Respond to peer 1 post:
Hello Everyone!
This article was important to me since I grew in the Greater Boston Area and have worked in Boston for many years. Boston is viewed as “liberal state”, but this historical event displayed the sad reality. I decided to respond to this statement.
In the long run, busing helped Boston because it desegregated the school system, provided equal educational opportunity for minority students, and set the stage for racial healing and an improved racial climate in the twenty-first century.
Based off the article and the video blue collar jobs were fading which included textile and shoe factors. This contributed to the decline in Boston’s population as well as high migration of African Americans in Boston. The Civil Rights movement raised a lot of question regarding disparities in the low socioeconomic communities. Clearly, the schools in Boston were racially segregated. Looking at this information, I believe it was inevitable that racial protesting were going to happen, but could have happened in a more strategic way. More efforts should have been made in investing in schools in the African American communities, then maybe the desegregation would have been more cohesive. Friends and colleagues I have worked with that live in Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, and discussed “white flight”.
Years later, Mel King was was a front runner in the race for Mayor of Boston. Mayor Flynn devoted time and effort in cooling the racial tensions and promoted housing and economic development in the African American communities. In 1991 he reformed the Boston school committee who were biased and set out new program of delegates. Like other American cities, Boston has had its own issues, but hopefully learn from our historical past and strive to be better. More importantly, making sure that the students are getting the proper education they need.
Respond to peer 2 post:
“In the long run, busing helped Boston because it desegregated the school system, provided an equal educational opportunity for minority students, and set the stage for racial healing and an improved racial climate in the twenty-first century. I am aware of the reasoning supporting the thesis assertions. I went with the first thesis statement I came across. If African-American schools lacked the necessary funds and resources, busing would have been an alternative. Many African Americans were vocal in their opposition to busing. The dropout rate has increased.
Stanford 9 testing was introduced in Boston public schools in 1996, when 94 percent of seventh-graders at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School and 73 percent of fifth-graders at Brighton’s Alexander Hamilton School scored “poor” or “failed” in math. At William E. Endicott Elementary School in Dorchester, 95 percent of students scored “bad” or “failed” on their reading examinations, while 100 percent of students scored “failed” or “failed” on their arithmetic tests, according to the school’s principal. Even in the face of this, children were offered the option of progressing to the next grade level. How could this have been deemed a superior educational experience?