<p>*“Racism Without Racists.” It has been my observation that this is still a critical problem in many communities (white and black) and lies at the heart of our educational dilemma.*O
Our school district even had definitions of racism on its web site, that discussed how “traditional values” like individualism, and using only one version of standard English as a goal, was racist. Not to mention having " a future time orientation" by which I guess they mean “planning for the future”?
They also indentify whites as the agent group from which racism stems, ignoring that Asians both do better in school than white in Seattle, and often earn more money in the workforce. ( of course they may be including all those from teh Indian subcontinent that work at Microsoft)</p>
<p>My daughter attended an “alternative” public school for 6 years, where we saw teachers giving kids slack, because of their perceived difficulities in background ( sometimes their parents who had college degrees, but that was inconcievable to the teachers), the teachers didn’t expect them to want to be n the challenging classes, and their parents actually had to fight with the school to make them available.
I also saw students living down to expectations, when teachers and their parents didnt’ feel they were capable, they were less likely to want to try the more academic coursework, and took advantage that teachers would let them hand in work weeks late.</p>
<p>At her present school, AP and honors classes are open to all who want to try. SHe and several of her friends have been in remedial courses, and AP courses at the same time. She was the only white student in her remedial math class and made many friends who have african origins, however, I have to say that the ones who are also in the AP classes are more often than not, not “african- american”, but canadian-african- Brazilian-African or immigrants from Senegal, or Eritiria.</p>
<p>It is a lot of work to be in the AP classes, and just my careful observation has been that families who resent that AP classes do not have a large percentage of African Americans in them, also seem to think that it is just too much work.
When parents don’t have attendance and performance as a standard, the students aren’t going to have it as a priority either.
I am not saying all students need to have 5 APs tobe working hard, but when parents ( with a college background), havent made sure that their kids have taken the classes they need to graduate, and are angry that the school didn’t continually remind them what was required for graduation- I don’t see that as having education as a priority. If you are a parent with a kid in public school- you have to stay on top of stuff yourself- no body is going to hold your hand whether you are white, black or purple) </p>
<p>I don’t disagree that many students need support to reach high standards, thats why her school has several programs to help minority students reach them- Gear-Up, African American Scholars, AVID, but these programs, particulary the scholars, are considered to be “elitist” by certain very vocal members of the community, which may discourage more families from participating.
Instead of saying" oh this program is racist- lets get rid of it", like when she was at a school that had swimming, how about we make sure that all kids have that skill? Same with high academics, I know these kids are smart enough, how about we have high standards for them so they can know it too?</p>