[Mpls] "Unlearning racism, " but not closing the racial learning gap

[Socialist2001 at cs.com]

In a message dated 5/27/2004 10:18:28 AM Central Daylight Time, Ken Jorissen 
writes:

<< Are you contending that racism is the cause? I can see it as a motivating
 factor, but I don't see how racism itself could directly cause "the huge 
racial
 learning gap." Could you please state what you think the direct causes are 
and
 then tie them back to being racially motivated? >>

I am not contending that racism, understood as the belief that one race is 
superior to another, by itself, is the cause of the racial learning gap or 
necessarily the motivating factor for everyone who supports a racist status quo in 
the schools. Maintaining a big racial learning gap, however, helps to 
reinforce the belief that one race is superior to another. 

On the other hand, I have heard people say they are not racist or are racists 
unlearning racism who also say that the racial learning gap is a reflection 
average differences in academic ability between races, and that there is not 
much that the schools can do about it. And if you don't think something can be 
done, why waste the time and effort trying? That's just a matter of being 
"realistic." That was the basic idea expressed in nearly all of the 
letters-to-the-editor that I saw in the Star-Tribune in the fall of 1997 concerning a 
proposal by the state board of education that would have required schools to monitor 
the racial learning gap and to come up with plans to close that gap. A 
majority of the legislators were so outraged by that proposal, and by those paragons 
of political correctness on the state board of education that they voted to 
abolish the state board of education.   

[Doug Mann] Is it just a coincidence that the racial learning gap has 
steadily widened since the 1980s?   

Ken Jorissen writes: "I don't know, is it? Can you have please cite evidence 
to support the statement made in this rhetorical question? One step back: are 
you stating that the
school reforms of the Reagan-Bush administration caused the racial learning 
gap to widen? Can you point to any specific policies that would have caused 
this?"

In my post I cited a conclusion made by a team from the Sandia National 
Laboratories that was commissioned by the first Bush administration (1989-1993) to 
analyze educational data from the 1970s and 80s. (The Sandia Report). For 
example the difference between black and white 13 year olds in average math and 
reading scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress exams between 
black and white 13 year olds declined from 1971 until the mid-to-late 1980s.

Because the federal government has required school districts to monitor the 
racial test score gap since the late 1960s, everybody that was paying attention 
back in the early 1980s knew that progress had been made toward the goal of 
closing the racial learning gap. A Nation at Risk (A 1983 report by experts 
selected by the Reagan Bush administration concerning the status of the public 
school system) warned of "a rising tide of mediocrity." In other words, to a 
significant degree, the test score gap was being closed at the expense of high 
achievers. However, no evidence was offered to back up that contention.  The 
Sandia report not only concluded that the test score gap was being closed during 
the 1970s and 80s, it also found no evidence of a rising tide of mediocrity.

The "reforms" undertaken by the administrations of Reagan and Bush the elder, 
and continued by Clinton and G.W. Bush are based on the false premise that 
the gap was being closed at the expense of high achievers during the 1970s and 
early 80s. The nature of the reforms can be judged by the fruit that they bare. 

The education reform agendas of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush include the 
promotion of ability-grouping and curriculum tracking, which produces a bigger 
test score gap. Supporters of the ability-grouping model generally say that 
ability-grouping practices help the 'high ability' learners more than the 
'low-ability' learners, but usually do not produce inferior results for the 
designated low-ability learners than other approaches to teaching. Many educators 
disagree. I recommend a book on this subject entitled "Keeping Track: How schools 
structure inequality" by Jeannie Oakes, which "...shows how tracking -- the 
system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability -- reflects 
the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate 
them. Keeping Track was selected as one of the ten "MUST READ" books of 1985 
by the American School Board Journal. (from the book cover). 

There is evidence that teacher expertise matters a lot, and that differences 
in average test scores between schools and academic tracks might be explained, 
to a large degree, as a reflection of differences in the average level of 
teacher expertise between schools and academic tracks. "In an analysis of 900 
Texas school districts, Ronald Ferguson found that teachers' expertise-as 
measured by scores on a licensing examination, master's degrees, & 
experience-accounted for about 40% of the measured variance in students' reading and mathematics 
achievement at grades 1 through 11..." -Nov. 1997 "Doing What matters Most: 
Investing in Quality Teaching,"  by Linda Darling-Hammond,  Prepared for the 
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. 

In my opinion, progress toward closing the racial learning gap during the 
1970s was, 
to a large degree, a byproduct of the implementation of school desegregation 
plans following the US Supreme Court decision in Green v. County School Board 
of New Kent County, 391 US 430 (1968) 

"...The Green case challenged 'freedom of choice' plans that had been 
implemented by school districts throughout the South. Such plans gave [a limited 
number of] students the option of transferring from a black to a white school...In 
Green, the Supreme Court ruled that schools must dismantle "root and branch" 
and that desegregation must be achieved with respect to facilities, staff, 
faculty, extracurricular activities, and transportation. Subsequently, courts 
used these 'Green factors' as a guide in crafting desegregation plans." -- 
Dismantling Desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education, by 
Gary Orfield, Susan E. Eaton and The Harvard Project on School Desegregation, 
page xxi - xxii

-Doug Mann, King Field
Minneapolis School Board candidate