Public education: Too heavy on race?

I am about to share a couple of recent incidents or observations.  I am not a scholar in the area of race or education, although I do have a teaching certificate.  I am simply a concerned parent, former teacher, and community member.  I might put my foot in my mouth.  Maybe both feet.  Talking about race is like taking a walk at a dog park.  At some point, I'll step in it.  I apologize in advance if I offend anyone, but I think this discussion is needed. 

Recently, I attended a School Site Council meeting.  Most of the attendees were white or Asian.  There was one African-American student representative sitting with us.  They did not say much during the meeting, except when asked to provide an update.  During the meeting, the principal pulled out some data broken down by race, and spent some time commenting on those groups with the lowest scores, citing them by race.  Another parent commented that the purpose of the council was to address the "achievement gap."  

I sat there, stunned, when I realized how wrong this was, that we were describing specific races of children as not "achieving", while a student of one of those groups was present!  In fact, the student sat within just a couple of feet from the principal as she read the data aloud.  Heck, we should have just handed the data over to that student and had them read it!  Nice.  Really nice. 

It doesn't matter if this particular student who sat with us at this table had straight A's.   To me, there was something fundamentally wrong with having this discussion and it took seeing the principal and student side by side for me to see it.    I felt like I was complicit in something that could only be hurtful.  That night, I sent off an email to our school board telling them to give some thought to this situation.  No response.  A couple of months ago, I had shared with the board how important it was to have all student populations represented on the SSC.  Now I have to wonder what this might actually be like for some parents and children if this is the kind of discussion taking place.  

At last week's WCCUSD board meeting, the target scores for the LCAP were presented.  President Charles Ramsey (who is African-American) asked why the targets for African-Americans were so low.  He went on to share how well is daughters are doing in school, with their much higher scores.  These board meetings are a very public process, not that doing this behind closed doors makes it any better.   We are broadcasting to the world that certain races, as a group, are not "achieving."  The focus is on race.  I'm so glad President Ramsey spoke up!  There are some other things he said that night that I take issue with, but that's not what this is about.   We have set the bar low and we are being very very public about it!  

With African-Americans, Dr. Harter (our sandy haired blue-eyed Caucasian Superintendent) also lumped in Latinos in his presentation.  Why not just focus on English language learners, irrespective of race?  My American-born Indian wife comes from a household where English was not the primary language.  To this day, my wife mispronounces words that she learned by reading in books, not by hearing them at home.  Focusing on the situation, not the race, is much healthier for all.  A side note: recently, an Asian co-worker told me that my daughter will do well in math because her mom is Indian.  I tried to tell this co-worker that my Italian father is very good in math, but this co-worker brushed my comment aside as an anomaly.   

Currently, educators are telling groups of parents and children that they are part of a group that is not achieving.  How can that be good?  If this is a race, with some common goal/finish line, we are most likely crushing the motivational spirit of these children.  What ever happened to "You can do it!"  The irony is that the WCCUSD is in no position to talk about "achievement gaps" when there is a very clear "Teaching gap" as evidenced by larges class size, teacher turnover, inequitable distribution of inexperienced teachers, etc.   This I personally witnessed when I taught.  If you didn't have a strong support system at home, you were at a huge disadvantage in this district, although teachers sure do try their best to compensate.  

We say these children are not "achieving" when the reality is that they may simply be an indicator of all that is wrong with our public education system.  What I am seeing is that those who are succeeding are those who have parents who can sit by their side while they do their homework.  In fact, a physician who lives in Marin County (Kentfield) is very upset at what our schools (even in Kentfield) are doing to her kids.  They are up past midnight, stressing out, trying to get those high scores because scores mean everything.  The mean the child has ACHIEVED!  These "successful" kids have the support and they are up past midnight, stressing out?   The physician asked "What are the schools not getting accomplished during the class day that so much has to be done into the late hours of the night?  Good question.

All I ask is that at the very least, we show some sensitivity when discussing such issues, that we think about the consequences of our words, words that fall upon the ears of those we truly want to succeed.  

There are many articles on the topic.  For starters, I found this one worth reading. 
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/356.pitts/stereotype_threat_