Check out this letter from my daughter's school (you're gonna shit!)

[Catch22Dem]

Dear Parents,
Due to changes taking place at the federal level and the requirements of more precision in record keeping we are in the process of updating our student records to better meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind and State testing requirements. For instance, Federal guidelines specifically state rhere will not be a "Multiracial" or "Multiethnic" option as a separate response category.

As a start, we have reclassified all students who were enrolled with an ethnic code of "Other" to "Caucasian". This includes your child Bailey. No action is necessary if you are satisfied with this designation. However, if the designation is incorrect, please check one of the boxes below to indicate the appropriate ethnic category and print your child's name in the space provided.

• Hispanic


• African American


• Asian


• Native American

---

I find this rather odd. First of all, I don't remember putting "other" but maybe I did. Sometimes I do that to be an asshole, but usually on something of my own. I'm usually honest if it's my daughter's because I figure she deserves to become an asshole on her own. ;)

Also FOR THE RECORD, I typed the letter exactly as it was written. DU grammarians, such as me, will be absolutely mortified a letter this poorly written came from a school. It's a shame, isn't it?

[davidinalameda]

1. something's smelly here

that's just not right

why not change them all to African-American or Hispanic?

[Senior citizen]

2. Could have been worse

Like Aryan or Non-Aryan, which were the only choices in Germany's bad days.

[Catch22Dem]

7. True

Welcome to DU too! :toast:

[VelmaD]

3. Someone needs to explain to them...

that their list of categories is not mutually exclusive. One can be Caucasian and Hispanic. One can be African-American and Hispanic. And someone whose parents come from too different ethnic backgrounds should not be forced to choose like this.

Frankly I'm thinking this is bullshit.

[qwertyMike]

4. First sentence requires work

only one split infinitve though.

As to the implications - I don't know. Confusing to this Canadian.

[Catch22Dem]

9. Couple of others...

Period always inside quotes. No need to capitalize "Federal" and several other words. Just shoddy.

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. Period *always* inside the quotes is a misnomer

perhaps a holdover from the elementary school days, when the only timeone used quotes was in quoting speech, in which case the punctuation does go inside. But if the quotes are not quoting a quote, and are instead marking a term, then the punctuation can go outside (which I think looks a lot better and makes more sense).

[JohnLocke]

42. "State" isn't capitalized, either.

[NYC]

5. What's wrong with multiracial?

Suppose you are exactly half and half?

[Endangered Specie]

6. Ive been tempted to write in:

European-American on occasion. ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Germany 1934

this is what this reminds off

One good thing, we may finally get rid of this BS about racial
classification when this is over.

[kimchi]

10. Well, it might save her ass one day, the way things are going!

My daughter will have an easy time; she's half Asian and half Caucasian with a pinch of Cherokee. I guess that makes her a Cauc-Asian.

(pathetic attempt at humor)

By the way, you might one to tell them that lumping all "others" into "Caucasian" is not more precise, it is less precise. What idiots.

[Lex]

11. WHAT federal guidelines are they talking about?

.
If I were you, I'd ask them to provide you the cite for the "federal guidelines" that "specifically state" such things.

If they can't do that, then something is just wrong here.

[prolesunited]

12. I agree with you

I never have heard of such a thing and then to automatically put people in the white column. Something seems fishy here and I think they are trying to play a game with their numbers.

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Well, if it's a significant majority caucasian school, it makes sense

just in terms of efficiency. Put all the "others" into "caucasian", which is where they'd likely need to be anyway, and then the only people you have to deal with are the ones for whom that's wrong.

The engineer in me appreciates the efficiency.

If it's not a majority caucasian school, though, it doesn't make sense.

[Catch22Dem]

25. Yes, very caucasian school n/t

[Beware the Beast Man]

13. Was this on school letterhead??

The reason I ask is because this looks and sounds like a hoax mailing, bad punctuation and all. It kind of reminds me of those Dark Profits hoaxes that go around.

[Catch22Dem]

16. School letterhead...came with her report card today. n/t

No hoax here.

[Kat45]

14. Any of today's regulations, coming from bush/asscroft, = stupid

So in a way it doesn't surprise me; everything they do is half-assed or asinine.

[Blue-Jay]

15. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read.

[arikara]

28. Your pictures are so funny!

:D

[AspenRose]

17. THIS PISSES ME OFF

:mad:

Why why WHY should children be forced to align with ONE parent's identity and IGNORE the other parent's identity? They're BOTH, dammit! And YES it's political, why they do this crap! Demographic musical chairs!

:nuke:


FIGHT THE POWER! Multiracial Activist
http://www.multiracial.com/

[HornBuckler]

18. Why Should Anyone Be Anything?

I Guess Gender Classification, But Even Then - Who Cares? Are We Not Men - We Are DEVO

What A Mess

[TrogL]

19. Fax it to the ACLU

They'll get a laugh out of it if nothing else.

[Rabrrrrrr]

20. These racial things piss me off

In seminary, i always classified myself as "human" on our forms. In other places, I've also written in "human".

Except in the last census I was a "native hawaiian". I figured they needed more representation.

[Book Lover]

23. I have done the same thing

When I applied to UC Berkeley's grad English program, I classified myself as Other: (fill in the blank) Human, which apparently made an impression because when I called to check on my application, both times the person on the other end said something like, "Oh, you're the human." Frankly, I would have thought there'd be more wags applying to Berkeley, but what do I know...

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. LOL

That's good - "Oh, you're the human"

:-)

[mosin]

32. Heh

"Oh, you're the human."

:toast:

I'm going to have to remember that one.

[truthspeaker]

26. so, what if the child IS multiracial?

They had the same problem with the 2000 census. You should be able to check more than one box.

[MissMarple]

27. "The other" is a concept we have to separate ourselves into us and them.

This is just too weird. Apologies to the truly weird. Perhaps bizarre is a better term.

[sundog]

29. jesus, at this point in the game, everyone on the planet is "other"

is there any human left that is a "pure blood" -- I hope not, I'm sure not...

[AspenRose]

30. If it's voluntary information on employment forms

then why can't it be voluntary information for schools? Clinton was the one who fought to put the multiracial categories on the 2000 census....and now BushCo with their idiotic No Child Left a Chance wants to revert?!

"What are you?" they ask. "What are you?"

WHAT AM I?

I'm your worst legal nightmare, and you better hope you NEVER encounter me. Don't tell ME which parental ethnicity to associate with.

Prehistoric Nazis. I swear, whatever social progress was made with Clinton has been reversed at least 30-40 years with *.

:mad: :argh: :grr: :nuke: :spank:

[BiggJawn]

31. What if you're a "Pacific Islander" or "Innuit"?

Sounds like the school is a little short on Caucasians, so they're hoping most parents will blow the request off and not respond.

[Catch22Dem]

39. Not exactly

The school is short on everything BUT caucasians. Caucasians make up over 95% of the student body...guaranteed!

[BiggJawn]

43. Well, there's that other 5%...

gotta have a nice round number...<sarcasm>

I just hope the guy who draws "Mallard Fillmore" doesn't find pout about this, he'll have material for a month...

[starroute]

33. This is not at all what I'm finding online

I just Googled --"no child left behind" multiracial-- and found a bunch of school sites with guidelines like this:

Schools must show improvement each year. This is called adequate yearly progress. . . . In order to be counted as part of AYP, a school must have at least 40 students in a subgroup. The subgroups identified by NCLB are
• Race (American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic, Multiracial, White)
• Disability
• Limited English Speaking
• Socioeconomic status

http://www.fultonschools.org/nclb_overview.asp


It seems like someone in your school district is very badly confused.

[AwakeAtLast]

34. This is why they sent this letter

The "No Child Left Behind" Act measures many things, and failure to meet up to standards means that the school has failed to make "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP). NCLB will put a school on the "Failure to meet AYP" list if attendance for testing is not above 95%. The requirement counts for total population and sub-groups. So if there are two African-American students in your school, and one does not show up on test day, your school is placed on the list. This does not mean that the student did not pass the test, he/she was just absent that day. This attendance requirement
is written into the bill that way, forcing schools to conform to the criteria for sub-groups. Your school must categorize every student so that when test time comes, they know the break down of sub-groups according to the law.

Education reform at its finest. x(

[Rabrrrrrr]

45. So then it behooves a school to reduce the number of classifications

to avoid any possibility of ending up with a small subgroup potentially derailing their rating.

So at this school, where they leave out multiracial and some other things, they're able to basically force every one into the four major groups.

Sounds like this school is trying to cover it's ass since it's so majority white, trying to get those 5% who aren't white into groups as large as possible.

Ah, I love the government. They always due what is best for people, and especially when the feds get involved in education, the children always win. God bless 'em!

[nickgutierrez]

35. Um... *raises hand*

What if you actually are multiracial?

[AwakeAtLast]

36. Good question!

This law is so long, even an educator like myself still does not understand all of the twists and turns we have to navigate. I heard a colleague the other day say, "What exactly is AYP?"

The previous paragraph is a verbose way of saying, "I don't know."

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

46. Uh... my guess is...

...you get classified as the <kkk>"dirty"</kkk> part in the mix. Hence, children of a Caucasian and an Asian (sp?) become "Asian".

Please tell me there's an implication OTHER than that.

[SoCalDem]

37. You might write a surly letter to the school board and enclose this

[RebelOne]

38. Well, as to grammar

It started off grammatically incorrect in the first sentence. A sentence should never begin with Due to. It should have been Because of. Lots more errors that I won't go into. Unbelievable that this came from a school.

[Catch22Dem]

40. Yup

Bugs the hell out of me. I mean, everyone makes mistakes. My posts are surely full of mistakes, but if I was sending a letter of behalf of a school, I'd be damned sure to have a reference at my site to make sure I got everything correct!

[Ganja Ninja]

41. The classifications are kind of puzzling.

African American and Native American but not Hispanic American or Asian Americans?

But then again why ask the race question at all?

[LWolf]

44. Federal requirements:

I haven't heard anything about doing away with "other" from my administration. But, as post # 34 pointed out, your school's test scores are broken down into "subgroups." A school whose overall scores meet the AYP is still a "failing" school if one of your subgroups does not meet the improvement goal.

The school is probably "reclassifying" to fit the groups required by NCLB. If NCLB doesn't have an "other" subgroup, they have to put the scores in a required group.

Putting all the "others" into the caucasion group might be for the sake of efficiency, if most of the school is caucasion. It might also slip some kids into the subgroup most likely to make AYP, rather than the subgroups that typically trigger the "failing" label.