History Repeating Itself

I never really believed that history completely repeated itself until I saw this article on CNN News.  A high school in Pennsylvania has separated some of their students for 6 minutes a day and 20 minutes twice a month.  These students are separated by race, gender and language in efforts to raise academic scores.  McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania has research stating “that (studies) show grouping black students by gender with a strong role model can help boost their academic achievement and self esteem.”  Personally, I do not agree with this at all; voluntary or not.  The article claims that the junior class did this voluntarily, but really, I can’t sit here and believe that every single one of these students were okay with this.  According to the history of The case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, it was declared that it “violates the 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws.”  If students were being limited to where they go to school back then and it was considered wrong, why can they decide where the students are placed in classrooms today? 

It’s understandable that the school wants to improve test scores.  They say they have research saying that if they are separated the students do better, but how is doing this not repeating history.  Because forcing students to separate for certain times of the day can ultimately result in just reliving 1957 and the Little Rock Nine.  The Little Rock Nine took place in 1957 when the Little Rock public schools decided to desegregate their schools. The schools were faced with a lot of scrutiny and on September 23^rd police had to escort nine African American students into Little Rock Central High School in fear of them being attacked. 

Honestly, I do not want to see life come to that phase again.  I know, the school isn’t planning on that happening but all it takes is that one school to start and schools to follow.  And before long, we will be back to schools being completely segregated.  There are other schools within the country who are already reverting back to real segregation.  But the NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous says that they will not let it happen. 

In defense for McCaskey East High School, the article does point out that some same-sex schools have better scores that co-ed schools. So they kind of have the right idea.  They are trying to help scores of their students.  But I also feel that instead of segregating the school, they should just break everything up into same-sex classes and be consistent with that, rather than separating for just a few minutes a day.  They might have the right idea, but I also think they should be going about it all differently.  And I would really hate to see history repeat itself in this sense.