Not enough Black or Hispanic students doing well in school? Don’t work to raise their level of educational success, just lower everyone’s standards down. Yep, that’s the ticket.
From an article at manandhome.com, we have this:
Parents in a Massachusetts school district are expressing their dissatisfaction with a decision made to eliminate advanced math classes for middle school students due to noticeable racial disparities within the program.
Cambridge Public Schools observed that a significant majority of students in advanced math tracks were White and Asian, while the lower-level classes were predominantly made up of Black and Latino students. The shift in policy, along with additional complications brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to none of the district’s four middle schools offering Algebra I.
Parents are concerned that the decision will perpetuate inequalities by limiting advanced math to those who can afford private tutors. Jacob Barandes, a parent within the district and a physicist from Harvard, said: “’The students who are able to jump into a higher level math class [in high school] are students from better-resourced backgrounds. They’re shortchanging a significant number of students, overwhelmingly students from less-resourced backgrounds, which is deeply inequitable.”
The school district released a statement. It said: “Cambridge Public Schools is deeply committed to providing a high-quality, rigorous learning experience for all of our students, while also placing a strong focus on addressing the academic achievement and opportunity gaps in our community.”
The statement continued and the district discussed future plans. It said: “We are in the process of developing an equitable plan with great thought and intentionality that establishes a level of mathematics literacy required for full participation and access to opportunities. Three of the seven units covered in Algebra I will be added to the curriculum next year. We look forward to sharing details of this expansion in the near future.”
Translation: Cambridge Public Schools is saying it is harder to raise some students’ performance than it is to lower all students’ standards, so let’s lower the standards and brag about how equitable we are.
But what is Cambridge Public Schools saying in reality?
In reality, Cambridge Public Schools is saying “we aren’t going to try to bring Black and Hispanic students to the academic levels White and Asian students are achieving. So we’ll just assume they are inferior beings who can’t learn as well and, instead, punish the Whites, the Asians…and, let’s not forget, the Blacks and Hispanics who do achieve academically…by eliminating advanced classes.
If you were Black or Hispanic would that make you feel good? Edified? Or that the powers that be in the Cambridge Public School system thinks you are subhuman?
Pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe this academic atrocity.
