I need help with my AP government class

[ccrunner1]

alright we have these assignments called TWIGS (to prepare us for the AP exam) I have trouble with these. I probably made a mistake by taking this class instead of regular government. I was really good with all my history classes (i knew so much stuff before they taught it) and i thought how different could this be?(A LOT)

but if anyone can help me answer these questions that would be great.

1. The Supreme Court has decided a number of cases involving civil rights. For two of the following issues, identify the legal issue involved and summarize ( with a case citation) the Court’s decisions on the issue:
Abortion
Affirmative action ( cite three cases )
Homosexual rights

2. Both Brown vs Board and Swann vs Charlotte Mecklenburg Board dealt with school desegregation. For each case:
A. Discuss the court’s ruling and its impact
B. Identify and discuss one limitation on school desegregation( look closely at the Swann decision and think critically here-including that of white flight).

 

[low_five]

Abortion is your right to privacy. The government doesnt have the right to test everyone for pregnancy or to get involved in your medical issues.

roe v wade.


sounds like an interesting assignment to me.

 

[ccrunner1]

yeah he wants answers that are a page or two long and my way of writing is short and to the point ill answer these questions in like 4 sentences or less which is not good enough for his liking.
and the only affirmative action i can think of is Bakke v Uc Davis

 

[low_five]

the key to filling a page with crap is to make it into a story. find or make up an example of how a person was harmed by the circumstances before the court case and then tell how the case helped that person...

like this:

mary rottencrotch got raped one dark cold night in downtown bumfuck, when suddenly she got pregnant with an inter racial retarded baby. she went to the doctors and was about to get an abortion when a cop heard that she was going to get an abortion and he intervened, which offended her right to privacy.

you can make it entertaining and will certainly get a better grade.


on a related note, what is really happening is you are being forced into researching and supporting ideas that you may not necessarily agree with. for instance, you may not agree with abortion, you may not want to work with minorities, and you may hate gay people. your grade depends on your ability to explain why things are the way they are, not necessarily to agree with them. I suspect that may be why you dont like this assignment.

think of it like you are manipulating the teacher into giving you good grades if you make him think that you agree with his stances. you dont have to subscribe to the junk they feed you. I assume you are going on to college, so be prepared for a lot more of this crap, and try not to let it change you.

unless you want to be changed.

 

[Danger FX4 Ranger]

The second question greatly affected my home town (white flight). If there is anything in my post I need to explain better, let me know.
First, let me address part A of the second question: I attended the second largest high school in the state of Alabama, which served ALL high school students located in the City School limits. The school was split into a “West campus” which served 9th and 10th grade students and an “East campus” which served 11th and 12th grade students. The reason for having separate campuses was due to Brown V. Board of education. The buildings were designed and planed in 1952, but construction took two years and wasn’t completed until 1954 (the same year as Brown V. Education). The West campus was originally designated to be the school for African Americans, while the East campus served the white population. Here in the South, integration wasn’t widely accepted in 1954, and took many years and court rulings to reach complete integration. For many years, the City Board of Education would place a small handful of blacks in the East Campus, and an even smaller number of whites into the West campus as “proof” that the schools weren’t segregated. Finally, a 1978 court ruling required ALL city school high school students to attend the same school to eliminate having a predominantly white and black high school. Neither campus was large enough to house the entire high school population of the city school system which was previously divided according to race, which is why an East and West campus were utilized until 2004, when East Campus was demolished due to age and construction of new neighborhood high schools.

B. All elementary and middle school students in the City School system attended “neighborhood” elementary and middle schools, which were placed in the section of town which they served (there was a total of 5 elementary, and 5 middle schools located throughout the community). If you lived in the upper class, white collared side of town, you attended K-8 with other students of the same back ground. All was fine and dandy until you reached high school, where the student population of all 5 individual middle schools was combined into a single high school (which consisted of the East and West campus). The City School system is predominantly black (my high school was 76% black, 22% white). Many whites didn’t want their children to attend a predominantly black high school which suffered from drug and gang problems. To avoid sending their children to a bad high school, “white flight” occurred when many white families would either send their children to private schools, or move to the County School System (predominantly white) after completing the 8th grade. In 2000, the City Board of Education decided to build a new high school to replace the current West and East campuses, which were nearing 50 in age with little to NO maintenance over the past 50 years. Many debates were held whether a “mega high school” (a single building which housed ALL city school high school students, similar to the current system), or to build individual neighborhood high schools would be built. The board ultimately decided to build individual neighborhood high schools to help reduce “white flight” to the county school systems.

 

[Carlos Murphy]

A&P?

What dose this have to do with getting your Aircraft and Power plant licence?

 

[97ranger4x4]

Danger,

That was pretty interesting read. what year did you graduate HS?

 

[MAKG]

yeah he wants answers that are a page or two long and my way of writing is short and to the point ill answer these questions in like 4 sentences or less which is not good enough for his liking.
and the only affirmative action i can think of is Bakke v Uc Davis

Said another way, your analysis is superficial.

Don't make up crap; that's horrid advice. But go into details about WHY it was important and what the issues and reasoning behind the decision was.

HINT: Important Supreme Court decisions make for interesting reads. Go to original sources; look up the majority opinion plus minority opinions.

 

[low_five]

Dont listen to him, its fine to create a story if it demonstrates a point or theory. He doesn't know what he is talking about half the time.

 

[ryan]

Dont listen to him, its fine to create a story if it demonstrates a point or theory. He doesn't know what he is talking about half the time.

if you can't write a two page paper without resorting to telling a story, then you should not be in an AP government class. that kind of stuff gets you nowhere on the test. quoting/citing the decision will take a quarter to a third of the page alone

i'd choose the civil rights prompt because it's more open-ended. i'd read the decision, take the snippets that i thought were most interesting from the majority and minority opinions, and frame my response from there

 

[MAKG]

Dont listen to him, its fine to create a story if it demonstrates a point or theory. He doesn't know what he is talking about half the time.

Piss off. I took that same class and I figured out how to get a good grade in it.

Making up stuff might manipulate a stupid teacher -- or might not -- but understanding HOW and WHY the Supreme Court works is the point. Agreeing with it is irrelevant. Meet the point of the lesson and not only does he guarantee a good grade, but he also gains a bit of understanding about what the issues were.

Making up a story is fiction. Unless it's very well informed fiction, it won't help understanding because it won't be the same issues. Well informed fiction is far more work than just doing it correctly.

By far the most important lesson one gets in school is how to understand a position you don't agree with. Apparently, you never learned that.

For the OP, Bakke is a recent decision, but it's not even close to the only one. This is what lit searches are for. You can find previous precedents in the Bakke decision itself, plus there are legal citation indices you can use. Perhaps the Cornell Law website might be helpful; when I did this, I just went to the local county law library and found very willing and energetic support from the reference librarian (in retrospect, I guess she was impressed to see a kid who obviously wasn't a lawyer in there).

 

[Danger FX4 Ranger]

CCrunner, I will try to find which court decision forced our schools to integrate in 1978 if it will help. Also, don't fret if you don't pass your AP exam. For my degree I am required to take 6 hours worth of history courses. I took Western Civilization 1 & 2, neither of which was any harder than an average high school Social Studies class.

 

[jobar]

What dose this have to do with getting your Aircraft and Power plant licence?

I think your a little confused. AP not A&P

 

[gatlin04]

I think your a little confused. AP not A&P

ya, AP= Advanced Placement

 

[Danger FX4 Ranger]

ya, AP= Advanced Placement

At least he’s not taking IB (International Baccalaureate) courses. That would be a semester from hell.