Texas Ed Spectator

Bush’s double standard on race in schools | csmonitor.com:

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration is supporting the plaintiffs’ arguments that the use of such racial criteria is unconstitutional. It was no doubt delighted to hear Justice Anthony Kennedy say during oral arguments that “characterizing each student by reason of the color of his or her skin should only be, if ever allowed, allowed as a last resort.”

But Bush officials are being inconsistent. They don’t apply that standard to their own public education policies. It’s time they embraced the premise of their own student testing rules – race matters – and support efforts to promote access and diversity in schools.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, is remarkable because it deals with racial issues in a manner at odds with nearly every other policy advocated by the Bush administration – including its current argument to the Supreme Court that school desegregation plans must be “race neutral.” NCLB requires that schools show adequate progress in each of 10 “subgroups” of students. These subgroups include nonracial categories such as disabled, poor, and limited English proficient students, as well as racial and ethnic categories such as blacks, Hispanics, Asians, native Americans, and whites.

So schools are free to say, “sorry, you’re black and don’t have high enough scores to be admitted to this college program” but can penalize a school for not meeting AYP for a sub-group of black students?

I suppose that you can make the argument that these “failures” should have been addressed by the time a student leaves the public school system and that is exactly what NCLB is trying to do. But that does bring up the problem with proposed vouchers solutions, why can a public school lose money because it doesn’t meet accountability standards but a private school can accept vouchers without meeting the same standards?

Then there are the implications for a NCLB system for colleges that is being proposed at both the state and federal level. Will colleges be evaluated on the performance of “sub-groups?” This would probably encourage schools not to make “modifications” or “exceptions” to admission standards so that they can reduce the number of students admitted that would need extra help. (Wow, what would happen to college football and basketball?)

I can see where advocates for minority populations will be outraged and do everything possible to prevent such actions. However, there would be another side to this. What happens when the minority students admitted under “the equal” criteria start failing at a higher rate than the general student population? Wouldn’t that prove that there is something about the college environment that hinders success among these minority students? Wouldn’t schools have to spend more money on these students to prevent them from showing up as a failing sub-group on whatever evaluation system is being used?

It seems to me society recognizes that it is important for our schools to succeed at educating “minority” students given that they will be a majority in a generation or two is some of our largest states, Texas included. But why should colleges and private schools get off the hook at having to admit applicants and avoid struggling “sub-groups” while public schools are punished for failing them? If we acknowledge that it’s essential for society to educate these students then what are we doing to assist schools in this task? How many private schools would be for a voucher system if they had to take any student that applied and potentially loose their ability to have any other students funded if some should fail?

The principled interpretation of NCLB is that race shouldn’t matter, therefore schools will be evaluated to make sure that they succeed at educating all students so we look at racial categories to make sure no group is being ignored. However, if the data show that race still matters in the public schools, why shouldn’t colleges develop programs to help address those deficiencies so that these students can succeed in college? Are we saying that even though we acknowledge that the public schools have failed certain groups that anything done to address that failure outside the public schools is discrimination?

Bush’s double standard on race in schools | csmonitor.com:

Yet NCLB is a tacit admission that race matters. How can the Bush administration force primary and secondary schools to pay specific attention to test scores of students of particular racial groups while arguing that similar racial attention should be illegal for admission to the same public schools being tested? Even conservative opponents of affirmative action have called this approach “schizophrenic” and unprincipled.

Worth a read by some Texas Legislators and State Board of Education Members as well.

An Open Letter to Margaret Spellings and Congress:

“Human history,” said H. G. Wells, is “a race between education and catastrophe.” If we stay the course with No Child Left Behind, catastrophe is a sure bet. You’ll soon be deciding the fate of this well-meant but appallingly simplistic piece of legislation. Continued failure to answer the legitimate questions of those you expect to carry out your mandates will further erode trust in your leadership.

Bush admin. won’t shift Iraq strategy - Yahoo! News:

Rumsfeld, in remarks at the Pentagon, said U.S. government and military officials were working with Iraq to set broad time frames for when Iraqis can take over 16 provinces that are still under the control of U.S. troops. He said officials were not talking about penalizing the Iraqis if they don’t hit certain benchmarks.

I have to admit that I’m having a hard time working through this one. Is it more important to meet benchmarks when lives are at stake and there is no possibility of “catching up” later or making schools meet average yearly progress goals when there is the possibility of saving the “education” life of a student later?

Kerrville Daily Times:

The Texas Education Agency has reversed an earlier rating and given an “academically acceptable” rating to Tivy High School and the Kerrville Independent School District, according to a KISD news release.

This was a case of counting students who were assigned to Tivy High School because they were housed at the Kerr county Juvenile Detention Center.

Kerrville Daily Times:

The school and district were given an unacceptable rating because of completion rates for students housed at the Kerr County Juvenile Detention Center. Several students who didn’t graduate or complete a TEA-approved General Education Development program were from counties outside of Kerr, KISD Superintendent Dan Troxell said at a September board meeting.

It’s even better news for Texas education lobbyists:

Kerrville Daily Times:

In a September board meeting, Troxell told board members that the district had hired a Houston attorney to help Rep. Harvey Hildebran, R-Kerrville, draft legislation to modify the education agency’s system of rating schools and districts.

Don’t you think it’s a problem when an issue like this has to be resolved at the legislature (which meets only every two years to ensure responsive, good government) rather than dealt with sensibly by the district and TEA?