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Lisa Lee

The Children in Room E4 - Race Based Academic Goals - 14 views

started by Lisa Lee on 15 Feb 13
  • Lisa Lee
    #1 Lisa Lee on 15 Feb 13
     
    The Children in Room E4 tracks the Sheff v. O'Neill lawsuit of 1989. Civil rights lawyers argued that students from urban neighborhoods were being systematically disadvantaged by the education system compared to students from more affluent, suburban districts. The racial and economic segregation between urban and suburban districts denied urban students the basic right to an education. In his opening statement, John Brittain compared the disparities and racial segregation between urban Hartford and white suburban schools to South African apartheid.

    Along the same lines, Florida passed a plan in October 2012 to adjust academic goals according to students' race. Proponents of the plan assert that "not every group is starting from the same point and [goals] are meant to be ambitious but realistic" while opponents argue that "dumb[ing] down the expectations for one group, that seems a little unfair."

    http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/florida-passes-plan-for-racially-based-academic-goals/
  • Alexa Rose
    #4 Alexa Rose on 21 Feb 13
     
    While I understand the reasoning behind the argument of racially based academic goals, this is not beneficial to anyone. Holding black students to lower standards is doing nothing to help them advance. If you know you only need to get a certain grade on something, you're going to try to get that grade and not much more. In reading a lot of the comments on that post, it seemed like many of the people thought that blacks were making themselves a minority and didn't want to come off "too white" and that this was keeping their children from succeeding. I think that's absolutely crazy. I believe that parents want the best for their children and I know I would outraged if I knew my child had lower standards than someone of another race. I think the focus needs to move from test scores to resources. If politicians tried to even out resources, then the test scores would raise themselves. All of these children have the ability to learn, they just need the resources to be able to do so. Changing the goals tries to recognize that students come from different background but don't take into account the resources that these schools receive.
  • kmckay013
    #5 kmckay013 on 21 Feb 13
     
    I also found this article appalling and the fact that this is actually going to be implemented in our Florida education system is very saddening. While I was taken aback by this, I found myself trying to understand why the Florida State Board of Education thought this would be a good idea. By lowering the standards for groups of students lumped together by a very non-specific margin, they are also lowering society's expectations for non-white/non-Asians and the students themselves. Minority students who become aware of the lowered expectations educators' have for them will in turn decide not to work as hard because they don't need to and therefore, continually under-perform in comparison to their Asian and white peers. While I understand that they feel the need to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, instead of lowering the standards for the students, they should work harder to give students the best quality of education. However, even this could be problematic considering there would most likely have to be more reforms that focus solely on passing the FCAT. All in all, this new plan will prove to cause more issues than solve. To fix the education system, we need to reinvent it from scratch and go to the root of these issues instead of continually trying to amend the system we have without success.
  • Lauren Tripp
    #6 Lauren Tripp on 26 Feb 13
     
    Looks like Virginia passed a similar policy, and this is Jeb Bush's response to it: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/24/school-expectations-should-be-colorblind/

    While I don't agree that Florida "A-F" school rankings are a fix for these problems, I do agree with his main point: differentiating goals/standards by race just perpetuates the achievement gap that we already have.

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