Posted on 01/29/2004 1:42:03 PM PST by Phantom Lord
Facing challenges at school
RALEIGH--Sometimes the elusive quest for equality gets in the way of meaningful progress for minorities. The latest example is the educational theory of "differentiation" as adopted by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school district. Under differentiation, students of all abilities and socioeconomic backgrounds are taught in the same classroom in order to provide equal access to quality instruction for all. While that sounds great in theory, in practice differentiation has a dark side that impedes achievement and limits opportunity. Consider the scenario that's playing out now.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board voted to eliminate advanced language arts courses next year at two of its middle schools. This comes on top of dropping similar classes for sixth-graders this year, and plans to eventually eliminate all eighth-grade advanced language arts courses. Peculiar moves, given the district's history of being one of the best, if not the best, school systems in North Carolina. Why is Chapel Hill eliminating highly desirable accelerated courses? District officials say advanced courses lead to "tracking," or grouping of students by academic ability, which can lead to high expectations and extra opportunities for gifted students. Conversely, they believe tracking can doom non-gifted pupils to low expectations and exclusion. So instead of teaching high-performing kids in accelerated courses, the board has adopted the one-class size fits all, equality-based theories behind differentiation. Despite the board's best efforts to keep discussion about differentiation focused on academics, the debate has become centered on race. And no wonder. It's hard to miss that the overwhelming majority of students enrolled in advanced courses are white and Asian. This lack of racial diversity caught the attention of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP. It helped convince the board that accelerated classes were creating separate and unequal education caste systems which deny minority students equal educational opportunity. That's a polite way of saying advanced classes are racist. That theory may have been valid back in the bad old days, but this isn't the 1950s. If there's a significant disparity in the number of African-American and Hispanic kids in advanced classes, I'll bet the mortgage it's because of individual ability, accomplishment and preparation. Not race. Chapel Hill-Carrboro is hardly a hotbed of white supremacist ideology. However well meaning, the school board has joined with the NAACP in a racial coverup. Differentiation is a not-so-subtle attempt to blur academic disparities between white and Asian students and their African-American and Hispanic classmates. So-called academic equality is achieved by holding gifted students back instead of lifting up low-performing students. That's why the NAACP's opposition to advanced classes is so disappointing. It would be more courageous and beneficial to ask for a frank and honest assessment detailing why African-American and Hispanic kids are so underrepresented in gifted classes. Political correctness should not prevent the asking of hard questions. For example, why is it our children have equal access to libraries, yet minority kids read fewer books than their white classmates? Why are minority kids among the highest consumers of television? Minority leaders must have the courage to raise these issues within our community, not just push school boards to eliminate accelerated classes. That doesn't narrow the achievement gap. It only accommodates it. Differentiation doesn't provide equal educational opportunity. It just lowers the academic bar and limits our potential. What the minority community needs now more than ever is a new breed of leadership that breaks away from the tired and increasingly irrelevant philosophy that depends on social institutions to solve our problems. We need leaders with the guts to tell us that true affirmative action isn't a government program -- it's reading more to our children. It's taking them to Monticello. It's turning off the television. It's sitting down with teachers and asking what it's going to take to get our kids prepared for advanced courses. Public policies such as differentiation, although well intentioned, ultimately limit minority children. Why should we settle for equality when we can be advanced?
Rick Martinez can be reached at rickjmartinez@mindspring.com
That is exactly what I did with Drew -- and that was back in 1978; at this traditional school, they had rules, and homework, and the parents HAD to participate. We also had no special "help," so if you were LD you had to go back to your home school; want band, back to the homse school. They were self-contained classrooms, too.
When the school started, they gave us the absolute WORST school in the entire city, in the worst neighborhood; the parents redid the whole school with OUR money, furnished the rooms, etc.
Not only that, but we went door to door in the projects, asking the parents to enroll in the lottery so that their kids could WALK to school; no takers; the only blacks that were in the lottery were children of professionals in the western part of the city.
Do I even have to tell you what happened? After the first year, and the scores shot through the roof, beating everything in the state, here came the NAACP, wanting to know why we didn't have enough blacks. When we documented our efforts, that wasn't enough.
So the next year, we had to give a few more places to any and all blacks that wanted to attend. Of course, we STILL didn't have enough black applications from the neighborhood to suit them, so they started demanding other stuff.
First, they wanted us to stop our children from wearing uniforms.
Then they wanted BAND -- but ONLY for the kids from the neighborhood.
Homework, forget about it?
Grade three, I sent Drew to Our Lady of Grace.
Exactly my experience too. In the early elementary years we lived in a district that had an excellent GT program, but when we relocated to Texas things went downhill. The GT program here was not really for "gifted" children. Those children were ignored. The GT program was for the top 25% academically. The regular ed classes were for everybody else. True gifted students only make up about 3% of a student body, but here they call the top 25% gifted.
Exactly what I did - and boy, is it worth it! I got out of the elementary classes in my language (so I didn't have to sit bored to tears in a class with people who HADn't had 6 years of the language already), and I was able to AP out of science altogether (the college did not require any math for non-engineers). That meant I was able to take more courses in my major (history), take a new language just for grins, and take courses that I simply had an interest in out of my department (like four semesters of Classical Archaeology!)
I highly recommend getting all the AP credits you can.
Our school district hasn't had a gifted program for decades. They take the (ludicrous) position that ALL their classes meet the state requirements for gifted education, therefore they don't need a gifted program.
Needless to say, there's a lot of boredom among the brighter kids, and a healthy group of businesses providing after school classes to prep for SAT's, etc.
There is something peculiar going on today though regarding minority education. There was a time when minority students were denied the opportunity for an "equal" education, and the civil rights movement was successful in integrating them into "white" schools, and I guess it was to ensure that they would then get an "equal" if not better education than they got in predominately minority schools. The civil rights movement, at least in North Carolina, seems to be demanding that some students be denied the opportunity for educational advancement. And that is simply astonishing! But the only remedy for parents of students who are going to be denied AP classes because their students are smart and want to excel is to begin a civil rights movement of their own and fight like tigers for their children. Remember, a mind is a terrible thing to waste!
It's all for the children - and some children are more equal than others (namely the stupid).
Ain't that the damn truth!
A proposal by Gov. Rick Perry would give Texas high schools more money when at-risk students pass an algebra test and a standardized state assessment test. The proposal calls for schools to receive an extra $100 for each student passing an end-of-course Algebra I exam. At-risk students who pass the exam will earn $200 for the school. Schools will receive another $100 when students who speak limited English pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test; $200 for each student who receives a commended performance on all sections of the TAKS. About 600,000 students in Texas speak English as a second language.
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