And when they let her back in?
"Six weeks after returning to Myers Park in September 2005, she had fallen hopelessly behind. Frustrated and unable to get the kind of help she needed, she voluntarily dropped out and became pregnant shortly thereafter."

Being a lazy idiot isn't linked to race. Nice try with that.

Kennedy pleaded her daughter's case to then-principal Bill Anderson but says he was unmoved, citing the teenager's past disciplinary problems and excessive absenteeism

Mother is involved now but where was she when the disciplinary problems and absenteeism were first cited as problems?

From the description of the school, this is one facility where race should not be a factor because the school has updated facilities, newer textbooks, and other things. If it was a run down school w/ old text books and teachers who did not care to teach, I understand low test scores and dropping out.

From TFA:

Documents obtained by TIME and interviews with former students, parents and school employees strongly suggest that Myers Park has had an unofficial policy of ridding itself of underperforming students during Anderson's tenure from 2002 to 2005 and perhaps beyond, by using tactics including listing dropouts as out-of-state transfers.

Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely farked up?

[Hero] for the principal of this school.

Good for him. You don't want to come to school? You want to be a disruption to everyone else? You don't want to act like a human being? Go hang out on the streets. Don't waste your time in school.

"Six weeks after returning to Myers Park in September 2005, she had fallen hopelessly behind. Frustrated and unable to get the kind of help she needed, she voluntarily dropped out and became pregnant shortly thereafter. "I want to get my GED or something, but I don't know how to go about it," she says. In the meantime, Jasmine spends her days in her mom's apartment, watching television, chatting on the phone with friends and caring for her infant daughter, Kaiyaree."

...yeah.

So then she makes a big stink, can't hack it, is too stupid to use protection, and now sits around the house while illegal immigrants work like 3 or 4 jobs a piece. But it's not your fault, it's society's fault.

Why is it wrong to remove disruptive students from school?

Seriously... if they're affecting the ability of other students to learn, study, or get something out of a class, remove them. Why is this a problem?

I suppose you could keep them in school and move then to a class more suited for them (with a more discipline-minded teacher, perhaps), but what if that doesn't work? How can anyone argue that it's OK to leave that disruptive, distracting student there, effectively poisoning the well for the remainder of the students?

HeAintHeavy

Your ideas are a bit flawed. You are applying common sense + reason to the matter. Thus, I agree with your comments 100%.

I wonder if this girl is viewed as a social outcast now within the school?

/RTA

I'd hit it.

TheSignPost


/ sits in moral superiority
// protecting my lawn from darkies

Ha! How many guard towers do you have on your property? I have two and a long driveway that allows me to see if anyone is coming. Once they cross that wire, BLAM BLAM BLAM and then the dogs are let loose.

You can only get onto my property if you can solve the slope of a triangle posted at the front gate. So right there, I know I am dealing with a certain class of people.

/my morality throne is plush
//sarcasm

The 16-year-old freshman...

Maybe things have changed since my day, but when I was a freshman, most of the people in my class, including myself, were 14. Most of us turned 15 during the school year. Perhaps this girl's problems started before she ever arrived at this school.

ElPresidente: I'd hit it.

...with a baseball bat.

Here's my only problem with it.

... but only after being told that Jasmine could return to Myers Park in the fall.

But when Jasmine tried to re-enroll the following September, she was turned away....

Um you said I could try again then wouldn't let me back in.

Oh, it's on now! At that point, any card you go to get back in including the race card (fair or not fair) is fair game to me.

My wife is a teacher in the Las Vegas school system, and I'd say the principal in this article is spot-on, and if we had more like him education wouldn't be so screwed up in this country.

Sooo many students are "mainstreamed" when they should be either sent to a diversionary or remedial program or kicked out.

This girl is still in school, it's just the School of Hard Knocks. Tough luck for her, let her be an example of how NOT to be a student in this country.

No racism here. The school administrators were right to kick her ass out.

Epsilon

My poor, poor, disallusioned fool.

Anytime white people enforce rules with regard to colored peoples, they are committing acts of racism.

George Bush doesn't care about black high school dropouts.

"It's because I'm a Frankenstein, isn't it?"

ya want equality or ya don't....

ElPresidente: Trust me, shed hit you first..

"Oh, no! I am being a shiatty disruptive student, but it's okay because I am black!"

Yes, school with high standards and a more than representative number of blacks enrolled seeks to maitain it's high standards and black student enrollment by eliminating those that don't live up to said standards after more than ample opportunity to do so. Cue the ACLU, Sharpton, Jackson, and any other race pimp I forgot.

I'd hit it

I think somebody beat you to it.

ima play the race card next time things get difficult.

the dave chappelle show taught me that our differences are cultural and have nothing to do with the color of our skin.
therefore, if you're making things difficult for me, you must have something against my culture!
you're a racist!
even though i happen to be the same color!

/needs to stop drinkin first thing in the morning.

>In the meantime, Jasmine spends her days in her mom's apartment, watching television, chatting on the phone with friends and caring for her infant daughter, Kaiyaree.

See? She did reach her life goal -- the school district just helped speed it along by a couple of years.

From TFA: "her infant daughter, Kaiyaree."

Color me woefully unsurprised.

Good thing black people don't read Fark or this would almost appear to be a KKK rally with all the hating going on.

Fark-the-Fnord: Good thing black people don't read Fark or this would almost appear to be a KKK rally with all the hating going on.

I think the condemnation would be the same if it were a white girl named Krystal who had a baby named Amber.

i bet she has the internet though....and i bet if you google the letters GED something would pop up....i went to hs and college though so maybe she didnt learn that yet

Fark-the-Fnord: Good thing black people don't read

RACIST!

Fark-the-Fnord: Good thing black people don't read Fark or this would almost appear to be a KKK rally with all the hating going on.

Most of the time fark is "progressive" and reads like DNC talking points, but sometimes it turns into something like this thread.

Of course this is nothing compared to the threads making fun of Asians.

I grew up with girls just like this in school. I can imagine why she got kicked out.

Why can I always tell who's white and who's not when it comes to racially loaded threads such as these?

Defense! Defense!

HAHAHAHAHA!

FAIR IS FAIR

hhmmm. this might get good.

Good thing black people don't read Fark or this would almost appear to be a KKK rally with all the hating going on.


Stupid is as stupid does, skin color is irrelevent.

used without permission.

With expansive tree-lined streets and stately million-dollar homes, Myers Park is one of Charlotte's most desirable addresses.

Jasmine is not the only struggling student who claims to have been pushed out or encouraged to leave Myers Park High. Another Myers Park mother, Susan Arnette, claims when she and her daughter Brianna Govan were living in a homeless shelter, Brianna was frequently late or absent. Anderson forced her to leave school, saying she was "not Myers Park material."

Documents obtained by TIME and interviews with former students, parents and school employees strongly suggest that Myers Park has had an unofficial policy of ridding itself of underperforming students during Anderson's tenure from 2002 to 2005 and perhaps beyond, by using tactics including listing dropouts as out-of-state transfers.

Myers Park has been under increasing pressure to close the achievement gap between students that are white and black, rich and poor. In 2006, only 51% of its black students performed at levels III/IV - proficient and above - on state exams, compared with 90% of white.

...But school documents obtained by TIME suggest that Myers Park found a way around this: reporting that students who had dropped out had instead transferred out of the district.

I'm wondering if anyone who's commented so far actually, you know, read the article. It sure sounds to me that while this Jasmine was a train-wreck, the school has been engaging in some pretty questionable practices. If 1/2 of your black students are under-performing, and you are forcing out under-performing students, the effect (if not the intent) of your policy is indeed racially biased.