(NAME-MCE) Schools Can't Be Colorblind

[Anselmo Villanueva]

September 16, 2007

Schools Can't Be Colorblind

Los Angeles Times

Sept. 16---If a less-stratified society is desirable, we must be
prepared to design educational programs that explicitly take race into
account, that address African American and Latino students
specifically and that openly recognize that we are not a single
society when it comes to the needs of our children.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-gap16sep16,0,3799936.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail

Schools can't be colorblind

Narrowing the achievement gap in schools requires acknowledging race,
not ignoring it.

September 16, 2007

The achievement gap between African American and Latino students and
their white peers is stark and persistent. It has existed for decades,
and it's growing more pronounced. The data refute what would be
reassuring explanations. The gaps in reading and math test scores are
not due to income disparities, nor are they attributable to parents'
educational levels. The simple fact is that most black and brown
children do not do as well in school as most whites.

The data also show, however, that African American and Latino children
are excelling in schools scattered throughout California and the
nation, suggesting that the achievement gap is not intractable.
Rather, there is a profound disconnect between what we say are high
expectations for children of color and the quality of education
delivered to them in the classroom.

All of which leads to an uncomfortable but important conclusion: If a
less-stratified society is desirable, we must be prepared to design
educational programs that explicitly take race into account, that
address African American and Latino students specifically and that
openly recognize that we are not a single society when it comes to the
needs of our children.

That is not easy, and it runs against America's desire to move beyond
a preoccupation with racial differences. In its last term, the Supreme
Court struck down school integration programs in Seattle and
Louisville, Ky., engaging in legal and moral sophistry to suggest that
race no longer matters. And California Supt. of Public Instruction
Jack O'Connell set off a tremor last month when he called on the
state's schools to help Latino and African American students close the
gap.

The court is wrong and O'Connell is right: Race does matter, and
schools are better off realizing it. Ironically, one of those who
implicitly recognizes that fact is President Bush, whose No Child Left
Behind Act requires states to set the same performance targets for all
students and to report those results by race, among other categories,
revealing the truth of racial disparities in learning.

There was a time when the gap seemed on its way to obsolescence -- a
relic that Brown vs. Board of Education and school integration would
remedy. From 1970 through the late '80s, the gap between blacks and
Latinos and white students narrowed exponentially. Then, in the '90s,
improvement leveled and the gap began to grow.

Assigning causes is difficult, but there are striking examples of
success amid a sea of failure. Why does Ralph J. Bunche Elementary
School in gang-plagued Compton have an Academic Performance Index
score of 866, almost equal to those of elementary schools in Beverly
Hills and higher than many in Santa Monica or Torrance? After all, the
school is 100% minority, and 40% of the students are non-native
English speakers. Why do 81% of the students at Edison Elementary in
Long Beach, where 90% of the students are Latino, 72% of whom are
learning English, score as proficient or above in mathematics?

There are a few answers. In schools that help all children excel, the
focus is squarely on instruction. The "teacher quality gap" runs
almost parallel to the achievement gap. In math and science, for
example, only about half the teachers in schools with 90% or greater
minority enrollments meet minimum requirements to teach those subjects
-- far fewer than in predominantly white schools. Early intervention
in reading is key, as is truly ending "social promotion" -- the
practice of promoting students to the next grade even when their
skills lag behind significantly. And at great schools, teachers and
students talk. They talk about expectations for themselves and for
each other.

Do we honestly believe all children can achieve? Yes, we do. It
therefore follows that strategies tailored to African American and
Latino students must be integrated into the schools they attend. That
requires developing programs based on race and devoting special
resources to minority children, an approach that may offend the
Supreme Court and those who wish for a society in which this is not
needed. To them, we say: It is fair to wish for the day when we may
cease to talk about race; in the meantime, it is inexcusable to ignore it.