No Plan to Fix Black Academic Failure in Chicago’s SuburbsToo many communities are content to let black academic failure fester while spouting “equity” and “structural racism” bromides as cover. That has to end.
By Matt Rosenberg
June 8, 2022
A national media furor erupted last week after a Chicago-area news site reported 77 percent of black students in suburban Chicago’s Oak Park-River Forest High School District 200 “flunked” the SAT, and that district was going to implement race-based grading. The district itself, mainstream media, and even “fact-checkers” pushed back. Justifiably, to some extent.
First, one does not quite “flunk” the SAT. Second, new and “equitable” District 200 grading policies are not finished, although the handwriting is on the wall. Third, the grading changes being eyed manage to skirt any overt mention of race, at least in the May 26 board meeting’s featured slideshow.
But critics of the initial news item still managed to miss the real story. The SAT results for District 200 are damning, and the district’s solution is to engineer “equity” rather than lift all boats through increased rigor and focus.
SAT data in the Illinois Report Card show that for District 200 black 11th graders, only 23 percent tested could meet the state’s “performance level” standard of 540 or higher on the language portion of the SAT. Even more alarming, only 12 percent of District 200 black 11th graders taking the test met performance level on the math SAT. In both subjects, 11th grade SAT scores for whites, Hispanics, Asians, and all students were dramatically better than for black students.
Added to that, District 200’s board meeting materials make clear that administrators are headed toward adopting new “equitable assessment practices” which might allow students to not turn in homework, to get do-overs on tests, or even to take “alternative” tests that skate around their lack of core academic skills. That’s all buried within the educrat jargon of the slide show. The how is explained below. The big takeaway, however, is that District 200 wants an escape hatch from the academic failure of black students that’s so glaringly evident in their SAT reading and math results.
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If you have any doubt, consider the words of the district’s director of equity, Patrick Hardy, on Zoom during the board’s January 27 meeting. He praises the administration’s “racializing our work,” and “racialization of assessments” as key to “how do we build equitable assessments?” (Watch from 2:13:17 to 2:13:55, here). Critics of the initial news report say “nothing to see here” and assert the discussion of the proposed revised practices make no mention of race. But here is “the racialization of assessment” being identified by a top district official as what’s already planned.
Remarkably—and still, in 2022—most of an entire race has had its future options sharply narrowed by the systemic racism of low expectations. It’s shameful. Worse, local educators across Illinois who face the same problem have no real plan for change. Too many communities are content to let black academic failure fester while spouting “equity” and “structural racism” bromides as cover. That has to end.
The District 200 story touched a nerve on the Right and on the Left and set off a national bout of digital tribalism. Sadly, without a bracing intervention, the flame wars over race and “racialization”—both covert and overt—in education will only intensify while core subject mastery by black and Hispanic students continues to languish in K-12 public schools.
The problems of District 200 are the problems of K-12 school districts across the state. As a Wirepoints special report last week detailed, black, Hispanic, and often white students fail to meet basic proficiency benchmarks in reading and math from the third through the 11th grades. Yet they’re socially promoted through high school and too often land in remedial English and math courses in college. Meanwhile, in one Illinois public school district after another, more than 9 in 10 teachers earn official rankings of proficient or excellent.
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Source:
https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/08/no-plan-to-fix-black-academic-failure-in-chicagos-suburbs/
