No Child Left Behind has the laudable goal of increasing accountability to improve educational outcomes. One of the measures used to assess educational outcomes is to segregate student data by race. As a result, parents self segregate by race under the guidance of school district diversity consultants in [Parent group aims to bridge ‘achievement gap’].
In reality there are only two kinds of students: students who are meeting or exceeding standards, and students who are not. To segregate students by race assumes that children of the same race have the same strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, and cultural backgrounds. Ironically, this is the same viewpoint held by racists of the past who insisted upon racial school segregation.
History showed that separating students by race proved to be unequal. Yet diversity consultants and public schools advocate turning back the clock to educate students based on race.
The only fair way to tailor educational plans is to do so based on the individual student, similar to a Special Education individual educational plan. An IEP takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of individual students, regardless of race. Schools do this for General Education students to varying degrees by using differentiated instruction and various interventions.
Absent the racial aspect of the parent group, “racial bias in standardized testing” would not be a discussion topic, a topic demonstrating the self serving nature of a race-based parent group.
By appeasing racial groups, schools can pat themselves on the back, when in fact individual students may still be struggling academically. This racial focus allows schools to tiptoe around the cultural indicators that cut across all races, and the negative outcomes produced by the school’s choice of curriculum, teaching methods and amount of time spent on academic instruction.
Factors such as income level, time spent studying, and value placed on education are not as easy to attribute to “standardized test racial bias.” John Ogbu, the late researcher at UC Berkeley, produced a study, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement, in which he detailed an upscale Cleveland suburb who’s black students fell behind their white counterparts because of their negative attitudes about learning and the lack of time put into their studies.
Predictably, the school wants to create a group for Hispanic parents. Will Asian, Native American, White, and other racial groups get educational consultants dedicated to their racial identity too?
Overall, the public schools are not doing enough to address the academic achievement gap, precisely because they are not designed to do so. Public schools use consultants, endless committees, and public relations specialists to ensure the school looks good whether or not students are learning.
Until parents and taxpayers act like they own education, this deception will continue. One of the aspects of owning education entails demanding that students be treated as individuals, not as members of a racial group.
