Monday, April 17, 2006

No (White) Child Left Behind


States are helping school evade responsibility by hiding the test scores of minority children. What the hell are these people thinking? The whole point of the NCLB is to create an environment of strict accountability, kind of like the real world. (Please argue amongst yourselves as to whether or not you believe this to be the case.) By targeting minority children to be excluded, the schools escape sanctions and minority children may get short changed from the education they need and deserve.
"I can't believe that my child is going through testing just like the person sitting next to him or her and she's not being counted," said Angela Smith, a single mother. Her daughter, Shunta' Winston, was among two dozen black students whose test scores weren't broken out by race at her suburban Kansas City, Mo., high school.

(Nice name for a girl by the way, I'm sure no school yard bully could think of anything mean to say or no bigoted HR person will preemptively exclude her from consideration due to racial stereotypes.)
Am I naive to think it would be a good for the schools, governments and people in general to ignore racial, ethnic and religious differences as much as possible? I can see why the NCLB law wants results broken down by race so that they can make sure that no group is being adversely effected, but it seems like every other day some educational wonk in some position of authority is tinkering with things racial, either for advantage or to CYA.

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