so i found this very funny

Alas, life doesn’t always work out the way you plan, no matter how hard you work. I feel sorry for my girl. Right now I think it would have been been better, and more prestigious, if she had gone to school to learn how to clean septic systems than to be a finanace major in NYC.

Just keep hanging yourself.

I am not sure how it’s obvious that I am an angry racist black person.

However, just because I changed my opinion about you, I will still strongly hold my opinion. I personally had a similar situation concerning the quality the migh schools in my area. Although I enjoyed some of my high school years (you should know how cruel kids can still be there), it was very…how should I say, “unbalanced”. The school population was predominantly black and hispanic, the quality of the building was low, the textbooks and library books were outdated, and some teachers gave a feeling that they really didn’t care. Meanwhile, schools in the neighboring town, just a few miles from my home, was practically the opposite; student body was 99% white, school facilities were well maintained and everything was top of the line. For a long time, I didn’t understand why this was, until I looked at the people who lived nearby the schools. Near my school, the residents had a slightly less than average income, or they were from the Orthodox Hisidic Jewish community. These groups affected the budget of my school in their own ways: the former beinig that the amount of money from taxes paid for the school would naturally be lower, thus a lower budget, and the latter, who didn’t send their kids to our public school, would come in busloads to vote against budget elections for our school. In contrast, the other schools’ residents had above-average incomes, as most of them possibly owned businesses, or were doctors, lawyer, etc. As you can see, their situation would allow their schools to have a larger budget.

In short, my strong opinions are fueled from my personal experience. I do again apologize for attacking you, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I am appalled that the difference in qualities of education from school to school in just NEIGHBORING TOWNS.

The Catholic school registered us for a scholarship offered by an agency in Ohio, which after several months gave us 1500.00 dollars to add to our 2500.00 dollars. We were still 1000.00 short. When I told the school’s principal that we did not have the remaining 1000.00 and that we would enroll our daughter at the public high school he simply waived the other 1000.00. The school had an excellent reputation and we had no excuses to offer our daughter. During that time we were living in an FMHA subsidized home that had under 1000 square feet of living space. Since we had to report our income to them they knew exactly what we were making.

Because my parents didn’t value education and because my father was a raging alcoholic who beat me until I was black and blue every week, I really didn’t do well in school. I believed him when he told me I wasn’t worth anything. So I left home and dropped out of school when I was fifteen. Later on I got my GED and even later when I was 42-years-old I went to College to become a teacher. I was really surprised that I kept getting A’s; before I knew it, I was hooked. I managed to graduate at the top of my class with honors. I never had anything less than a 4.0. I was hired straight out of college at 44 by the best school district at one of the top rates of pay anywhere in the country for a starting teacher. The district is one of the most affluent areas in the country since we are only an hour and a half out of NYC and Philly. Nonetheless, my students were the lowest performing students in the district with a below level reading proficiency. They hated reading, they hated school, and their parents almost never came to “Meet the Teacher Night.” I loved teaching and every hard won victory meant something to me. My own success meant something to me since I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. I worked toward completing my Masters Degree in Reading with all of my professors at the local state college where I attended encouraging me to go on for my doctorate. I would have too, except what I didn’t know was that my boss in Curriculum and Instruction wanted to give my job to her close friend who was set to graduate with her Masters in Reading the same year as I was. I was told I could quit or be fired the day before I was to be tenured but not with out the threat of being reported to the state as incompetent being held above me head. I sobbed hysterically through that whole meeting. You can’t know how hard I worked to be the best teacher. I didn’t stop crying for almost a year an a half. Interestingly enough, I learned six months ago that the entire school district had held a vote of confidence on my old boss in C&I and that to the person, they all voted that she was incompetent and that they had no confidence in her. Well, its cold comfort to me now. I can’t sue the district I live in for damages, can I?

I still see quite a few of my students since I live only four blocks from the High School. Several of my “loser kids” are going to become teachers. Not English teachers mind you. One of them is an EMT, the other one is taking a business
degree. Its very gratifying, but, I haven’t held a job since. I do freelance design work and barely make my monthly mortgage. So much for being privileged. Its hard to get a job when you’re fifty.
Back to my beautiful daughter. The Catholic HS didn’t have a licensed guidance councilor so the state provided two. Because the school was religious, the guidance councilors could not have an office inside the school, so they were put into a trailer in the parking lot. My beautiful daughter wanted to go to PA Governor’s School for Global Entrepreneurship at Lehigh University (something else we could not afford). The man who was my daughter’s state supplied guidance councilor told her that she shouldn’t bother to apply to the program because she would never be accepted. Thank goodness my daughter didn’t listen to him. She was accepted. She eventually graduated #8 in her HS graduating class. This year she will graduate from college in NYC with a degree in finance. She speaks fluent Arabic and fluent French. She has a minor in Middle Eastern Studies and currently holds a 3.85 average and works for her own food, rent, and clothes. She also has over 100,000 dollars in student loan debt. We cannot afford to help her financially.

Everything you mentioned in your post, I have read in my Sociology textbooks and in my Education textbooks. Thank goodness I have learned that while these studies report some facts they neither define truth or reality. Because if they did, I would be living in a trailer court with an eighth grade education and a serious drug habit. Nothing is out of reach if you want it bad enough. I told my students that, and now that I am getting a sense of my self-worth back again, I can believe it for myself too. My apologies for any grammar, punctuation, spelling, or usage mistakes, its late and I don’t care as much as I should right now. I hope this helps clear up any notion you might have of my supposed lack of sympathy for those who can’t afford a private school education. Or my devotion to my students. For some I was the only one who gave a damn.

You know, parents who actually get a monthly bill for their child’s education are so much more invested in insuring that their children succeed than those that don’t.

Even though that may be true, this just shows how ignorant you are…not everyone can pay that bill that insures that sought after quality education, if if they desperately want to afford it. If success is determined by the affluence of their parents, then that says something about the lack of equality in education in our country. I find it appalling that you sent your daughter to a private school when you teach a public school; it shows that you don’t even trust the system you work in. If I were in your position, I would have sent my kid to public school even if I had the option to send them to a private school, so I wouldn’t look like a hypocrite.

I suggest to you to read the book “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” written by Jonathan Kozol. It is in this that I learned a very unfortunate, but true adage in America: “It is not survival of the fittest, it is survival of the children of the fittest.” The more affluent the parents are, the more of a chance their children can succeed in the world as they are riding on the coattails of their parents’ wealth…not just their personal achievements. If you ever seen an inner-city elementary or high school, it is depressing as hell…the teachers don’t want to teach, the school building is dilapidated, the equipment is dangerous or outdated; and you wonder why kids that grow up there become jaded and drop out at school; they feel like they were given up on from the start.

Pot, meet kettle.

articulate= He speaks actual English most of the time so, he’ll do. Now if anyone criticizes him, we can just call them racist.

Didja ever notice how many “nonconformists” really can’t STAND people who disagree with them? And embrace really untraconformist ideologies? Apparently, it only goes so far…

Guys who dress like you describe are almost always wireless phone or insurance salesmen here. And plenty of those are black or latino (although I wouldn’t want anyone to feel I was racist for expressing a distaste for salesmen; certainly there are lots of white ones, too).

In fact, he’s revealed that he HIMSELF thinks that BLACKS SHOULDN’T ACT “WHITE” – I.e. the graph autor thinks that blacks SHOULD act in the manner “old people don’t percieve as clean cut”.. Whatever that means, it’s a bigotry inside a racism, wrapped in an enigma.

IMHO, a clean cut look has little to do with ethnicity, it’s just a style of dressing, like preppie, goth, hippie, biker, hip hop, jock, etc. Finding your “look” is a rite of passage and a personal statement.

The poster probably just needs to meet some “older” people besides his/her parent’s friends and home town folks. I used to think that all “older” people were hopelessly outdated in their thinking, too. I still think that the graph is funny, as long as you don’t over analyze it.