For those who believed racial segregation in schools is a forgotten problem that occurred during the civil rights movement, this week has been quite the eye opener.
The subject of racial integration into the classroom is addressed by a program employed by hundreds of districts across the nation to keep the enrollment of a particular school in "racial balance." While the idea of promoting diversity will find its limelight from time to time, the program is also argued to deny students (of any race) of their choice of schools merely because admissions is trying to build a racially well-rounded student body.
Some claim it is a good way to promote understanding, while other see it as a form of reverse discrimination; either way, the most stirring issues at hand may not be the topic of segregation, but rather the flaws in execution and logic behind the school integration debate.
Strategically forming classes with an intended race ratio will draw attention from segregation activists and integration supporters alike, but looking at it from a perspective that keeps the high school experience in mind, a few incongruities and discontinuities in logic are made blatantly obvious.
Deliberately placing 50 percent white, 20 percent black, 20 percent Asian and the remainder distributed according to other races/denominations is questionable in many people's eyes, but for us it is horribly mistaken if it is thought to be realistic or a lesson for later life. A person's life is rarely, if ever, broken down into such a perfect racial balance.
Even at UB, a campus known for its racial and ethnic diversity, people tend to surround themselves with people just like them. It is not to say that students are not open or do not have friends of other races, but rather most people naturally congregate with people similar to themselves.
The reality is sometimes you will be the only person of your race in a work environment or in a neighborhood - not every place in this world is purposely diversified. In fact, more times than not, most places are devoid of cultural balance.
Isn't high school a place where teachers and mentors prepare students for the next step into life? Providing such a false depiction of the real world in high school only reinforces the sheltering that a full high school education should try to break down.
It's hard to believe that even with the heated debate and unpredictable questions surrounding such a policy, hundreds of public schools elected to implement it before the issue cooled down.
Looking at the rash decisions made by those districts across the country, we can see another glaring incongruity through the scope of what the high school experience should provide: critical thinking. Looking back at your high schooldays, the one thing that was consistently drilled in your head was likely the ability to reason and think thoroughly for yourself. To adeptly analyze something in order to develop an understanding and informed answer is something that seemed to be ironically left out in the rushed decision-making of these school districts.
Now that the controversy of such a policy has escalated, districts may be forced to disseminate their original student body ratios, unfairly relocating students and disrupting their studies.
This type of disruption was obviously not one the supporters of the integration policy sought out, but nevertheless it is a consequence. For all the districts that are now caught in a tough place, we hope you learn to think before you speak and speak before you act, because when you make decisions about a school, you're affecting the future lives of growing students.
Adolescent education is marked by a time in someone's life already volatile enough without politics making it even tougher.
Our stagnant country's big idea
NASA's new plan has potential to rejuvenate exploration
In the newspapers we will always have poverty and unemployment, the current and next war overseas and the repeating cycle of political mudslinging and campaigns. On TV we will always see the same humdrum conspiracy theory documentary and the cookie-cutter dramas on primetime, and with all the blunders and atrocities blending into one, our society is both being desensitized to serious issues and experiencing a lack of new excitement.
Let's face it. Sometimes it feels like new news is really old news... that this country is moving nowhere, or at least nowhere very fast.
But a new announcement this week may just spell the excitement some have been looking for.
NASA announced this Monday that the organization is in the planning stages for not only new departures to the moon, but will establish an international moon base by 2024 to broaden our scope of the vast resources of space, and perhaps put a little more excitement back into of country through pioneering and discovery.
While taxpayers gripe about where the money should go - most likely back in their wallets - and other (less-funded) organizations complain, money is not an excuse that should hinder the space program.
It is one of our few remaining outlets for exploration and discovery untainted by imperialism and The Man. Exploring the unknown and challenging ourselves through science will beat back some of those no news days, and possibly even begin the next step of human existence.
Innovation and exploration are part of what separated the Dark Ages from the Renaissance. The question is, which era are we in now?
For once, government officials have the right to dream and keep their heads in the clouds, and we encourage them to do so.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
