Without information students will assume the worst about another child, especially if that child is different in any way (black, ESL, autistic, SED, you name it)

I’m reminded of a mom I know whose daughter is in a wheelchair. Her first day of school the mom came in and told the students about her daughter’s handicaps. She did this very artfully and explained how her daughter needed help sometimes, but inside she was the same as them. The students embraced the girl and her disability was never an issue.

The mom told me she had learned from experience that if she didn’t educate the students no one would, and her daughter would suffer for it.

I am sure confidentiality plays a role, but also lack of a cirriculum to discuss race and other differences.

All this is moot, of course, if you establish charter schools which don’t have minorities or the disabled.

I certainly do not see integration as our ultimate goal. After all, a school that appears “integrated” on the surface invariably conceals the vast disparities that exist between its students, largely drawn along racial lines. There’s the automatic assumption that throwing kids from different economic and racial backgrounds together somehow leads to racial and class harmony. There is rarely any mechanism in the school to talk about race or class or difference of any kind. There is no means by which race and racial integration could be discussed or promoted, even questioned. It is simply taken as a given that kids of different races and classes, in close physical proximity to one another, are coexisting openly and peacefully. Unfortunately, whatever racist or classist ideas the kids had formed at an earlier age are too often reinforced in an institution that — ironically — is committed to undoing these kind of beliefs.

So what do you DO about that? I think you do what people have always done when faced with something they find intolerable: work to change it by upholding a vision of something worth fighting for.

For me, one vision worth fighting for is one where public schools foreground the democratic commons, i.e., bring children and parents of different races, classes, and beliefs together to facilitate dialogue and inquiry among them. In the simplest terms, it’s better that we know about each other, that we interact with each other, if only to increase the likelihood that we can undermine (or at least weaken) the crippling stereotypes that cause us to hold each other in suspicion or contempt. If we make no such attempt, we increase the likelihood that these stereotypes and misunderstandings will continue, will worsen with time, and will eventually destroy us.

We have to do more than this. I’m encouraged by the efforts of programs like Anytown and the Dismantling Racism Institute for Educators, both sponsored by The National Conference for Community and Justice.

Through Anytown, a diverse group of youths ages 14 – 18 come together to spend one week working to understand one another, find common ground, form an interdependent community and make friends.

This might actually be the most important work our public schools do. This might be enough. If they do this well enough, perhaps the rest is gravy.

I’d like to offer my experience as a parent of black kids in PPS. My kids attended one mostly white school. Here are some examples of our experiences:

1. My kids were routinely exposed to racism from their fellow students. My daughter was told she was the color of poop. My son was asked if his mother did crack, because that student had heard that is what black moms did. The teachers would act flummoxed about how to deal with these incidents and nothing ever happened. Yes, this was in Portland and the fellow white students had “nice” parents.

2. My kids were often referred to pull-out programs like SMART. Virtually every minority in the school was in SMART. At one point my son was sent to a group for children of divorce. I was confused, because I had an intact marriage. When I asked his teacher why he told me he had “heard” my son came from a “broken” home.

2. My daughter is learning disabled. This school refused us an IEP for years. Teachers kept acting like I was the problem. I was told to read to her more (I used to read to her an hour every night and had her in a Lindamood program as well). I was forced to spend over a grand getting her an official diagnosis before they gave her an IEP. A year after we finally got the IEP they admitted to me they had been wrong all along. During these horrible years I saw the school graciously offer IEPs to white parents of white kids without any fuss.

3.My oldest son hwas referred to TAG every year. And every year the specialist would test him and say he was just a few points shy of passing. Meanwhile every PTA parent who had their kid tested for TAG was qualified.

These are just a few examples. The point is for black kids going to an all-white school is not a wonderful experience at all. I know a black mom whose bright and healthy son was EXPELLED from Opal. His behavior to me doesn’t seem any different than the white boys. He was just singled out as different. And he was a “charity” case.

There are miles of baggage that teachers and adminstrators carry with with them into education. If it wasn’t so, would they stomach school choice?

From my experiences I can tell you that 1) white teachers often assume black kids are trouble and their parents are crappy and 2) black boys in particular are scapegoated and denied the same opportunities.

This is not to say that there are not real differences, often based in poverty. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I see some of my son’s friends embrace this black hoodlum crap because what the heck, this is the message they get. Of all his bright black friends, not a single one is in TAG. Not a single one is being nourished as the outstanding person that he is.

To answer a previous question, I think a lot of these differences would be resolved by ending school “choice” and forcing teachers and parents to learn from each other.

Consider the recent study from the University of California, Berkeley, which shows dramatically reduced brain function in poor children when compared to children from high-income homes. (See Steve’s post on this.)

Now compare this with the fact that low-income minority kids are disproportionately diagnosed with learning disabilities. Much of this can be accounted for by the fact that the diagnostic measures are incompetent, and they often overlook the fact that children who are labeled “learning disabled” actually have a hearing or vision impairment. In other words, if they had been given proper healthcare, they would have been given glasses or hearing aids.

But I’m starting to wonder: what percentage of these kids are actually learning disabled, and how much of that can be attributed to the ravaging effects of poverty? As the new research indicates, living in poverty has an empirically-measurable impact on children’s brains.

This is a social justice issue if we are allowing children to live in these conditions, knowing the kind of deleterious effect it can have.

So now I’m wondering about these studies that show that low-income black kids are reported for more discipline violations.

Much of this can be accounted for by racial bias and by the egregious double standards that you mention, i.e., black kids get punished for things that white kids don’t. But I’m starting to wonder: what percentage of these kids are actual discipline issues independent of racial bias, and how much of that can be attributed to the ravaging effects of poverty? If living in poverty has an empirically-measurable impact on children’s brains, then what impact does it have on behavior?

Personally, when we were at a predominately white school children would get into fights that resulted in injuries requiring medical treatment. Yet no discipline (referral, suspension, etc.) were meted out.

Just like black/latino drivers are disproportionately stopped by police, children are disproportionate issued discipline.

It makes me sad that you question so many things about schools but accept without question that black children are more “disruptive”. How an we engage in a discussion about policy or practice when a “Change agent” accept racist and classist policies/statistics as gospel truth?

There’s a boatload of studies that show that low-income minorities (particularly blacks) are disproportionately subject to disciplinary procedures. One study from the Indiana Education Policy Center concluded, “(D)isproportionate representation of African Americans in office referrals, suspension and expulsion is evidence of a pervasive and systematic bias . . .” So there’s the empirical, quantitative reality of very high numbers (proportionally speaking) of disciplinary actions and the impact that has on public perception.

Another colleague of mine teaches second grade in a low-income, high minority population school here in PPS. He’s a great teacher, but he says he spends a very large percentage of his time managing student behavior. Two of his students are in what he called “emotional crisis.” Yet he’s expected to single-handedly deal with every aspect of these kids’ lives . . . and teach them how to read, write, and do basic math.