The other day, I received a brief article from Gus Tyler, a nationally syndicated columnist. It was called "Kids: Don't Balkanize the U.S.," and it said volumes about some of the foolish ideas adults have about race and ethnicity--that even 12-year-olds can see through. Here it is:
There were ten of them aged about twelve, all either Black or Hispanic, in a special public school in Brooklyn. They had gone to Atlanta, where they met with former President Carter, to pick up a $15,000 prize they had won in a nationwide geography contest sponsored by American Express.
They had made a significant and sobering discovery in the project they had pursued; namely, that people of the same racial or ethnic origin do not necessarily think alike about the things that are important to them.
The piece of geography they had chosen to explore was a Brooklyn, N.Y., councilmanic district that, under court order, had been redrawn to favor the election of a Hispanic. The students' attention had been drawn to this district by its odd, serpentine contours. Their essay (the prize winner) was entitled: "Can Ethnic Gerrymandering Be Used to Create Effective Political Communities?"
The first thing they discovered was that this district, deliberately designed to elect a Hispanic, had chosen to elect an Irish woman. The students--none of whom lives in the district--met with the councilwoman. "She is nice," they agreed, "and we think she makes a good council member."
How did it happen that in a district predominantly Hispanic an Irish woman was elected?
In their search for an answer, the students dug into the political psyche of the people who lived there. While most of them would undoubtedly identify themselves as Hispanic, they did not have the same priorities about what they believed was needed.
In this contrived contortion of a district, snaking its way through several barely contiguous neighborhoods, the residents of its diverse geographic parts displayed vastly different opinions about what they want.
Those in one area have the rebuilding of the waterfront as their top priority. Residents of other areas displayed absolutely no interest in such an undertaking.
In another area--Windsor Terrace--the people clamored for educational improvement. They were alone in making schooling their top concern. In a third area, the residents said that jobs were what was needed. Those in a fourth area--the troubled Sunset Park--were worried about the spread of crime and drugs.
When people voted they chose someone who, in their opinion, seemed to be sensitive to what this mixture of voters thought crucial--whether the person was male or female; Black, Hispanic or, even, Celtic. The voters acted like people, not stereotypes.
The young researchers reached a conclusion: "We compared our project to the current situation in Yugoslavia, where they are trying to divide the country up by ethnic groups. According to our study, we would not recommend that as a solution to the problem."
How does the verse from Psalms go: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ... ?"
And across the Atlantic ...
There has been a lot of hoopla about English school reform among some Americans because it involves a kind of school privatization. English parents are allowed to "opt out"--vote to remove the school their children go to from the public system--while retaining public funding. Opted out or "grant-maintained" schools are run by the parents instead of the educational bureaucracy, and this is supposed to lead to better management, better teaching and, of course, much better student achievement. But a recent British government report finds that there's not much difference between ordinary public schools and the schools that have left the system.
According to the Times (London) Educational Supplement (TES) (April 2, 1993), "teaching standards and exam performance in grant- maintained schools are little different from those in local authority schools." And standards of management are not much different either. TES characterized the lack of measurable difference between grant-maintained and ordinary public schools as a "blow" to the Conservative education secretary, who considers grant-maintained schools as integral to "the drive for high standards."
U.S. supporters of vouchers have been eagerly awaiting news about the English experience so they could tout the superiority of privatization. But moving students from one school to another or switching schools from private to public is a lot easier than getting youngsters to learn more.