Posted on 07/06/2002 2:38:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
As the NAACP opens its national convention in Houston on Sunday, 11 states have not submitted action plans demanded by the civil rights organization to fight the stubborn academic disparities that persist between white and minority students in public schools.
But NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume said he's willing to use a little "tough love" to force cooperation, especially in those states with large minority populations.
"We would prefer constructive negotiation and achievement as opposed to all-out political warfare," said Mfume, whose organization is seeking a federal civil rights investigation of three states. "But we leave that as an option on the table, and we will prepare to negotiate with these states."
The civil rights group in November challenged each state to produce a five-year plan to dramatically reduce the academic performance gap, as well as racial disparities in public schools ranging from discipline rates to placement in special education. But only 28 states, including Texas, met the organization's May 10 deadline with either a plan or a pledge to work with the NAACP.
Eleven more states came to the table when Mfume called a news conference and threatened to file civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education against those that had not responded to the challenge.
"No state wants to be investigated or found on the wrong side of an issue," said NAACP education director John Jackson. "We began to receive the phone calls, the faxes and all the rest."
To date, 39 states have submitted plans to deal with the disparities. Texas Education Commissioner Felipe Alanis pledged his agency's cooperation in a letter dated May 9, also stressing gains Texas' minority students have made on standardized tests in recent years.
Critics charge that Texas' education reform efforts have been too dependent on standardized testing. But Alanis wrote in his letter to the NAACP that performance on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test has increased 38.3 percent in the past seven years for black students, 34.4 percent for Hispanic students and 34.6 percent for economically disadvantaged students.
But the improvements have not yet closed the gap in Texas. For 2001, 90.3 percent of white students passed the TAAS test -- while 71.6 percent of black students and 75.5 percent of Hispanic students passed.
Educators and sociologists do not agree on a single reason for the academic gap, but most tend to believe that the socioeconomic differences that still exist between a majority of black, Hispanic and white students are key.
Some school districts, as in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, have made impressive progress toward narrowing the achievement gap.
In other districts, administrators and faculty are being pressured to increase the numbers of minority students enrolled in the kind of advanced courses that prepare students for college admission and scholarships. While the percentage of black students enrolled in Texas schools has remained constant for the past decade, the number of black students enrolled in "gifted and talented" programs has grown by 69 percent, Alanis said.
Critics say that discrepancies in discipline between black and white students and even the disproportionate numbers of black students labeled as needing "special education" in many districts point to different expectations communicated to minorities, and also point to outright racism.
NAACP officials say they are preparing to file federal civil rights complaints with the Department of Education against Florida, Louisiana and Ohio. The organization is targeting those states for both their large minority populations and for what the NAACP calls the recalcitrance of state officials in responding to the call for education equity.
At stake are millions of dollars in federal funding provided to states and school districts for low-income students -- funds that can be withheld for non-compliance with civil rights laws.
But the gap in academic achievement is not a problem limited to three states. It persists nationwide, even after decades of court-ordered desegregation designed to achieve education equity.
In 2000, the most recent testing results available from the National Assessment of Education Progress, 74 percent of white students met the "basic achievement" standard in 12th-grade mathematics, while only 31 percent of black students met basic achievement levels.
The NAACP has clearly shifted its focus to dealing with the gap as the largest civil rights problem in education today.
"In terms of publicity and public pressure, (the NAACP is) quite capable of exerting a lot of pressure and making people feel uncomfortable," said David Bositis, a researcher for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that specializes on issues of interest to black Americans.
"But nothing having to do with education is simple," Bositis warned. "After coming up with a plan, the plan will involve funding -- then you start getting into difficulties."
Mfume said he was dismayed but not surprised that nearly half the states failed to meet the NAACP deadline. However, he conceded that other state priorities may have taken precedence this year.
"Having said that, we are going to now begin the process of finding ways to do some `tough love' with some of these states where there are significant numbers of African-American and Latino students, and high numbers of poor students that really would benefit from a call to action on education," Mfume said. Education director Jackson said the organization would file its civil rights complaints against Florida, Louisiana and Ohio as soon as all the supporting data has been collected.
The state of Florida did submit an action plan after the deadline, Jackson explained, but NAACP officials were not satisfied with the state's commitment to the issue and decided to file a federal complaint against the state anyway.
NAACP leaders are chagrined that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has refused to support the NAACP's call for a referendum to reduce class size for all public school students.
But Bush has been at odds with the civil rights group throughout his tenure as governor, starting with his "One Florida Initiative," which ended the use of race as a factor in university admissions. The relationship became more strained after the contested Florida presidential election.
Bush spokeswoman Lisa Gates has accused the NAACP of playing politics and ignoring the real progress Florida has made in closing the achievement gap. Officials in Ohio and Louisiana, which did not submit action plans, have also defended their progress in closing the achievement gap.
"There is no denying the fact that Florida is ranked 50th in the nation in class size, 49th in student per capita spending," Jackson said. "The NAACP didn't create those facts, but it is our job to make sure there is equity in education."
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education said it would be unusual to receive a civil rights complaint filed against an entire state. But the department will investigate the claims if the data provided by the NAACP supports it.
The Education Department received 4,571 civil rights complaints last year -- but only 19 percent of those alleged discrimination based on race. Nearly 85 percent of the racial complaints resulted in the school or school district targeted for investigation agreeing to make some type of change.
The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights negotiated a voluntary compliance agreement with the Minneapolis Public Schools in 1998 to deal with issues similar to those being raised by the NAACP in Florida, Ohio and Louisiana. The school district agreed to change its screening procedure for special education programs, provide teacher training to increase awareness of the effects of cultural influences on learning styles and remove any discriminatory barriers to minority students' enrollment in "gifted and talented" programs.
Chronicle reporter Patty Reinert contributed to this story from Washington.
The local property tax, the the major funding source for public education, has always been a poor proxy for a "quality education."
The Nation continues "at risk" and the pols continue to just fiddle away.
And, now for generations of children (our real future), they will never get the time back.
Parents need to take their children out of public schools. Competition will force improvement, if that's possible. The NEA doesn't give a damn about kids and education. The NEA cares about collecting dues, keeping their union members happy and supporting Democratic politicans and activist judges. It sounds like the NEA and the NAACP are exchanging notes on their election year strategy. They won't accept any blame for poor performance, they will embrace it lovingly as an election year club.
The NAACP regularily honors pop culture artists but nothing much beyond that. They did honor Condi Rice this year but generally seem reluctant to highlight real achievement.
It's been raised. I'm of the belief, what goes in comes out. If it's garbage in, it's garbage out. If it's knowledge in, it's knowledge out.
There goes the 'random drug testing' idea.
Some of it has to do with environment. Had a high school boy killed after school (drugs) last year. When that occurs, you really start thinking about the disparity.
I really think the family or lack of plays a more important part of this picture.
I agree and that crosses all racial and economic lines. The sheer lack of real education, coupled with a politcally motivated curriculum and inferior teachers, has compounded the public school problem. Unfortunately, parents haven't look critically at their schools. I believe that is changing.
Lets add a few helpers to this growing self incriminating cancer that seems to be conceniently overlooked.
1. Enforce discipine to these schools.
2. Add teachers who no what discipine is!
3. Enforce a dress code that makes all wear cloths that are not siding off their A----S.
4. Correct the language barrier by forcing English with out the Cursing and slang.
5. Teach them they are not slaves, were never slaves, and never will be.
6. Teach them not to wait around for reparations. Tell them they must put food on the table in another manner.
7. Teach them the World owes them nothing.
8. Teach them they owe the world after all the years spent trying to make responsible adults out of them.
9. Teach them you break the law you go to jail. You do not go simply because of your skin color.
10. Teach them to ignore organizations that teach and live in the past.
If it wouldn't have been for slavery some of these bottom feeders wouldn't have anything to do and they'd starve to death. Find another, more realistic occupation
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Perhaps. I hope so. Another step in the right direction (IMO) would be the elimination of mandatory attendance for those over say 13 or 14.
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