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Originally Posted by lamontnow
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Thank you for the article. This article is the shared opinion of many. It just looks at things from a race and politics point of view. There is more to it.
But I ask you to look beyond, look back at some of the threads on this forum, that discuss White Flight in the city during that time period. A big factor in that White Flight was drugs and the resulting crime. There are other factors as well. However, what ever the reasons for the "White Flight their was definitely a decline in the population of White people in the city.
Once the White population declined in the city, the city still had a population of millions. Millions of others were still there, and still came. CUNY's service mostly students from the city, from public schools. No one had to do much demonstrating, or screaming to get CUNY to change the admissions policies in order to keep students streaming through the doors.
In my last post I gave reasons why some minority students from lower income areas are ill prepared. I don't need to research, or read an article about it, I saw it. I lived in the Bronx and Harlem.
I remember when Washington Heights went from an older Jewish population to a Dominican one, it seemed as if it happened overnight. It didn't though, but it was pretty fast, much faster than gentrification that is taking place now. Some of my Dominican friends parents were turned down for apts in University Heights section of the Bronx, and had to accept apts in Washington Heights, because University Heights kept it's Jewish population a little longer.
You also have to keep in mind that those Jewish Immigrants that settled in Washington Heights were Holocust victims that had successful businesses in Europe before WWII, they were educated, some were doctors, lawyers, etc, everything was taken from them, and they had to start all over here in US.
The children of those Jewish Immigrants were raised in homes with well educated parents for the most part. These adult children had long before moved to the suburbs, before their parents moved to Riverdale. Those adult children were the students at City College a generation before the admission requirements changed.
City College was no longer needed by them. However the college had to keep operating. Now it had to service the students of Harlem and the new students of Washington Heights. Many of these students people that were older than the traditional college age, and less educated, many came from good homes, but parents did not have an adequate education themselves, and did not really know that the child had been short changed. As I stated before the drug culture was in operation in full force by this time.
The article you have sighted does not consider all of these things. The city has come through all of this, and has improved significantly for the better since the 70's, 80's and early 90's.
When I read the post written by teachers on this forum, I can see that the teachers have improved significantly since I was in school. There is less racism, and more caring. I doubt very much if any of these teachers would come to school high, tell their students to just read some books, and put their head down on the desk, and sleep all day.
All of these improvements to the city and the schools will continue to send better prepared students to the CUNY's. You will always have a population that needs CUNY because of finances.
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