Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete F.
Where did the disrupters suddenly appear from to destroy the Utopian experience that existed at Dunbar is a simple question that points out the fault in Sowell’s hypothesis that integration ruined Dunbar.
The experience was not utopian. It was rigorous and disciplined. It was an insistence on high standards imposed by and demanded by the Principal and the teachers. There was no selection process. It did not require test scores or socio-economic qualifications to enter. All who applied would be accepted if physically possible. But once in, the student had to perform, no exceptions, no excuses. That was understood.
So, as Sowell said, there was self-selection. Those parents who applied were serious about their children being educated.
Sowell did not say that integration ruined Dunbar. He made it clear that the politically expedient decision to make Dunbar just another neighborhood school exposed it to the mass of those who were not as serious.
So the usual unruly, unserious, destroyed the character of the school. It was not about integration, but another sociological, cultural, and political problem that Sowell discusses at length in many other of his books and essays, but not detailed this article.
There easily could have been many other factors that changed to make the school and all of it’s members less successful. Aging leadership that doesn’t provide for continuity in mission along with an aging staff and then compounded by a significant mission change would disrupt any organization.
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Sowell stated very clearly that, contrary to aging leadership, it was the early retirements of once dedicated teachers and principals caused by the destruction of the ability to impose a work and discipline ethic and, presumably, the influx of current anti-disciplinary pedagogical theories that destroyed what Dunbar was and turned it into just another ghetto neighborhood school. A typical type of school that provides jobs for those with education degrees but doesn't provide the necessary disciplined and demanding learning environment required to produce quality education.
Various alternative school systems (with Dunbar-like aspirations), charter, choice, vouchers, etc. try to bypass the current education industry lock on the neighborhood school notion. But the industry and its union members with their paid for political lackeys, resist.