z55\doc\web\2002\02\ethsort.txt
Could this be the outcome of standards based education, assuming they
fail to erase ethnic gaps?


From h-bd discussion: 


<< On the possibily segregating effect of brouping by ability he recounts a
school teacher who decided to seat the students most needing help together,
but then had to cancel the plan after she realized she had just segregated
his class room. A major problem in providing gifted education (or even
advanced placement classes)  these days is that it results in schools or
classes with very few blacks. >>


Which of course is what was done in the "old days." When I was in that same
Jr. High School 3 in Manhattan 1953-55, the classes were sorted by test
scores.  9 special (those of us who skipped from 7th to 9th) was Jews and
one
Chinese kid and me, 9-1 through 3 were mostly Irish, 9-4 through 6 were
mostly Italian, 9-7 through 9 were mostly Blacks, and 9 rmd. (remedial) was
described in those days as "retards and Ricans." Since in those days the

tests were given only in English, almost all  the Puerto Ricans scored as
mentally deficient.


Ethno-racial relations were equally simple. The Irish attacked everyone, the
Italians attacked only the blacks, the blacks attacked each other, and the
rest of us scurried home after school, hoping to avoid the Irish. Since the
Italians defended their own, some of the older female Burke members of my
family in earlier decades, ironically, became "members" of the Italian
group.
Because there were no Italians in my class, that opportunity didn't come to
me, and when the Irish got tired of kicking the Jews and calling them
"Christ
killers" and "circumcised bastards," as a member of what seemed like the
only
WASP family within miles, they woul sometimes go after me.


No one could afford guns or even good knives, so garbage pan lids and zip
guns were weapons of choice.


Those were the "good old days."


J. Chapin