PSUFAN wrote:she didn't know what she was doing....... like those homeless vets who were kickedout of the mental hospital during the Reagan years and afterwards didn't know what they were doing.
Uh...maybe not.
Link to update on story?
Again, there's no reason to ruin the interior of a car if one is going to get one's drug on. Not even to kill a baby. That's not to say that she isn't on drugs. But whatever happened, it's quite possible that she did forget the kid, and she thinks denying the kid enough times will make it true. She's operating on a 3 year old level. You can physically punish someone like that but it isn't going to lead to rehabilitation or even remorse. Her mind is
gone, PSU. She sounds like a burnout, or worse. The baby (and any others) need to be put into foster care before she does even more harm to them, and to herself, because she doesn't know any better. And she needs institutionalization.
Anyway, here's some more race-relations fun from Western PA:
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburght ... 18228.html
PA's education secretary is closing down a high school in a predominantly black neighborhood. Test scores and just about everything else has become so deplorable in that district that
some sort of action is necessary.
So, the kids are going to get dumped into an adjacent district's (predominantly white) high school.
Closing down the school is not that action.
As for Duquesne versus Allegheny, yes it is frustrating that 'black students' equates to better sports.... though I'll admit I didn't get that, until you said it. I just thought that this Logan person was trying to be fair to the new students at their new home now that their own academic and extracurricular lives were about to be disassembled... and that the Allegheny parents were unfairly wanting to preserve the current status quo -- and pecking order -- for their own children, at the expense of the newcomer Duquesne students.
The booing about the state's contributions to the school for each student is understandable. It's not about money, it's about a disruption that the Allegheny parents don't want for their own children (and of whom the Duquesne children tough shit, you have to take care of your own). I do have to wonder, if the state has THAT much to spend on each Duquesne student........................
what was happening with that money in the first place?
Councilman Cianflone is a liar to (seem to) suggest that fear of tax hikes is behind the refusal to accept the Duquesne students. You absorb what you can, if you think it will be to your benefit. If the parents thought that the Duquesne students would add cachet and higher status to their school, they'd pull a grassroots response to Katrina for them. There's about to be a lot of white (and other) flight out of Allegheny over this. :? That's too bad.
You can't run from your problems. That's what happens when the status quo is shaken, though.
As for Harold Grant not blaming the parents .............. why
is there a disparity between test scores for black and white students? It's not like whites have a monopoly on caring parents.
There are white parents (shit loads of them) who seem to think that parenting works by absence, as well -- if the child does well, then it's a good reflection, if the child does poorly, it's the child's fault for not 'getting it'; despite the parent behaving the same in both cases (absent). It's Allegheny; isn't that mining country?
The key to all this is the mistaken assumptiont that White equals Better. It doesn't. Why are the black students not performing like the white students? How is adding more black students to a school which doesn't give a fuck about the black students it already has, going to make both schools better?
Allegheny is 'succeeding' in spite of itself, just like those parents (of all races) who take undeserved credit for their students' successes, and ignore their contribution to their students' failures.
Adding more black students to the mix will just completely expose the school's structure for the sham it is. A school which is treating all of its students fairly will be able to absorb some more students with a couple problems, but less as the years go by. Allegheny isn't. The sham is being rocked.
As for the students, I've personally experienced the difference in schools who attempted to treat all students equally, and schools which didn't give a fuck (unless you were an athlete, and that's still not giving a fuck) if you were black..... and I was one of the 'good' students' in each situation. I know what it's like to find out you're being excluded. I had a french teacher, one of the best in the school, who would sit behind me, and address the rest of the students with her back to me. I was the only black student in the class. Did I feel like I was part of the class? I liked her, but that always made me feel funny. The contrary me would have said 'I'm going to succeed in spite of this'. The lazy me said 'fuck it, I don't want to be here... but where can I go?' It wasn't like that with every teacher, but then I was one of the 'good' students. I had to hear about 'they just want us here for sports' all the time. And frankly, it felt like it was true.
How much collegiate preparation did you receive in your high school career, versus other students? or did you think about it, PSU?
My brother experienced the 'missing papers' issue with that particular school's office -- you know the routine, or maybe you don't. Usually, it's done with resumes, where your resume mysteriously disappears, even if you handwalked it in. They don't know anything. Smile. Come to find out it was intentionally put in the trash (or, also, treated carelessly in such a way that it's intentionally separated from other applications without intentionally being separated, if that makes sense). This wasn't a resume, it was a parking permit. My brother was one of the 'good kids'; but he wasn't an athlete. It happens once, it's an accident, maybe. It happens twice, it's intentional.
I don't balk or say 'you're lying' when people talk about black students being treated differently, or especially about young black men being treated differently. People are afraid of young black men. Where little white kids, little white boys get drugs to deal with their growing into physical maturity, but they don't get tracked at the same rate as little black boys; little black boys get tracked into the 'problem' classes and special ed. Little white boys are treated as if it's not their fault, they just have a chemical imbalance. Hugs and kisses. Little black boys are treated as threats who must be put away. Smile.
Little girls of all races are more likely to do what they're told and be obedient and regurgitate and never question.... because little girls have different ways to be little bad asses, than little boys.
