This is what I’m trying to get at. How is there an injustice when the child has failed to learn to begin with? What do you do with a kid who doesn’t “soak” it up? You put them in the LD classes.
I disagree. The reason someone is recommended in a remedial track is because they were doing poorly to begin with. Requesting an honors class when you’re failing English is pushing your luck, black or white.
Because you were black? Or was there anything else going with your schooling that would prompt your placement? They tried to recommend me to such a class around the 7th grade as well (I’m white btw). And I know exactly why I was recommended, and it had nothing to do with class or race. I didn’t do the homework.
Before we go there, are we sure that just because it seems that most black kids are in tracking classes, that it necessarily means racism? What if all the kids in the tracking classes truly sucked academically with zero ambition? Is it still racism? What something looks like, and what it actually is, are two different things.
I dunno. “Most” white kids is a lot of the population. Moving your kid to a private school on the chance that they might get stuck a remedial track? Sounds excessive if you ask me (expensive too). Because if it’s as simple as saying no, as your mother fought for you, I see no reason to make a drastic change to private school. Economic factors perhaps? Just throwin’ it out there.
Good teams? Tell me, were there any black kids on the “good” teams? And if so, do you think it’s because they did well in school, or because their mom said “No”?
I think there’s too many variables to say for certain why the white students are doing one thing, and the black students another after junior high school. There are many factors as to why this is… If all of you say is true, then that is truly sad, and I’m totally against it. And I’m sure it happens, but for the most part, I feel that if you’re in those classes, you’re there because you’re not doing the work.
When I got my master’s in special education, we studied the issue of racial over/underrepresentation. My conclusion was that it was a cultural issue not a racial one.
First of all note that if fewer Anglo students go into special education, then it would appear that the minority students are overrepresented. Up until a few years ago, Anglo students were highly underrepresented since a larger percentage of Anglo (and Asian) parents did not concent to placing students in special education. Then a few years ago, Anglo parents found out that students with learning disabilities received extra time on the SATs. BOOM! The number of Anglo students with LD went up but the number of Asian students (with a home culture that stigmatizes disabilities more than Anglo homes) stayed the same. Meanwhile, in my experience Black parents are very supportive of educational professionals and have an attitude of “What can I do to help.” If the IEP team says “Sign here to put your child in Special Ed.”, the Black parent will more often than not trust the teachers’ judgement.
“BULLCRAP!” other students in my class said and they offered their own theories: socio-economics, racism in the referral process, biased assessments, etc. The fact is that NO ONE knows the reason. Why? Because there are no statistics available for referrals and students that do not meet eligibilty.
Your first step is to get the ethnic breakdown of the referrals. Correlate that to the academic achievement of the subgroups e.g. 80% of the Black students failing were referred but only 15% of the white students failing were referred. Look at the breakdown of the parental approvals. Once you have actual numbers, run a chi-square test to see if the results are unexpected.
Oh by the way
Students have to be deemed eligble for special education (involving many tests) before being put in LD classes. Some schools do ignore the procedure, but that is highly illegal.
I think people are confuding two different things here: special ed classes, which require a lot of testing and such to be put into, and “remedial” classes, placement in which may be arbitrary. Hell, in my school district, non pre-AP courses are not college prep, so a kid that is placed in “regular” English, he is not going to be able to function in a four year school.
For all that we have at-risk kids (minority/low SES) in our AP program–and we havve had some dramatic successes–they are underepresented, and the reasons for this are complex.
Some of it is just the unfortunate side effects of low SES–if you have to work 40 hours a week to help pay family bills (which many of my students do), you have to be a truly extraordinary person to also keep up in advanced classes. If your family has no car, it takes an extraordinary person to be willing to take a 90 minute public bus ride to and from school everyday in order to get there an hour early for tutoing. If your family knows nohing about hte college application process, it takes an extraordinary person to research and figure everything out on your own–like that you need to go to summer school since your 9th grade semester of ESL doesn’t ocunt as English. If there is nobody to care about your grades, encourage or pressure you, or preach the advantages of college, it takes an extraordinary person to push themselves when there is no one else to do so. Do we have people that extraordinary? Absolutely, every year. But at-risk kids are extraordinary at the same rate as any other group, so overall a lower percentage of them succeed–the average kids with advantages make it, while the average at-risk kids don’t.
On the other hand, people make assumptions about people based on preconceptions. Again, extraordinary kids can and do push through these preconceptions and find extraordinary opportunities. Average at-risk kids believe the preconceptions of the people around them and internalize them–just like average advantaged kids do.
No, it was because he didn’t have the required credits. Yes, he had to take English as a second language, but as someone pointed out, he could have picked up the extra semester in summer school. They weren’t deliberately targetting him because he was an immigrant-they were just being honest and saying, “Hey, this doesn’t fit the required credits you need.”
Or he takes a year or so at a community college-so WHAT? A community college is not inferior. I did two years at one and then had enough credits to transfer to my preferred four year school as a sophmore. And I think I did a lot better than if I had gone straight to La Roche after high school.
Provided that a conselor mentioned along the way “Hey, you know, if you want to go to a four year school right out of high school, that one semester of ESL freshman year doesn’t count towards the four years of English they all require. So you’ll need to go to summer school.” If your transcript says “ESL English 9” or something, it isn’t intuitve that that does not count as an English credit.
It is entirely possible no one ever mentioned this to him. If so, the question arises: was it simple incompentence, or incompetence that was more likely to occur because the assumption made by whoever was responsible was that this kid would never consider a four year school right away, so it wasn’t a critical thing to remind them of.
And are California public schools so inflexible that the guidance conselors couldn’t call someone in admissions and wrangle an exception? If he’s been a wealthy kid studying in Paris his sophmore year and was short a semester in English because of a transfer snafu, THEN could someone have called and gotten an exception? Honest to god, if he’s that strong a student, he ought to look at private schools in areas of the country that don’t have large hispanic populations: these schools really want to disversify, and if his college essay focuses on WHY he doens’t have four years of English, techincally, but turns that into a story of triumph, he should have a good shot.
I’d like to add that I’m NOT denying that racism exists, or that students of certain ethnicities aren’t shafted ever. I’m just saying I don’t see how having to take an extra semester of English in order to get the required number of credits to go to a four year school is racist.
Unless they simply said, “You’re out of luck, you’re screwed, there’s no recourse, you’ll never go to college, etc”. I mean, surely he was told of his options (a semester at a community college, summer school, etc).
My point in raising the special ed issue was to use an example of going beyond “The whites are in class X, the blacks are in class Y, ergo this is racism.” and why an apparent over/underrepresentation may not a true indication of what is going on in the school.
Here is another example. For example, my school is located in a predominately white neighborhood. Because of the lack of space in their home school, I have students (Hispanic and black) that commute from downtown. In general, these students do not perform as well as the white students. Is it because of racist policies? Of course not. It’s due to the fact that these students get up 2 hours earlier than their peers and ride the bus 2 hours after school. The Hispanic and black students that live in the neighborhood perform on par with the neighborhood white students. So any program geared to assist studentsat my school will be overrepresented by minority students for completely non-racial reasons.
My main point to the OP was that he needs to get his facts together before claiming racism. He may be right that there are racist policies, but then again he may be wrong. He may even be right for the wrong reasons. What if every student who failed 2 or more classes got referred? This is certainly not a racist policy, but then why are so many minority students failing and so few white students failing . . .
Once he has the facts about referrals, grades, etc., he can establish if the ethnic breakdown of the vocational school is an abberation or not.
On the flip side, did he ever go and get an audit of his courses? The counselors at my high school (in CA) never bothered to go over entry requirements to UC or CSU unless you specifically went up and asked them to.
I understand that it may not have occurred to the young man, but it may simply never had occurred to the counselors to bother to check anyone’s transcripts beyond simply high school graduation requirements, either.
Barring more information, I don’t think it’s racism, so much as unfortunate accident. Of course, as everyone has mentioned, it’s not like the mistake ruined his life or something. This isn’t to deny that lower expecations are often placed on minority students and effort isn’t often made to push these kids to achieve their potential as much as white students - I’m just not convinced this is one of the times.
Possibly, but I highly doubt it. My mother has worked in teaching in CA all of my life (and most of her adult life) and I’ve got three friends in the system now, plus going through it myself, and I’ve never heard of anything like that.
Of course, the kid studying in Paris probably was going to a private school when he came back that held his hand the entire way through the admissions process - audits, essay writing sessions, SAT tutoring, etc.
Agreed. There are schools itching to get kids like this onto their campuses.
In my experience, you can’t assume that. He may not have been told that he needed 4 years of English and that ESL English wasn’t English until sometime in his senior year, when it was too late. That’s garden-variety incompetence for your average conselor’s office. The only question is whether or not that incompetence was exacerbated by the fact that he didn’t look like a four year college kid.
SaintCad , I agree that it’s not that simple, but if you haven’t seen any examples of assumptions being made by your coworkers, conselors, or kids themselves about kids at your school based on race/class–that no one has different sets of expectations for “bus” kids and “neighborhood” kids–then you either work in the most enlightened school in the country–in which case I sincerely envy and admire you, because we wrestle with this problem at my school every day–or you haven’t been paying attention.
Exactly. Hell, a friend of mine had to take summer school after his senior year because they CHANGED the credit requirements for graduation just that year-and suddenly, he was one credit shy. (This was a private Catholic prep school, though, not a public school).
I would argue that part of a counselor’s job should be at least attempting to acertain the after-graduation plan of the students assigned to them, and let them know that such audits are avalible/really important if they want to go to college.
But I agree that there is no way here to know if this is just simple incompetance or if assumptions were made about the kid because of race: it’s the sort of thing you’d have to see if it was a systemic problem.
It may well be that the system is so huge that there simply isn’t any flexibility left. But I know smaller school systems will work to get the kids they want.
I have parents of students who have sent kids through both the public and private systems, based on what their different kids wanted/needed. I’ve been told that the biggest difference, the biggest thing you get for your 14K a year tuition, is that private college counseling by professionals who know the system, know how to match kids with good schools, and were on a first name basis with admissions officers. Our academics are comperable. Our counseling is not.
And this is the sort of thing good counselers would have told this kid. And while his life is not ruined, if he could have gotton a full four year ride to an out of state private school, it’s a shame he’s going to go to JC and then wrack up debt in a public school.
It looks to me like the university admittance requirements may be somewhat racist as well, as they seem to automatically exclude any recent immigrants. If you can pass the entrance exams/SATS/etc., what difference do your paper qualifications make? If you have a good knowlwedge of English, why does it matter that you didn’t acquire it by taking 4 years of local high school courses?
Except that people are put in remedial classes for no reason at all. That’s what happened to me. I was an A/B student, tested above-average on all standardized tests, and was basically a teacher’s dream (not to toot my own horn too much). There was NO REASON for me to have been placed in the remedial track. I was placed in program where many of the students were learning disabled and behavioral problems. I had never made lower than a B.
Perhaps if it happened once, I would chalk it up to a accident. But like I said, the next year the same thing happened. When the schedules arrived for the eighth grade, I was assigned to remedial classes and we had to go through the same dance to get me out. Years later, when I was in college, I would find out that many of my black classmates went through the exact same thing. We weren’t “underachievers” or “bright but lazy”. We all had excellent grades and scores and had done everything we were supposed to do to make it into accelerated programs. But for whatever reason, we were impeded. It wasn’t fair.
But we were bussed to schools where we were the minority. So yes, there is a racial component to this.
I agree. However, I think there is a problem when all the top-tier classes are occupied by white students and all the bottom-rung classes are occupied by minority students. I don’t think this necessarily springs from racism, but I would have to wonder what such a pattern does to the psyche of students, both white and black. If I were in charge of a school, I would try to figure out what’s going on and ensure that kids are being treated fairly when it comes to deciding who takes what classes.
People pull their kids out of public school for lesser reasons. And if you don’t think a lot of white people wouldn’t freak out if Johnny or Suzy was put not only into a “slow” class but one where they were the racial minority, then you’re kinda naive about this issue. I heard a story a few years ago about white parents who were in an outrage because the local high school was changing its name to Martin Luther King Jr. High. They didn’t want their school being mistaken for a “black” school. Maybe their kids wouldn’t get into good colleges, they argued, because the kids would be labeled as inferior.
So yeah, it sounds excessive but it happens.
You’ve missed my point. Pretend you’re a registrar and you’ve got a few slots available for Advanced English. Students not going into this class will be put into Above Average English (not remedial, just not elite). From your experience, the typical white parent will be more adamant about getting their kid into the top-tier class than the typical black parent. You are also aware that a lot of the white parents can and will put their kids into private school if need be (hell, you’ve got your own in private school). Who are you more likely to put into Advanced English when it comes down to the final slot? Jermaine? Or Johnny?
My point is that yes, my mother fought for me. But many minority parents do not do this. Perhaps the system intimidates them and they feel powerless. Or maybe they figure the school knows what it’s doing and that their kid will come out alright regardless. I know there are individual white people who feel the same way, but I think whites as a group feel more a part of the system than minorities do. They historically have.
Not everyone is going to be able to get into whatever class they want. So ultimately, someone is going to be disappointed. If you’re human, you’re more likely to disappoint the person who’s not going to be knocking on your office door, demanding to speak to your supervisor. I’m not an expert or anything, but from what I have gathered in life, white people are much more assertive and persuasive in this kind of matter than black people.
Of course there were black kids on the “good” teams, and I never meant to intimate that there were none. But I do know there were a lot of white kids on the “good” teams who were actually remedial, at least grade-wise. Yet the remedial track had maybe a handful of white kids (all which were poor, by the way, so there was also a class thing involved).
There was appeasement going on. My mother was appeased, sure. But that’s not how class placement should work, correct? A kid shouldn’t have to have a squeaky wheel parent for him or her to get a good education.
Maybe if what had had happened to me HADN’T happened, I’d agree with you. But I dunno…it seems to me from talking to people that it happens a lot. Some kids get the benefit of the doubt (oh, he’s so bright but he’s obviously bored since he’s making such horrible grades…) while others are made to feel inferior for no good reason. I think if I had stayed in a remedial program, I probably would have hated school so much that my grades would have plummeted and then I would have become remedial…a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.
Why is this racial prejudice? . Yes, the counsellors should take some of the blame. But let’s not blame it all on a racism–everybody has to take responsibility for his own personal life. If the kid is brilliant, can’t he ask the 30 kids who sit in his classroom alongside him what they are planning to do after high school? In an advanced calculus class most of his classmates are thinking about college, and talk to each other about the SAT exams. Even naive teenagers know that there are many kinds of colleges, some of which they can afford and some not. A few social conversations with his classmates should be enough to open new horizons for this brilliant kid.
Do some schools still do this so they can raise their "ESL students’ " average grades? This is something I’ve heard about. Students who speak perfect English, but are designated ESL because they will probably get better grades thus raising the average of the “regular” ESL kids. I’ve heard this even goes to such ridiculous lengths such as students born at an overseas military base.
What we are saying is that in our experiences, minority kids are routinely placed in the remedial track based on their race. I’ve seen it happen to people I know.
My high school had to cut their honor program from two periods of honors English to one. Half of the honors kids were dropped from the program. How well do you think the "quiet but bright immigrant kid"s did in this process?
He had no idea. He didn’t find out anything about college requirements until he was a couple years out of high school and saw me heading off to college (and thanks for all the advice, but this situation happened six years ago). The bigger questions are :
Why in a state with a huge immigrant population do their public colleges make policies that exclude or place stumbling blocks in front of immigrants? If they’ve learned enough English to score well on regular high school English classes, why shouldn’t their ESL time count?
Why isn’t anyone giving college advice to ESL kids? In my high school, we had four counselors for 2000+ students. The only kids that got any personal attention were those who were clearly headed to college and actively sought out their counselor’s help (not something an immigrant kid who doens’t know he has rights and doesn’t know that he won’t get his family in trouble for bringing attention to himself will do). Nearly all college planning was done as a part of English class (for some reason). Why is this not being done in ESL classrooms? Why isn’t there routine “transition out of ESL” counseling?
Schools will go out of their way to help bright kids. I’ve seen teachers move mountains to help get bright kids out of our neighborhood and in to college. I’ve seen teachers pay for books and AP tests out of their own pockets. I’ve seen counselors personally set up college tours for students. I’ve seen the rules get bent. But there are a lot of kids nobody even thinks to help. Guess who those kids are. Why is it so easy to overlook bright minority students?
I don’t think it’s a big conspiracy. It’s just a bunch of little things, some laziness, some deep institutional racism and some old creaky systems that add up to make it so that minorities get less from their schools than academically comperable white children. It’s too easy to overlook immigrants. It’s too easy not to think that minorities might want to get more out of their education than a bare minimum. It’s too easy to not realize that there are some very bright kids who happen to be in ESL classes. It’s too easy to make on little tracking decision that determines someone’s whole life without really looking at what is going on. The system keeps working, and when it fails it fails those without a voice. Nobody is going to ask the Mexican mechanic what he could have been. And when he gives his sob story, people are going to shrug their shoulders and mark it up to a tough life.