Daffodil Lane

Honestly, I think the evacuees have been traumatized enough. The transition is hard enough. Chris Rock once joked about worrying about getting his children "ready for white people." He's not really joking and, unfortunately as someone who moved to the burbs in the 70s after being in a nurturing, all black private school environment, the change was stressful and often not so nice. These kids have enough to deal with. They may not stay in their "new" enviroment for long so let them just stay together. The "Republican" rationale may be racist and wrong minded but if that is how they think, in this particular circumstance, I'd be willing to let it slide for the good of the evacuee children. They have enough to deal with.

Do you mind if someone who knows what he's talking about comments, or do you prefer to wallow in ignorance.

Speaking as a Texas teacher who used to work for Dr. Neeley, I can tell you that this is not about racial segregation. It is about the best way to get these kids into school and get their education back undeway.

The goal isn't to segregate these kids into little ghettoes. Where educating them in regular schools won't overwhelm the capacity of those schools, the optimal solution is to place them there -- AND THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING. My school in Houston has seen a 2-3% increase in students because of Katrina. They are welcome, and are being treated like royalty by students and staff.

On the other hand, what do you do when you have 25,000 people staying long-term in one location, like is happening in San Antonio on a closed air force base. It makes sense at that point to set up a school facility there and to educate the kids there. Heck, you would build neighborhood schools if 25,000 people were moving into new subdivisions, because that would mean between 5000-10,000 new students! This is really no different -- except you are having to improvise to meet a crisis situation.

"or do you prefer to wallow in ignorance"

Gee how pleasant you start off. Why in the world would we want to listen to anything you have to say when you start off on the wrong foot?...Oh and rest assured that's a rhetorical question!

The rest of what you say seems to have some merrit, it's nice to see that your school seems to be on the right track, but I dare say you're the exception no the rule.

Oh and watch the all caps! That is extremely rude!!

Well I'll just ignore the foolish comments and address the issue you suggest. The logical improvise to meet the crisis without risking the appearance of racism is to take every Senior education major in Texas and allow them to do their student teaching live in the classroom for pay. Now that's a reasonable waiver to ask for, solve the teacher problem instead of trying to find a way to segregate the students. I think that Qusan is correct that they might want to remain separate from the other students, but that's an offer you make to them, not a requirement that you hand down to them. See the problem is that they were trying to get out of solving the problem instead of trying to solve the problem. They should have their Congressman working to give every education institution additional money to immediately hire New Orleans teachers first if they want to be hired, and then a new batch of teachers immediately to get these kids back in school. Do you see the difference?

Also to increase your education credentials you might want to run a spell check on all your blog posts before you put them up.

I have been a bit sloppy lately with the typing -- injured my hand recently and am still recovering.

I'm sorry. That stinks. :o(