Weekend Reading: Smart, Suspended, Racism - Discrimination?

There were some good things I came across over the weekend, checking magazines and sites I don't get to during the week (and things I missed along the way:

20K Smart, Poor Kids Are Applying to the Wrong Colleges- Slate Magazine ow.ly/j3jdF

Why do we suspend children from school? - Slate Magazine ow.ly/j3jbX

Nine High Schools, One Roof At the Stevenson Campus, - NYTimes.com ow.ly/j7FYx

From Jay Mathews: Ability grouping is back despite scholarly qualms: My elementary School in San Mateo, Calif.... bit.ly/Zk4S23

Sequester Forces Lottery Drawings To Kick Kids Out of Head Start  Programs ow.ly/1TDuYy @Jezebel [not sure if this is for real]

Is racism (and its offshoots like segregation) a product of public policy or a part of human nature? @tanehisiow.ly/j3pTR

Advocacy & Politics 101 for Teachers by @CALcharters & @LEE_National ow.ly/j3ot7

Discrimination Against Asians Admissions WBUR On Point bit.ly/1438Jp1 [Asian success kicks off Anglo debate about diversity]

Comments

[Bruce]

With regard to the NPR story on Asian-Americans and college admissions: European-Americans will have to adjust themselves to the fact that their children will have to compete globally with students from all over the world for the most highly coveted spots in universities; and this requires adjustments in the cultures of our homes and our schools. If they continue satisfied with the 20th century models that served our generation and earlier generations well, they may discover, once it's too late and to their dismay, that their basic, unspoken assumption, which is that the past will repeat itself, was wrong, and that their children will be the ones who will suffer for their mistake. As for me, I lived in Asia for seven years, and know that the future will differ from the past, am quite confident that the children of most of my upper middle class neighbours will be left behind, and am determined that this will not happen with mine; and therefore I am working constantly to design a school that can provide a better future for my son and for all of the like-minded families of his cohort.