dimanche 17 mars 2013

The school question in Delaware

I will do my fourth post about the school system in Delaware. It's very tricky to understand all the roots behind the talks : "Delaware is known for its bad public schools" ; middle parents look with envy the one who won the lottery to enter charter public schools...
And sometimes people tell you it's because the Supreme Court decision in the fifties. Ah yea? What was it exactly ?
In the midldle of the fifties two African American Delaware families went for trial. Belton family was living in Claymont Delaware ; although there was a good highschool in Claymont, their child had to attend the only highschool for colored people in Delaware situated in Wilmington.
Sarah Bulah, an elementary student was requested to walk to school every day even though a schoolbus serving the nearby whites-only school passed by her house every day. The transportation service couldn't bear to have African American in the bus.
The Supreme Court found unconstitutional the racial segregation in Delaware not because of the segregation but because of the facilities, the credency of teachers, the curriculums done were not at all the same in white pulbic schools and in black public schools.
Although Delaware during the Civil War was with the North, the Jim Crow laws persisted well into the 1940s and its education system was segregated by operation of law.
After the decision of the Supreme Court, the busing system began. Transportation from the poor black areas to good white public schools and from the white middle claass areas to poor black public schools. The answer from the wealthier was the creation of private schools.
Middle class families were complaining about the poor education system in Delaware, they didn't have enough money to pay the private schools fees. With Bill Clinton they were able to open Charter schools.
How do you ban low income families from public charter schools? You don't offer a cafeteria so that the children who have food stamps from the state can't go there (each child brings his or her lunchbox and eat it in his or her classroom) ; you ask for uniforms (a fee for families).
The competition between the old public schools and the charter schools are very unfair, they don't play with the same rules...

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