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- Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 22:37:10 -0600
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- From: ADAVIS@CUDNVR.DENVER.COLORADO.EDU
- Subject: Re: David and Goliath
- Lines: 23
-
- Mark Fetler's news that there is movement afoot to break up the Los
- Angeles Unified School District is interesting indeed. The arguments
- in favor of breaking up a huge district would seem to be concerns of
- governance and administrative efficiency. It occurs to me that the
- primary argument against such a move would center on integration,
- economic diversity, the fringes of the "hold hostage" theme of Gene's
- that we have discussed from time to time. Large areas of Los Angeles
- are entirely black of entirely Latino. Depending on how they were
- to constitute the new districts, we could have all-black districts and
- all-Latino districts . I would predict substantial changes in curriculum
- in those districts, especially in respect to social studies and literature.
- I don't know much about school finance in California, but I would guess
- that fiscal inequities of the sort Kozol has portrayed would emerge
- within what is now a single system to a far greater extent than they
- can exist now (especially since federal programs require districts to
- prove that low-income schools receive equal district resources before
- a district can qualify for Chapter 1 assistance). My instincts are to
- favor diversity over ethnic purity and equal funding over fiscal
- inequalities, so I am suspicious. I'd want lots of assurances before
- I'd advocating the breaking oup of large urban districts.
-
- Alan Davis
- University of Colorado at Denver
-