A school board in Florida is setting goals based on race.
The school board wants 90% of Asians to read at or above their grade level. (I always have higher standards for comments from Asians too).
The school board wants 88% of white students to read at or above their grade level.
They want 81 percent of Hispanics to read at or above their grade level. (This would make sense if there were language issues).
They want 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level.
Do you think we should expect more from Asians than Blacks?
The school board wants 90% of Asians to read at or above their grade level. (I always have higher standards for comments from Asians too).The school board wants 88% of white students to read at or above their grade level.They want 81 percent of Hispanics to read at or above their grade level. (This would make sense if there were language issues).They want 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level.Here is the link: LinkDo you think we should expect more from Asians than Blacks?
Comments (91)
I think we should expect the same from everyone. the color of your skin has nothing to do with how well you read.
Absolutely.
It is in the interest of the school district to serve all students: rich, poor; white, black, asian, hispanic. The discrepency in the level of academic achievement between different racial demographics is a matter of fact-- and is symptomatic of a number of underlying factors.
Compared to their Caucasian and Asian counterparts, there are social, economic, and cultural factors that tend to more greatly disadvantage African-American kids. It should be up to the school districts to do what they can to mitigate or make up for the factors. All students should be succeeding, and closing the racial statistical gap is only a roadmark towards that goal.
Asians are doing better than Blacks. It's a matter of fact. It is up to the school districts to target the underlying causes. Closing the gap would be a metric for the success of their policies.
Of course not. This is very discouraging to those students. I don't think the school should have set these expectations to begin with.
No, things should not be expected based on race, but majority of people categorize that way anyways.
But I guess if school boards are expecting more from asians, athletics should expect more from blacks! jkjk.
In the end expectations don't mean much unless it's for/on yourself. =]
I've been lowering my expectations from everyone lately.
I work in a high tech field and have several black co-workers. So I tend to think that the idea that blacks can't get good grades and attain high levels of achievement is a bunch of, well, malarkey.
When it comes to cooking, yes.
Sounds like Florida.
Atrocious. Everyone should have the same high standard. Otherwise you're just telling people they aren't good enough.
No. A person's ability to learn is not determined by one's skin tone. I think the school would get better results if the faculty encouraged all students to succeed.
WOW. America is so stupid. I can't even believe this conversation is happening.
.........."While Rome burns"
Its socio-economic circumstances that shape the learning of different races not their races specifically. Ie someone in a better neighbourhood with more opportunities would definitely learn better more than someone from a bad neighbourhood with negative influences. Overall asians tend to strive more economically to provide more for their children and push or pressure their children to attain higher grades.
@randomneuralfirings - "I work in a high tech field and have several black co-workers. So I tend to think that the idea that blacks can't get good grades ..."
Let's be real now. There is a disproportionate representation of Asians and Indians and an under-representation of African-Americans in the tech fields.
The policies of the district isn't denying that there are great black students at the upper edges of their academic bell curve, but that their distribution, as a whole, is skewed lower than they should be.
The median and mean achievements of the black students int he Flordia school district is lower than their Asian and Whtie counterparts. It's a matter of fact. It's absolutely undesirable, and the right thing to do is for the school district to close the gap-- and not denying the problem.
well one would hope that you would encourage all races the same.
The Supreme Court will be ruling on an affirmative action case during the current session. For those interested in this article, follow the SC as that will be right up your alley.
Not when it comes to packages.
That's really just building on stereotype. I think equal expectations is the fair way to go.
@ShimmerBodyCream - I had to LOL at your comment. :)
All generalizations are bad!
I think this is a crucial part of the article: "But the Florida Department of Education said the goals recognize that not every group is starting from the same point and are meant to be ambitious but realistic.
As an example, the percentage of white students scoring at or above grade level (as measured by whether they scored a 3 or higher on the reading FCAT) was 69 percent in 2011-2012, according to the state. For black students, it was 38 percent, and for Hispanics, it was 53 percent."
The title of Dan's post is mis-leading (and is probably intended to stir up drama). The school district is expecting incremental improvement from all students but it recognizes that not all students can meet the same goal in the same period of time (see quote above). To expect ALL students to reach the same goal in the same period of time would actually indicate that the school district expects more from blacks than it does from Asians.
This is a perfectly rational goal setting exercise. I don't know how anyone could see it as anything BUT that. People are just too touchy when it comes to race related issue. The unfortunate truth is that race IS generally a predictor of academic performance.
This is also important: "In addition, State Board of Education Chairwoman Kathleen Shanahan said that setting goals for different subgroups was needed to comply with terms of a waiver that Florida and 32 other states have from some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. These waivers were used to make the states independent from some federal regulations"
Read the article before you comment, folks.
Yup, this is terrible, and you can bet it's going to go a long way in building and corroding the confidence of the students involved. As for ME, I would bet the person that came up with this idea is was some sort of bored sociopath. Honestly... divide the school population based on racial stereotypes.
There's no doubt there's a lot more to race. For example, though this may not be true in this case, it's possible many of the hispanic and black students come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and less educated families, which could create more at-home stress, etc.
It's also true these students don't live in a vacuum. All of them are bombarded, daily, with media messages stereotyping them all. So you can bet many the hispanics and blacks subconsciously expect less of themselves and more of the asians. It's just ridiculous how openly this school is willing to contribute to the problem...
It's a if you can't beat it, join it sort of strategy. It's appalling....
I say we're all individuals, so the hell with the quotas
You Americans are so weird.
The problem I have with this is the implication that the color of one's skin actually plays a role in academic performance.
I wonder if the school districts have done further studies as to whether it's the race or socioeconomic status / living conditions that are better predictors. I don't really care much for the setting of uneven goals based on demographics; what would be better is if the schools assigned more remedial resources TO the affected demographics so they can approach the same levels as the high-performers.
should have same standard for EVERYONE!
Well, let me ask you this, should the pretty people dress in expensive clothing while the ugly wear drapes?