Outlook; 306; Rights / School Fund

0. 0. 0. 0. 0. You need to really embrace that. Object. It's a job that has to be done. Laser girls light the fire. While I'm at a loss as people. Otherwise I was appalled. I like out. Really need. A. New. Window into the community. Example with your host. There really might be. Hello everyone and welcome to Outlook. It's been 44 years since the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education said that our public schools must be integrated. Now our children are learning why that battle was fought. School board member read the whole house looks at Anchorage schools and reflects on conditions today after those 44 years. And in an earlier program we told you about four proposals to revamp the state's

formula for funding schools. Well tonight we'll have an update on that issue. Many of us have forgotten and most of our children have never learned why the Supreme Court said that integration must be the law of the land. Well the Anchorage libraries and the Alaska junior theater have brought that issue to our attention and asked the question What have we learned in 44 years. Why. First a quick review of what led up to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision Brown versus Board of Education. The decision that killed the separate but equal doctrine and killed Jim Crow in America.

As we know it after the Civil War to abolish slavery law and provide all citizens the right to vote. Those three amendments replaced a Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case in 1856 that Negroes were so far inferior they had no rights the white man was bound to respect the constitution may have been amended but many states passed laws to retain the inequities that existed before the Civil War. When one man said he would not sit in a train car for the colored the Supreme Court established in 1896 the separate but equal doctrine in a case called Plessy versus Ferguson the 14th Amendment could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color or the commingling of the races.

The era of Jim Crow was created two Americas one for white people and one for African-Americans. However an attorney named Charles Hamilton Houston demonstrated that education was far from equal for African-Americans. And he devoted his life to preparing the legal groundwork to challenge the underlying principle of separate but equal. That brings us to the historical case. In 1954 Brown versus Board of Education in which the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the separate but equal doctrine. Ultimately leading to the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the end of a visit. Jim. Thank you. Oh OK. Thank.

You. What. The. Hell are you. And Anchorage libraries. Hundreds of students attend. Including those from. High school. It's about seven year old Linda Brown who helped National Association for the Advancement of Colored people to justice.

The problem is one making this world that is so very different from what they have today accessible to them. So I do try to put myself into their minds of what kind of questions would they ask. And unfortunately the questions that they would ask essentially why would people be that way. I think actually the good Westerns because it shows how much the main character in the play is Linda Brown who must attend a colored school one mile away over dangerous railroad tracks rather than a white school only one block from her home. And she must use hand-me-down books from the white school. I don't want to live in Florida. Stop it Linda and her friends are coloring in through the coloring. We see their impact of their segregation on them because they color in the pictures with pink crayon tighter than Brown. You see a world in which literally blacks don't fit into the picture. This complicated topic that happens to long ago is made real for today's

children in the play in a number of ways. One is when the main character. Loses her friend. And kids all hoes wonder why does the friend leave the what if the problem and actually the friend in the story. Represents a large group the Black community who did not support integration they thought that the Browns and various families like them who are trying to advocate integration were causing problems. So Linda loses her friend because her parents say I can't play with you anymore. There is one moment in the play caller justice when the school audience reasoners. Yes me. Yes you were. Right next to the Marshall. Plan. That is it.

Why. But this one. Thing. Whoa whoa whoa. What do you think this is. This. You know what I just one more. Question. Thank you. The doll scene is based on some sociological tests by Kenneth Clark in which psychologists took what were then called Color children groups of color children they showed them black dolls and white dolls and asked them what were their opinions of the two dolls.

And many of the children felt that the black doll was bad it was dumb it was dirty and various negative images were connected to the black doll. And then at the end of the test the testers would ask the child which doll looks most like you. And these children were shattered because they didn't want to be considered bad or dumb or dirty. But that is the image that segregation and left in their heads. On May 17 1954 the Supreme Court handed down the decision that Charles Houston had begun fighting for 20 years earlier. And a unanimous decision the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown case to separate children solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way on likely never to be on done in the field of public education. Separate but equal has no place separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Any language in Plessy

vs. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected. There was a new law but once again little action 10 years later this little girl Ruby Bridges walked alone into an empty school in New Orleans. No white students would attend and angry crowds tried to keep her away. Today Ruby Bridges who is in Anchorage recently to talk to people about her experiences 964 remembers. For me I think what I've taken away from that experience is probably totally different from what people might expect. And I say that because a lot of people that I talk to say well you must be prejudice or you know have ill feelings. And I don't and the reason why I don't is because even though every day going through that mob and knowing that that mob was there. Now knowing that it was they were there to keep me out. You know they want to

harm me. But every day the person that greeted me was a white woman my teacher when no one else would teach me she came from Boston and she taught me every day. And she did everything she could to keep that hostility out Saddam the classroom. In 1971 in Mississippi. Dr. Paul the principal a quad and a mentor you know a bridge and learned that she would find a segregated school. I could not even fathom the idea of being in the classroom with a white person because growing up everything was so segregated. We lived on one side of the tracks and they lived on the other side of the tracks. And for the first six seven years of my education it was it was an all black environment because I was placed in a situation where I was able to compete with children who were different than myself. And I had always heard you know that we were supposed to be inferior we were supposed to be done. And I was very stubborn.

I was determined that I would my papers were going to be just as well if not better than layers that I was going to out read them so I had a very competitive spirit and and I saw that I was able to excel just like they were during my education. I encountered a number of white teachers who were very supportive of me in who encouraged me. And this continued throughout my junior high and high school on into my college level. I am the first generation of people to graduate from college in my family my mother and father had very little education my father went to the second grade and my mother went to the fifth grade and that was all the schooling that they had. But they were very special people who had a vision for the a truthful and had it not been for civil rights movement. I don't think those things would have happened today. You're integrating we can see that what has changed in these forty four years Clark junior high students in the

audience responded even though it didn't show that much anymore there are still a lot of prejudice or not. It's like everything like Asian people. African people white people prejudice. Like really bad people you know. But. You know discriminate for my race. That's right. It's. Really. Her parents and their grandparents when they were younger. And the. Children. Think. Like 50 years ago they're able to get the same ways. As a result of what happened back then. I think. Church. Where suppose I learned that you cannot judge a person by the way

they look by the color of their skin that you have to take time to get to know their heart and I think that's the best lesson I could have taken away and that has affected me all through my line and I'm so happy to be doing Alaska really living the American dream of having the chance of a decent life. Because that's what it's all about. That's to me that's what America represents is an opportunity for all people to be successful. I think we should thank the Anchorage libraries and the Alaska junior theater for making these opportunities available. Coming up a whole house with Principal of East High School for many years. Today she is a school board member. We'll be talking with her right after this. Anything important. We'll see you in 10 seconds.

But it's and that's why to help you make sense of it all because the challenge is determining. And blessed us. I'd like you to meet school board member Rita Holt house she has been an educator in the Egret schools for 18 years 10 of those as principal of East High School one of our most diverse high schools so she's here today to talk a little bit about the issue of Brown versus education she may have retired from the school board but you have not retired from critical issues and about education and are in our school district. So let's start out by talking about integration. It's the law. But really how diverse are the schools in Anchorage. I mean are they really integrated legally of course

but they are integrated and I'd like to if I could just talk about a national figure that I learned recently which there was a study from Harvard that was done in 1992 that showed actually nationwide there were more single race schools in this country in 1992 than there had been in 1967. And Anchorage. Patterns you know what happens in the lower 48. And I think that we are finding not only is our minority population growing not only percentage wise but in actual numbers. But. That growth or those students are not uniformly spread among our schools and so we have some schools with as low a 6 percent diverse population and we have clear up to 84 almost 85 percent diverse population.

So that's based pretty much on where kids live not necessarily And we're not bussing kids it's where people are choosing to live which could have some impact on the diversity it could have some impact based on it could have some impact on how equal that education is. For instance poor neighborhoods are they getting the same opportunities as as the more wealthy districts. The poor neighborhoods. In Anchorage tend not to have the most crowded schools. The most crowded schools tend to be. And this is a nationwide trend to people moving out to the suburbs or to the surrounding areas urban center. And that's happening in Anchorage as it does in other cities and that creates a requirement that new schools be built to handle the additional number of people in those outlying areas. There's only a certain amount of money

bond money state reimbursement money capital money to build additions or to build new facilities. And so this the pressure has a ban on the Akron school district for the last few years to build new facilities in the outlying areas to handle the additional population that's moving that way. Now those are very beautiful very roomy buildings with very up to date modern computers and all sorts of equipment that go with the building of a new building. So all right there you have a difference. Now in recent years the district has been last year and this year and maybe the year before that is starting to sort of relieve the pressure in those areas although not at all but has been able to turn his attention now to some. The older sections of town where the facilities are older Fairview Mall do you think they are just built a new Tyson in the Mountain View area. I just

toured Fairview the other day the new facility which is going to be lovely and unusual as a two story elementary school. Muldoon were hoping to be able to get a new building there and a lot of the one of the Bonds is for the renovation of some of our older so little walls or it is aware of the potential discrepancies because I'm guessing he is in the wealthier districts can get extras for the kids what do you do in a situation like that where you have parents who are working and can't really come to schools and help and can't really afford that extra 5 bucks. I'm not certain that that's really true. I think what people are seeing are the new facilities that are lovely as they should be. If we're going to put all that money into em they should be lovely and they should be top quality. I think people are seeing those built in Southeast Anchorage or in the Tribune. And they're perhaps believing that that's due to the fact that people can't. Exert enough pressure in the inner areas of the city to get that done but I think it was

just I wasn't on the board when a lot of those decisions were made but I watched it closely and I really feel like it was a real attempt to take care of the most pressing problem which was providing some housing at all for those extra students additional students out there but on. So actually when it comes to facilities I think it's more of just setting priorities. I'm going to switch a little bit almost everyone I talked to who worked with you at East High School has nothing but wonderful things to say about your fear I know you are in my decade there and what you did at East High School and have you personally had any experiences in segregated schools and then in integrated schools what has been your experience in this realm. Well my first teaching year I was 19 by the way which. But I taught in northern the panhandle of northern Florida and it was this was in 1960 and it was still a very segregated

school district and I didn't really comprehend what was what that truly mant until toward the end of the year when we were asked to pack up to ask to you know go through our textbooks and pick out the ones that weren't suitable for use anymore. And then we boxed them up and I learned that they were going to go over to the black school and saw our resigns. So it was and we my house when I went back to Kansas and went back to teaching. So you've had some personal experience with the with both situations. Right. Do you see that there has been a change than in schooling in educational opportunities that as a result of Brown versus education. Well what I would hope that we would have learned that the best that it was one of the best things that could happen to a nation is getting increasingly diverse our people have to learn to live together and to work together. And I think the best way to do that is in the very practical laboratory of a school where there are supportive adults to help people learn that.

Unfortunately the nationwide trend and the local trans seems to be away from that. Just last summer the NAACP very hotly debated on a national level whether to continue to support segregation. Introgression sorry. And you know they eventually are continuing to support it. But. It's a concern to me that we seem to be nice nationwide and locally. Sort of accepting that there are going to be some of our schools that are single race. Thank you so much for joining us at three quarters of a billion dollars the K through 12 education budget represents the single largest expenditure of the legislature each year. This year the legislature has tried to simplify the formula to make it more fair. However some argue that the solution gives to urban students at the expense of rural students. And in this

politically charged year the issue has taken on racial overtones. Against the backdrop of an Alaskan legislature struggling to balance a budget requiring as much as three quarters of a billion dollars from the state's savings account. Tensions have risen between rural and urban constituencies as one of the state's largest expenditures. Education funding plays out as B 36 sponsored by Republican Senator Randy Philips and passed by the Senate earlier this year proposed to shift money from a number of rural school districts to other rural and urban areas by rewriting the State Education Foundation formula. The current foundation formula was written about 10 years ago in a time of political pressure. In a sense much like today

it is based on some factors called Area cost differentials which were originally derived from commodity prices that that were researched back in 1985 and people's personal opinions it's not based on the actual costs of operating schools. We have never believed the formula was broken. We always thought that was not a correct statement. What it appears to mean is the formula doesn't fund a large urban school districts. Good enough and that's become clearly delineated in this debate under Sen. Phillips bill. It clearly delineates who they want to be the winners of education. If there's going to be a zero sum game all along the North Slope Borough has said it's inappropriate to make it a zero sum game. Make children be where the battle of the fiscal gap is going to be fought.

We believe that the foundation formula as I said should be based on actual costs. Some districts have received more than their actual cost would would indicate they should receive in the past. Other districts have operated sort of in the deficit spending mode for a while. This foundation rewrite now gives more money to some rural districts and most of the larger urban districts. The nurse a bar only gets 11 million dollars of Education Foundation funding. It's not a large amount of money in the large scope of things it's one hundred and seventy million dollars out there. So they only get one and a half percent of the education money now in Arsal Burl. So we feel it's very unconscionable to want to completely zero out a subgroup of the Alaska population. Certainly one that's paying its way while the North Slope Borough population pays one of the highest real and personal property taxes in the state to provide for its schools.

State Department of Labor Statistics indicate that one point five million dollars of total personal income from residents exists within the unorganized untaxed regions of Alaska. That's just one potential source of new money. And both sides agree that new money is desperately needed to adequately fund Alaska's schools and school districts continue to grow here in Anchorage we've gained almost 9000 kids in the last nine years. We have increasing numbers amounts of mandates requirements that we are absolutely have to to fulfill and provide. That makes it a real challenge to provide excellent education for our kids. There's no question that it takes more money to run rural schools. There's no question that serving fewer people makes your cost ratio much higher on a per unit student basis. But the the Bushehr the rural schools have never

really you know seen that as an obstacle to their urban districts getting more money if they need it for legitimate reasons overcrowding you know new students. And so I think that pitting the urban in the rural areas against each other has been really divisive in this whole debate whereas we should have been taking the higher ground of how we're going to fund the next generation of educated intellectual Alaskans wherever they live. Next week on our blog. Some say that Alaska is in decline despite the billions in our savings account. We'll look at what the data says. And we're going to see what's being done about a skateboard park. Another update on Outlook. That's our show for tonight and thank you for joining us. I hope you're with us next week. I'm Beverly Michel for outlook for tonight if you have questions or comments who would like a copy of my program it's called K.A. 2 7 5 6 3 7 0 7 0 4 riders at

our blog. KKR Channel Seven thirty eight seventy seven University Drive language Alaska line 5 away. Or email us at this address.