Asians, blacks and Hispanics.”

Well, this does surprise me. I would have thought that most whites living in Berkeley would be associated with the university. The children probably going to private schools. Those professors would not want their kids to get an inferior integrated education. So I would have thought.

The documentary two posters refer to is “School Colors” made by Frontline. It is excellent, a detailed and fair minded exposition of a school attempting to go multi-cultural, and failing.

The Berkeley schools proudly integrated before the courts ordered it, and they bent over backwards to integrate kids from the largely black section of town (bordering Oakland) and the Asians with the whites in the hills. They also handed their students video cameras and let them film in class, in halls, and even during disciplinary proceedings. While Frontline’s producers may have been sympathetic to the cause of multiculturalism, the facts recorded on that film gave them no room at all for prevarication. You see black kids struggling with the most basic math problems, while whites are studying calculus; you see white kids avoiding contact with blacks, while blacks take evident pride in their ability to intimidate the whites; you see separate graduation and homecoming balls for black, white, and Hispanic students; you see teachers Balkanized into racially nationalist cliques; and you can sit in on a series of meetings between parents and faculty in which it is decided that having advanced math classes full of white and Asian kids while Hispanics and blacks struggle in remedial courses is “objectively racist”, and that the advanced courses must be struck from the catalog, and the whites and asians mainstreamed with the blacks and Mexicans who hate them.

All this happens to the tune of faculty, staff, parents and even students chanting the mantra of multiculturalism.

Not surprisingly, this film has gone down the Memory Hole. You can’t view it online, and few libraries have it. It’s really hard to find, but very much worth watching if you can.

Riley

Oh, and I’m going to toss in another remark: the Seattle School District has run an African American Academy for the blacks here for years but the black parents are all yanking their kids and mainstreaming them. Test scores are down, the principal was fired amid allegations of financial misconduct, and there is the “perception of lax discipline” among students in the school.

Some things never change.

Riley

“Free of blacks, free of blacks- thank God Almighty I’m free of blacks!”
Hey, Anonymous #9, it takes an awful lot to get a laugh from this jaded old cynic, but you managed it with that line.

Here is the New York Times review of School Colors:

TELEVISION REVIEW; School’s Integration Falling Short of Ideal

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/18/arts/television-review-school-s-integration-falling-short-of-ideal.html

Remember the old TV show “Leave It To Beaver”? I remeber one episode had the Beaver—-and BTW you couldnt have a guy nicknamed The Beaver in this day and age—-afraid of doing poorly in school. His friend Whitey—-again,you dont hear a lot of guys named Whitey anymore—Whitey informed him if he failed he’d have to leave his class and friends and go to “Dumb School”. Dumb School. Whoa…life imitates art!

To John:

Re the “Leave it to Beaver” episode in your post (#15), Beaver was fretting about taking an IQ test. Actually, it was Penny, not Whitey, who told Beaver that if he did poorly on the IQ test, they would send him to “Dumb School”, where the “kids do nothing but drink chocolate milk and take naps”.

I agree with you, in some ways TV in the 1950’s and 1960’s was more risque than it is now.

While on the topic of “Leave it to Beaver”, another episode had Beaver wanting to buy an Alaskan-made sweater. Wally mentions to Ward that the sweater “has a lot of Indian junk on it”, referring to the patterns on it. Nowadays, North American aborigine groups would foam at the mouth over a line like that.

“Well, this does surprise me. I would have thought that most whites living in Berkeley would be associated with the university. The children probably going to private schools. Those professors would not want their kids to get an inferior integrated education. So I would have thought.”

I’m not surprised. I live in the Bay Area, and the liberals in Berkeley are true believers, more than willing to sacrifice their children on the altar of multiculturalism.

The documentary two posters refer to is “School Colors” made by Frontline. It is excellent, a detailed and fair minded exposition of a school attempting to go multi-cultural, and failing.
…
All this happens to the tune of faculty, staff, parents and even students chanting the mantra of multiculturalism.
…
Not surprisingly, this film has gone down the Memory Hole. You can’t view it online, and few libraries have it. It’s really hard to find, but very much worth watching if you can.

This sounds like an excellent film for the New Century Foundation to resurrect and sell right here, provided they can get permission from the copyright holder. Michael Levin’s excellent book “Why Race Matters” was headed for the memory hole until it got republished here.

You can find plenty of library copies of “School Colors” by going to www.WorldCat.org and typing “School Colors” under the DVD tab. It is not available in DVD, only in VHS, but many libraries have it.

WorldCat.org is an international library card catalog with listings from thousands of libraries from around the world.

You type in your zip code and it lists the libraries that have the book/record/dvd/cd/whatever starting with the one closest to you.

Once you have found what you want and the closest library that has it, you can go to your local public library and request it through Interlibrary Loan.

In many states (particularly white states) there is no charge whatsoever for books through interlibrary loan.

Add www.worldcat.org to your Favorites or Bookmarks.

It is also good for getting other info such as authors’ names, publishers, copyright dates, etc.