Are minority students being held to the same standard as their peers?

[The Straight Story]

Schools superintendent: Do schools expect the same from all?

Last Update: Feb 6, 2007 6:15 PM


SACRAMENTO (AP) - State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell says schools need to assess whether minority students are being held to the same standards as their peers.

He used his annual State of Education address to talk about the persistent academic achievement gaps between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers.

He questioned whether low expectations are contributing to the gaps and urged a renewed sense of urgency to address them.

But John Affeldt, an attorney with Public Advocates, which has sued the state over several equal education issues, says high standards don't mean if schools don't have the resources to teach them.

http://www.kget.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=b60e522f-7517-4e53-ac98-82848f546d63

[Nay]

1. Judging from the written reports and oral communications I must

see/hear each day, I'd say nobody is being held to much of any kind of standard. I have no idea how some of these "college" graduates got a degree. And don't get me started on high school--it's what grade school used to be.

[fasttense]

2. Just setting high standards is not enough.

You have to have the resources to institute those high standards and that is where we are failing. The no child behind left act gives us standards but not resources. Let's put a few more teachers in the classroom. That's been proven to help failing students. Reducing the number of students per teacher will be a huge benefit.

This is just so republicon, typical magical thinking. Set high standards but don't address how to implement those standards.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. It's not about standards it's about treatment and opportunities.

When I see the Detroit Public School system sitting right next to one of the country's most successful school districts (the Grosse Pointes) and I see the utter lack of dollar commitment to that district it makes me sick. I think John Affeldt is correct. It starts with resources.

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Part of the problem...

is that on the municipal/county level, education is usually funded by property taxes...which means that children in affluent suburbs like Grosse Pointe are going to have better schools than those who live in inner-city Detroit apartment complexes and housing projects. And there's a sort of racist/classist/elitist line of thought that caters to the basest negative stereotypes and says "why should we pay more to educate these children? After all, their parents are pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, thieves, and welfare cheats. Just look at the demographics and crime rates." Which means that inequality is only perpetuated, generation after generation...it's all well and good to talk about people "pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps", but rigging the deck so they get a bad deal from the beginning means not too many will be able to.

[LWolf]

4. I despise Jack O'Connell.

One of the reasons I left California after making the golden state my home for 35 years is the way my profession was treated. Disclaimer: My students' test scores were good. Usually the best at my school site, which, in turn, was usually the best in our district. While I despise high-stakes testing and everything connected to it, and everyone supporting it, it's not because my students weren't learning.

Jack O'Connell wasn't alone, of course. Gray Davis' support for Pete Wilson's high-stakes testing bribe/threat programs didn't help. I wasn't thrilled with Delaine Easton, either. O'Connell was a "hold my nose and try not to gag" vote, because there was no better alternative.

Do schools expect the same from all?

No. Of course not. Schools know better. Schools, educators, and anybody who wanted to educate themselves on the subject know that all kids don't get an equal start in life. They know that the kind of environment that leads to optimal growth and development, to the creation of the neural connections that lead to academic learning later on, starts in the womb, and is most crucial through ages 2 or 3. Long before schools see kids, some factors are set. Factors like neural connections made the first 3 years of life, language development, building prior knowledge, valuing literacy/books/time reading in the home, nutrition, and more.

Do more "minority" kids start behind? Yes. It's not because of their race or ethnicity, though. It's socio-economic class that is the big factor. The fact that too many of some "minorities" come from the under classes is a national shame, and is a reflection of the larger society in America, willing to keep large numbers of people in an underclass that can provide readily available cheap labor and cannon fodder. Frankly, public ed can't, and shouldn't be, the sole, or the primary vehicle for reforming that problem. A living wage, universal health care, adequate affordable housing available...those might be the place to start.

Who are California's "minority" populations, anyway? Is "minority" a code for "race?" One of the great (in my opinion, anyway) things about working in California was the presence of so many different races and ethnicities that there was no clear "majority." At least in the schools I taught in.

Still, California's STAR system and NCLB haven't taught us anything we didn't already know before they were enacted. The greatest predictor of standardized test scores is the socio/economic group the student comes from, or parent ed level. Big surprise. A better predictor than curriculum, instruction, teacher, or anything that school can do. Of course, it's a hell of a lot easier to blame schools for the achievement gap than it is to address the underlying, foundational causes.

Do schools expect the same from all? No. Of course not. All our students aren't the same. Every last one of them is an individual. They aren't standardized factory parts that we assemble.

Do we expect the same from all? We can, in this way: We expect all students to do their best and to make progress. We expect all students to learn. We take them where ever they are when they show up at the door and expect them to, with our help, move forward from that point. Do we expect them all to end up at the same place at the end of the year? No. We know better. They, like all other humans, will be all over the map. Depending on where they came in, what attitudes and study skills they brought with them, what kind of effort they expended, and whether they valued the teaching and learning opportunities offered. Whether or not they were fed regularly, got a good night's sleep, were healthy, happy, and family stress levels were low. Whether they had social skills to help them manage the large crowds in public schools or not. Whether their personal learning style could be addressed in a system designed to handle those large crowds. There are so many factors that affect each student's school experience, and many of them are outside of schools' control. Should we turn a blind eye and pretend they don't exist so that our "expectations" can be scapegoated as the cause of student failure?

Jack O'Connell can kiss my "highly-qualified" ass.