Breakthrough Writer

1A Agenda 12-5-18: Review School Segregation and Global Warming

Essay #5 Due Date: 12-12-18: 260 points

You need 5 credible sources for the MLA Works Cited page in your final capstone essay.

Option One. In context of Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading,” support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon. In other words, will students benefit from an accountability-free education? Why? Explain.

Option Two. Read Bell Hooks’ “Learning in the Shadow of Race and her essay “keeping close to home.” In the context of those essays, support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family. To rub shoulders with the privileged, do we have to "sell out," to conform to their snobbish ways, and in doing so, are we betraying our core values and turning our backs on our roots?

Option Three. Read Bryan Caplan’s “The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone” and write an essay that analyzes the validity of his claim. You should see this critical review in The Washington Post of Caplan’s ideas.

Option Four. Watch John Oliver’s video about standardized testing and support, refute, or complicate Oliver’s claim that standardized education is a fiasco in every sense of the word.

Option Five. Read “Choosing School for My Daughter in a Segregated City” and develop an argument over what the best moral choice is for Nikole Hannah-Jones as she decides on what kind of school is best for her daughter (vs. the interests of society at large?)

Option Six. Read “Are Private Schools Immoral?” and write an argument about the moral implications of sending one’s children to private schools.

Option Seven. Read Will Stancil’s “School Segregation Is Not a Myth” and develop a thesis about the inequality of education in America.

Option Eight. Watch Hasan Minhaj defend affirmative action in the context of Asian Americans suing Harvard (Netflix Patriotic Act, first episode), and write a research paper that defends, refutes, or complicates Hasan's argument. Consult "The 'Whitening' of Asian Americans" in The Atlantic; "The Rise and Fall of Affirmative Action" in The New Yorker; "The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian-Americans" in The New Yorker, and a source from a book.

Composition Subjects I Taught This Semester

One. industrial prison complex

Two. school segregation

Three. income disparity or structural inequality

Four. mass shootings

Five. global warming

School Segregation

Sample Thesis Statements

Like the prison system, school segregation is a form of the New Jim Crow.

Like the prison system, school segregation is one of America's greatest scandals providing evidence that contradicts America's promise of justice, equality, and the American Dream.

Introduction Suggestion

We can see school segregation at California community colleges with the launching of English 1A and English 1AS. The former class is two days a week for two hours. The latter class is two days a week for three hours as it includes a remediation lab for grammar and paragraph development.

Let's look at the time, money, and retention rate for these two classes.

Option Nine. Watch Hasan Minhaj criticize United States energy policy as it pertains to oil on Netflix's Patriot Act. Then support, defend, or complicate Minhaj's assertion that the United States should change its oil emphasis for a more "conservation-focused solution" to America's energy needs. You can consult Slate article, Minhaj's video, and three other credible sources. Read the online essay "It's been hot before." For another source, you can consult "The 5 telltale techniques of climate change denial." Also, see Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis."

Common Counterarguments

One. Global warming is not agreed-upon science. There is no consensus.

Two. Global warming is a liberal-driven agenda; it's not objective science.

Your guidelines for your Final Research Paper are as follows:

This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.

You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.

You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.

At least one source must be from an ECC library database.

At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.

At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.

The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.

This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.

You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.

You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.

You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Your paper must be logically organized and focused.

12-5 Homework #18: Read Will Stancil’s “School Segregation Is Not a Myth” and write a 3-paragraph essay that evaluates the validity of the author’s claim.

12-10 Peer Edit

12-12 Essay 5 Due and Portfolio Check Part 2 up to Homework #18

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1A Agenda 12-3-18: School Segregation and Hasan Minhaj on Affirmative Action Debate

Essay #5 Due Date: 12-12-18: 260 points

You need 5 credible sources for the MLA Works Cited page in your final capstone essay.

Option One. In context of Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading,” support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon. In other words, will students benefit from an accountability-free education? Why? Explain.

Option Two. Read Bell Hooks’ “Learning in the Shadow of Race and her essay “keeping close to home.” In the context of those essays, support, refute, or complicate the inferred lesson from bell hooks’ essay, “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” that upward mobility requires a betrayal of one’s economic class and even family. To rub shoulders with the privileged, do we have to "sell out," to conform to their snobbish ways, and in doing so, are we betraying our core values and turning our backs on our roots?

Option Three. Read Bryan Caplan’s “The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone” and write an essay that analyzes the validity of his claim. You should see this critical review in The Washington Post of Caplan’s ideas.

Option Four. Watch John Oliver’s video about standardized testing and support, refute, or complicate Oliver’s claim that standardized education is a fiasco in every sense of the word.

Option Five. Read “Choosing School for My Daughter in a Segregated City” and develop an argument over what the best moral choice is for Nikole Hannah-Jones as she decides on what kind of school is best for her daughter (vs. the interests of society at large?)

Option Six. Read “Are Private Schools Immoral?” and write an argument about the moral implications of sending one’s children to private schools.

Option Seven. Read Will Stancil’s “School Segregation Is Not a Myth” and develop a thesis about the inequality of education in America.

Option Eight. Watch Hasan Minhaj defend affirmative action in the context of Asian Americans suing Harvard (Netflix Patriotic Act, first episode), and write a research paper that defends, refutes, or complicates Hasan's argument. Consult "The 'Whitening' of Asian Americans" in The Atlantic; "The Rise and Fall of Affirmative Action" in The New Yorker; "The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian-Americans" in The New Yorker, and a source from a book.

Option Nine. Watch Hasan Minhaj criticize United States energy policy as it pertains to oil on Netflix's Patriot Act. Then support, defend, or complicate Minhaj's assertion that the United States should change its oil emphasis for a more "conservation-focused solution" to America's energy needs. You can consult Slate article, Minhaj's video, and three other credible sources.

Sources for Option 9

Read the online essay "It's been hot before." For another source, you can consult "The 5 telltale techniques of climate change denial." Also, see Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis."

Your guidelines for your Final Research Paper are as follows:

This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.

You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.

You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.

At least one source must be from an ECC library database.

At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.

At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.

The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.

This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.

You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.

You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.

You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Your paper must be logically organized and focused.

11-12 Holiday

11-14 Essay # 4 due; look at Essay 5 options; read Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading.”

11-19 Homework #14: Read Bell Hooks’ “Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class” and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains the conflict Bell Hooks has about how her education gave her privilege on one hand and challenged her not be a sellout on the other. Also look at Bell Hooks’ “keeping close to home.”

11-21 Homework #15: Read Bryan Caplan’s “The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone” and write a 3-paragraph essay that analyzes the validity of his claim.

11-26 Watch John Oliver’s video about standardized testing and pursue the arguments against it with appropriate counterarguments. Also see this Daily Beast update. And this YouTube video update.

11-28 Homework #16: Read “Choosing School for My Daughter in a Segregated City” and in a 3-paragraph analyze the crisis of race,class, and structural inequality. See John Oliver video.

12-3 Homework #17: Read “Are Private Schools Immoral?” and write a 3-paragraph essay that analyzes the validity of the author’s claim.

12-5 Homework #18: Read Will Stancil’s “School Segregation Is Not a Myth” and write a 3-paragraph essay that evaluates the validity of the author’s claim.

12-10 Peer Edit

12-12 Essay 5 Due and Portfolio Check Part 2 up to Homework #18

“Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City” by Nikole Hannah Jones

One. What does Jones’ critique of structural inequality (inequality in the categories of education, housing, healthcare, racial wealth gap, gender) say about the American Dream of equality?

It appears there are built-in mechanisms to reinforce inequality, and segregation in education is one of them.

For example, in David Brooks’ essay “How We Are Ruining America,” he shows how the top 20% “hoard” most of America’s resources:

Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chances to join their ranks.

How they’ve managed to do the first task — giving their own children a leg up — is pretty obvious. It’s the pediacracy, stupid. Over the past few decades, upper-middle-class Americans have embraced behavior codes that put cultivating successful children at the center of life. As soon as they get money, they turn it into investments in their kids.

Upper-middle-class moms have the means and the maternity leaves to breast-feed their babies at much higher rates than high school-educated moms, and for much longer periods.

Upper-middle-class parents have the means to spend two to three times more time with their preschool children than less affluent parents. Since 1996, education expenditures among the affluent have increased by almost 300 percent, while education spending among every other group is basically flat.

As life has gotten worse for the rest in the middle class, upper-middle-class parents have become fanatical about making sure their children never sink back to those levels, and of course there’s nothing wrong in devoting yourself to your own progeny.

It’s when we turn to the next task — excluding other people’s children from the same opportunities — that things become morally dicey. Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution recently published a book called “Dream Hoarders” detailing some of the structural ways the well educated rig the system.

The most important is residential zoning restrictions. Well-educated people tend to live in places like Portland, New York and San Francisco that have housing and construction rules that keep the poor and less educated away from places with good schools and good job opportunities.

These rules have a devastating effect on economic growth nationwide. Research by economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti suggests that zoning restrictions in the nation’s 220 top metro areas lowered aggregate U.S. growth by more than 50 percent from 1964 to 2009. The restrictions also have a crucial role in widening inequality. An analysis by Jonathan Rothwell finds that if the most restrictive cities became like the least restrictive, the inequality between different neighborhoods would be cut in half.

Reeves’s second structural barrier is the college admissions game. Educated parents live in neighborhoods with the best teachers, they top off their local public school budgets and they benefit from legacy admissions rules, from admissions criteria that reward kids who grow up with lots of enriching travel and from unpaid internships that lead to jobs.

It’s no wonder that 70 percent of the students in the nation’s 200 most competitive schools come from the top quarter of the income distribution. With their admissions criteria, America’s elite colleges sit atop gigantic mountains of privilege, and then with their scholarship policies they salve their consciences by offering teeny step ladders for everybody else.

***

Two. What is the relationship between school test scores and family income?

Jones sees that the test result disparity based on income reinforces segregation. It’s more difficult for poor kids to go to a high-performing school and survive academically and wealthier white parents don’t want their children attending low-performing schools.

The problem worsens and worsens with society giving up on integration, which reached its peak in 1988 when test score disparities were at their smallest level.

There is even a correlation between grammar acquisition and income.

Three. What is Faraji’s education background and how does it affect his success?

Faraji, Nikole Hannah Jones’ husband, was raised in a military family. He never attended segregated schools. He was exposed to people of all backgrounds, and he can converse with anyone under any situation. Being able to adapt to diverse people is a huge asset in success.

Another asset is “imagining possibilities,” part of being educated in a privileged and diverse environment.

As a personal example, I grew up in a diversity wonderland in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a lot of the adults who were my father figures and mentors were African American men: professors, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, jazz musicians. My outlook on life was shaped significantly by being raised in an environment that was the antithesis of segregation.

One of Jones’ larger points is that segregation shrinks our world; diversity expands its.

To use Jones’ language, she calls integration “transformative.”

But America gave up on integration, she laments, only embracing it as a facade.

Four. What is the fake diversity Jones’ describes in her essay?

Jones writes about fake diversity, largely white classes with a few minorities thrown in as tokens to make the white people feel good about themselves, a farce she calls “curated integration.”

Five. What is the segregation in New York?

15% of students are white, but they are clustered so that half of them are in the top-performing 11% of schools.

In contrast, Jones cites that New York City public schools is 41% Latino, 27% black, 16% Asian and this group in whole is 75% low income.

Moreover, 75-85% of black and Latino students attend segregated, low-performing schools.

It’s clear that segregation in schools equals an academic achievement gap.

School in America is a two-tiered system.

School segregation continues to get worse, we read in Vox.

Six. What is Nikole’s moral dilemma?

She wants the best for her daughter Najya (means freedom in Swahili), but by placing her daughter in a privileged school she feels she is abandoning all those poor children and perpetuating the problem of structural inequality. Part of her want to invest her time and effort into a poor school and help bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Nikole’s dilemma is compounded by her husband’s disagreement. Faraji’s position is this: “Don’t experiment on our child because of your idealism.”

Faraji is worried about downward mobility for his daughter.

Nikole observes that for African Americans downward mobility is a huge problem. Seven out of ten African Americans from middle income don’t maintain their income levels.

Seven. What causes Faraji to change his mind?

He begins to feel ashamed for his “my daughter against the world” mentality. He agrees with his wife that his original attitude is reinforcing America’s racial caste system. But soon after putting their daughter in the integrated school, there is rezoning, which reinforces segregation.

Review of Structural Inequality