Thursday, September 24, 2009

Ending white racism in America's public schools

Question: When statistics show that eleven percent of students in a given school district in America account for thirty six percent of all suspensions in said district, what is to be done about it? Well, I guess you need to know more.

Okay, blacks account for seven percent of all students in the district in question, while they account for sixteen plus percent of all student suspensions. Native Americans make up only four percent of the student body yet they account for twenty percent of all student suspensions in the district. Still need more information? The majority of teachers in the district are white. And we all know that white people are racists whether we want to be or not. Yes, that includes all you high falutin leftier-than-thou liberal white educators. Also, as with tests and curriculum (not to mention educational methodology) designed to favor whites, so are school rules designed to favor white students over minority students. Therefore it's a reasonable assumption to make that suspendable offenses in this particular district include, but are not necessarily limited to, behaviors that white students generally do not engage in, while certain ethnic minority students have a higher tendency to do. Indeed, it's probably safe to say that these kinds of offenses comprise the bulk of suspendable offenses in this particular school district. You know, minor things like, say, carrying a gun to school, selling drugs on campus, threatening and/or attacking members of the faculty, defacing school property, gang related activities -- stuff like that. Couple that fact with the other factors aforementioned, and, well, you begin to grasp the nature of the problem that's causing this disparity in the numbers of minority suspensions vs. white suspensions -- white racism. Now that you know the nature of the problem, how do you address it?

I have an idea. It's a lot different than the plan our school district has put into place, and a lot simpler too -- school segregation.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would suggest school choice, myself. True, it is unarguably the case that there will be some schools which then become effectively segregated, but this segregation will be a matter of choice rather than compulsion. And those who choose to attend a "diverse" school will not have to deal with those who would rather not do so.