Texas Ed Spectator

I don’t know what to think about this.

School separates races for TAKS talk | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle:

Administrators at a Katy school are facing criticism from parents after holding separate assemblies for black, white and Hispanic students to address low scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test.

The assemblies at Mayde Creek High were held for ninth- and 10th-grade students of different ethnicities to discuss steps to boost scores on the state-required test, said district spokesman Steve Stanford. He said only students at risk because of their scores were called to the meetings, and that no negative message was intended.

Ultimately, he has a point.

School separates races for TAKS talk | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle:

Stanford said students were segregated because that’s how the state looks at and reports achievement.

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.

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | News: Local News:

A former Preston Hollow Elementary School teacher says she was fired for fighting racial segregation at the school.Graciela McKay filed a federal lawsuit Friday alleging that school officials retaliated against her for speaking out about discriminatory practices at the school.

The suit comes nearly a month after U.S. District Court Judge Sam A. Lindsay ruled that the school’s principal, Teresa Parker, used English as a Second Language classes to segregate many black and Hispanic students from white students.

So was McKay just following orders to keep her job?

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | News: Local News:

Ms. McKay, who is Hispanic, did not testify during the federal trial, said Carlos Becerra, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who represented the Hispanic parents in their segregation lawsuit.But Mr. Becerra said Ms. McKay sympathized with the Hispanic parents and allegedly gave them a copy of an e-mail saying that the Preston Hollow PTA planned to make a promotional brochure that excluded Hispanic and African-American students.

What’s interesting is that McKay’s lawsuit includes the PTA and certain members. Maybe there was too much parental influence? Regardless of how this turns, whenever I hear the following statement, I’m automatically suspicious:

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | News: Local News:

Mr. Ronquillo said Ms. McKay was not fired, but rather her contract was not renewed.

This is supposed to make it sound like the district hasn’t taken any negative action against the individual? For some apparently unrelated reason, we just decided not to renew her contract? Why do you think contracts have to be renewed annually if not to avoid having to fire people?

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Education Columnist Scott Parks:

For those who abhor injustice, Judge Lindsay’s spine-tingling narrative is comparable to the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. But the judge’s writing is nonfiction. And it should be required reading for every principal and administrator in Dallas Independent School District.

Here is what he found after a trial that pitted Hispanic parents against DISD and Teresa Parker, the Preston Hollow principal.

To appease wealthy white parents who live near the school, Ms. Parker regularly grouped their children together in adjoining classrooms. In another part of the school, Hispanic and black children were put together.

This class-based – and to a large extent, race-based –assignment scheme was designed to make white parents feel better about sending their children to a DISD school that is 66 percent Hispanic, 18 percent white, 14 percent black and 2 percent Asian.

“In reserving classrooms for Anglo students, Principal Parker was, in effect, operating at taxpayer expense a private school for Anglo children within a public school that was predominantly minority,” Judge Lindsay wrote.

How depressing. Why bother with vouchers when you can have segregation?