Critical Race Theory and systemic inequalities

[Falco Underhill]

Oh, they have. In both Texas and here in Washington. Not to the US Supreme Court, but to the state supreme courts. In Texas the supreme court agreed that the funding system was hugely inequitable and horrible but still constitutional. In Washington the courts ruled the opposite.

"Awful but Constitutional" sounds like a really flimsy legal position to me. So was slavery. Has this case been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court?

[Ken]

The largely white district where I taught ...

So you're complicit in perpetuating the systemic racial inequalities?

This is what two different science classrooms look like in a poorer and wealthier district. First my science classroom in the wealthier Texas district which has separate classroom and lab spaces, lab pods with sinks and natural gas jets, LCD screens, lots and lots of equipment storage and is about 2x the square footage



This is a split panoramic shot of the science classroom in the poorer Texas district where I taught briefly. No sinks, no equipment storage. Older projector display. I had to buy metal shelving from Costco to add storage space. Teachers desk made from 2x4s and plywood by a previous teacher. And about 1/2 the square footage for the same number of students. Doing chemistry or bio labs we had to carry everything into lab using plastic totes and use the student desks as lab tables. Bring in water in 5 gallon buckets, carry in glassware on trays. The plastic totes on the wire rack are what we used for sinks. A whole lot more hassle and there were just a lot of different labs and hands on things I was unable to do because of the space. You can see my same purple Washington Huskies banner in both classrooms, behind the teachers desk in one room and hanging on the far left wall in the first photo.




Should I have moved to the poorer district to work there and enroll my kids there? I dunno. They would have been fine as we do lots of educational enrichment as a family. We chose not to. Some activists make the opposite choice. It wouldn't have made much if any difference anyway as systemic problems really require systemic solutions.

[ohio jones]

Here's a physics classroom from a middle class school in Ohio.

[ken_sylvania]

Here's a physics classroom from a middle class school in Ohio.

Obviously run by Democrats, as we can see from the color scheme.

[Ken]

Here's a physics classroom from a middle class school in Ohio.

Looks like a pretty nice space. What do they use all the compressed air hoses in the ceiling for? Is that some sort of "maker space" and they use air tools like nail guns to build stuff? I'm half shuddering at the thought of 10 nail guns loose in a middle school classroom.

[ohio jones]

Looks like a pretty nice space. What do they use all the compressed air hoses in the ceiling for? Is that some sort of "maker space" and they use air tools like nail guns to build stuff? I'm half shuddering at the thought of 10 nail guns loose in a middle school classroom.

That's high school, not middle school. And I'm not sure what the compressed air is actually used for, but not for tools. If that were the case they would have put air drops in the engineering tech lab, and they didn't.

[ken_sylvania]

Looks like a pretty nice space. What do they use all the compressed air hoses in the ceiling for? Is that some sort of "maker space" and they use air tools like nail guns to build stuff? I'm half shuddering at the thought of 10 nail guns loose in a middle school classroom.

That's high school, not middle school. And I'm not sure what the compressed air is actually used for, but not for tools. If that were the case they would have put air drops in the engineering tech lab, and they didn't.

You're saying there's a difference between "middle class school room" and "middle school class room"?

[Neto]

In the public school where I attended (Owasso, Oklahoma) the science lab class was in 7th grade. Our classroom was in a skid building. (Was that because the majority of my classmates were Native American? It never occurred to me that we were "under-privileged".)

[Haystack]

in middle school we only had one classroom for each grade in mobile buildings. I don't remember doing anything science related except for this one time we put mentos in a soda (outside the classroom of course). In high school I think I had a science class freshman or sophomore year but I don't recall doing much hands on besides some very basic chemistry.

[Ken]

Looks like a pretty nice space. What do they use all the compressed air hoses in the ceiling for? Is that some sort of "maker space" and they use air tools like nail guns to build stuff? I'm half shuddering at the thought of 10 nail guns loose in a middle school classroom.

That's high school, not middle school. And I'm not sure what the compressed air is actually used for, but not for tools. If that were the case they would have put air drops in the engineering tech lab, and they didn't.

You're saying there's a difference between "middle class school room" and "middle school class room"?

Yeah, I misread his post to mean a middle school, not middle class school.