State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell shocked many educators this year when he said built-in low expectations for minority students are contributing to the state's persistent achievement gap.
O'Connell convened the first-ever Achievement Gap Summit in Sacramento last week to talk race, education, and failure. KPBS Education Reporter Ana Tintocalis reports.
A couple hundred school administrators, principals and teachers sit in a dimly lit conference room, reading in unison from a large overhead screen.
Attendants : ‘In order to solve these problems, we must eliminate these mindsets and practices…’
They're taking part in a session dealing with the connection between negative racial attitudes and failure.
Researcher Gail Thompson is one of many black scholars here.
Thompson : In California, we have a huge, big, stinky elephant that continues to eat peanuts and grow fat. That elephant is racism. And we tip-toe around it, and pretend like it’s not there, and call it everything but what it is.
A possible connection between racism and failure in schools is not a new idea. But this may be the first time the state's top education official is addressing it in public. For years state educators have said poverty is the biggest influence, but State Superintendent Jack O'Connell says the numbers show something else.
O'Connell : If you look at the data, and if you look at it objectively and intelligently, there is no other conclusion. To say that the achievement gap is exclusively attributable to the socioeconomic position or status of an individual is not an accurate statement.
O'Connell's research compares the test scores of kids who did and did not qualify for the federal free lunch program. It shows poor white kids are still doing better than more affluent black kids.
O'Connell says he doesn't believe the achievement gap means certain races can't learn. Instead he wants educators to take an honest look at themselves and the system and ask if all kids are being treated equally.
Noma LeMonie specializes in tailoring instructional practices to cultural needs. She says teachers often believe white students can handle higher level coursework than black and Latino students.
LeMonie : Generally speaking, blacks aren't found in these areas, and so we act upon different ethnic groups in different ways that maintain these perceptions. It’s institutionalized racism, is another word for it.
LeMoine believes adopting culturally appropriate teaching plans would narrow the state's achievement gap. Researcher Glen Singleton believes black and Latino test scores would soar if students weren't treated with a cultural bias.
Singleton : I was sent off to a white school. Each day my mother had the job of re-grounding me in the culture as I came back home. She had to choose between academic excellence and culture enrichment.
Singleton questions whether educators have the passion to reach and teach kids with whom they have no common culture.
One group of teachers took issue with Singleton's claim. Orange County teacher Tim Roach says teachers like him are neither racist nor culturally insensitive.
Roach : Although I believe all children are equal, I don't think they always believe that they are equal. They bring their own stereotypes in the classroom. Somtimes we'll talk about things like camping. And they'll tell me black people don't go camping, or Latino people don't go camping. And I ask them why not? ‘Well, we've just never done it before.’ Well, that doesn't mean you can't go camping.
Some people use words like crude and arbitrary to describe O'Connell's research. Fullerton English teacher Mary Wilde insists poverty and other cultural factors are the main cause for poor student performance.
Wilde : If a child is hungry, if a child is worried, if the parents are so busy working two jobs just to pay the rent and maybe provide food if they can -- there is no way a child can go home and study for an AP trigonometry exam. It’s not the same playing field at all.
For now most people say they will watch and wait until January -- that's when O'Connell is expected to unveil a comprehensive plan to fix the state's education system. That plan will be based on the conversations that took place at the summit in Sacramento.
Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.
