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Did you look at the map?! The South is the worst region for this, followed by the Southwest. No one's trying to bash it - the numbers for the South are alarming.
The private school argument makes sense. I didn't realize public school there are that bad. In my state and other NE ones like MA, public schools are excellent save for some cities. Not everyone who can afford it goes to private school because they don't have to - public schools are great where I live. I guess it's just different.
What tnff is saying is that California (huge population), Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and West Virginia are not generally considered Southern States, but also have the poverty level problems.
Where I grew up in Texas, there aren't enough children attending private schools to cause a huge disparity. The city of San Antonio is already the most segregated city in the U.S. by income. The wealthy children get to go to public schools that hardly have any economically disadvantaged children. Two of the reasons why we have a lot of poor children here is that we have a high teen pregnancy rate, and the educational attainment in this city is low compared to other large cities. With just a high school diploma or GED, a lot of the residents here are stuck in low-paying, service jobs. High rates of teen pregnancy and low rates of college education are problems across the South and the Southwest.
By the way, I think West Virginia currently fits the southern stereotypes more than Virginia even though they were on different sides of the Civil War. Texas has a lot in common with the South and Southwest. It has been categorized both ways many times. The eastern part of Texas is definitely southern. In the Southwest, there are a lot of poor Hispanics and Native Americans. In the South, there are a lot of poor blacks and whites.
OK, everyone looked at the map. In fact "look at the map" was all I could do. HuffPo's link to the actual study is broken (Error 404!) and therefore all we have is a map showing pretty colors.
• One third of Texas’s private schools are more than 80 percent white – while another third are between 50 and 80 percent white.
• Only six percent of private school students are black, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics analyzed by InvestigaTexas. But those statistics may only tell part of the story: The NCES data is based on a voluntary survey that many private schools in Texas don’t participate in – and when they do, many schools elect not to include their racial makeup.
• Home-schooling advocates say Texas has more home schooled children than any other state in the nation – and experts also believe that the majority of homeschooled children in Texas are white. The Texas Education Agency does not know how many children attend private or home schools – or what curriculum is being used to teach those children.
The article was not clear on this, but I kind of just scanned through it. White people might make up 30% of Dallas' population, but do they make up 30% of Dallas' school-aged population? There are some places where Hispanics make up a much higher percentage of school-aged children than they do the general population.
OK, everyone looked at the map. In fact "look at the map" was all I could do. HuffPo's link to the actual study is broken (Error 404!) and therefore all we have is a map showing pretty colors.
The link I looked at relies in large part on 'poverty level' as established by the gov't again.
Part of it is based on adult success, but quantifies if you don't make 36k per year you don't count as successful, no matter where you live. Though I'm guessing if that's what you make in DC, NYC or LA you're not successful no matter what the gov't says about it.
Part of it relies on things like pre-k attendance which to some extent is cultural. So personally I take the map with a grain of salt, one of those nice magical number manipulations in which the south always comes out looking bad because of the lower COL and the lower wages associated with that.
Is the poverty level for each state adjusted to fit the cost of living? You can live on much less in the rural South than you can in California for instance.
that make sense, the teachers here are so bad that if you can afford private schools that the way to go, and so it leaves those with low income in public schools. it not that a lot of students are poor, its the fact that the schools are so bad.
True that. Our schools in Texas are so atrocious (ranked 48th the last I checked) that every parent who possibly can puts their kid in private school. Home schooling is also very popular, and parents who are on a tighter budget often go that route.
True that. Our schools in Texas are so atrocious (ranked 48th the last I checked) that every parent who possibly can puts their kid in private school. Home schooling is also very popular, and parents who are on a tighter budget often go that route.
Not all Texas schools are bad!
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