I created this video to show how racism has entered the world of education. In the video, there are images of racism and a few places where you could find it.  Though racism is intertwined with many things in our society, it can be overlooked and mistaken for something that it is not.  It can be literally invisble. 

In the video I have also provided some facts and statistics about how intitutional racism affects minority students within public education.  It also depicts the unequal distibution of academic programs and opportunities. I also touched on some of the alternatives of how to end racism in our public schools. 

Here we are again…in the ring.  In round 2 we involve the students themselves.  I was able to find an example of how to involve our students in making a difference.  There are organizations for children that teache them about racism and how to identify it, cope with it, and keep their environment safe and happy for themselves and for their peers. 

Artists Against Racism (AAR) is an organization that does just that.  The organization’s main goal is to “about the basic human right of equality, so that a civilized society will, in the next millennium, finally result” (www.heartsandminds.org).  The groups goal is to teach children not to discriminate against someone different then themselves based on background, race, religion…etc.  They teach the youth to learn about people different from themselves. 

Children are like spounges, they obtain all information faster than ever.  If we instill the right ideas in their heads, they will be the ones to change the future of racism.       

So far during my research, I have come across many articles that mention the No Child Left Behind Act and how it is or isn’t helping our poor and minority public school children.  The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 is an Act of Congress that reauthorized a number of federal programs aiming to improve the performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools (wikipedia.com). 

On the subject of racism, some believe that NCLB encourages racism in that it enables segregation in the way that the data in collected to monitor improvements in the student’s performance.  As mentioned in the article from my last blog, the data is separated based on race so as to keep a successful record of the different groups improvements or decreases in improvements. According to an organization called Citizens Against Racism and Discrimination, the targeted groups that are labeled problematic are usually the African American and Latino students (card.wordpress.com).

So far I have not found as much information on how helpful the law has been aside from the fact that it opens a few more doors for the less fortunate. It is amazing how laws like these can be linked to racism in a society that is supposed to be “colorblind”, or from a society that is supposed to function of off “All men are created equal…”.

We have had many different cases. debates, and laws passed to try to eliminate racism, discrimination, and segragation in our public schools.  The question now, is are these laws and regualtions really helping?  Are they affecting our students and their education in the way that they were meant to if at all?

I came across an aritcle written by a high school priniciple, Andrew Kelly, from Washoe County.  He addresses some of the issues of racism that are still taking place withing public schools and the schools systems.  He also lists a few potential solutions that could help. 

A point that he mentions is how Presiedent Bush signed for the No Child Left Behind Act, but poor and minority children are still getting left behind. ”This law has failed to adjust the social inconsistencies that in many cases continue to hold our poor and minority students down” (Kelly, newsrjg.com).  The law, though in its youth, has not helped to improve our public schools, nor has it given fair opportunities to all students just yet. 

Something that I found interesting in this article is one of the replies at the end.  The person writes about how he was the minoity white student in all black schools in New York and how the minority students with poor families are brining themselves down.  He also talks about how it is not the governments problem it is the minorities themselves.  “I was in the same economic class, I was interested in learning and my parents were happy when I bought home a good grade” (newsrjg.com).  Though this person was a minority in an all black school and made good grades, what about the extent that his school was able to help him learn?  What if he were to attend school in an all white wealthy school, would he be able to excell the way he did at his poor minority schools? 

Here is the link to the article!!!

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/OPED/804240306

Fifty years after Brown vs Board of Education, are things improving for America’s poor and minority students?  History repeats itself as schools become more and more segragated as we speak.  I found an article on racism in public schools as it is today.  Though the issue of segregation may seem invisble, it is occuring.  According to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, “ public schools today have re-segregated at a level not seen since the 1960s. Wealthy, all-white suburban schools sit a few miles from poor inner-city schools that are predominately Black and Latino” (socialistworker.org).  Currently things do not seem to be “separate but equal” within out colorblind society (or what we may think is a colorblind society).  Why is it that 50 years after the desegreatation of public schools, poor and minority students are not recieving equal opportunities as their wealthy caucasian counterparts?  Years ago, the segregation of public schools were such that black schools had no running water, flushing toilets, or electricity (socialistworker.org), and the white schools had an abundace of books, classroom space, and other neccessities needed for their students to gain their education.Similar incedences like this are happening everywhere in the US today.  As mentioned before in one of my past blogs, I attended many different schools and all of which were segregated, though not segregated by law.  These schools were segregated more by class and status. It is amazing to see how history really does repeat itself even when we try to prevent it all from happening again.  

I found an article written by Bill O’Reilly about how former President Bill Clinton wanted to deal with the issues of racism within public schools.  According to the National Assesment of Educational Progress, “60 percent of poor children who attended the fourth grade last year can barely read. They achieved a “below basic” score on standardized tests. For black fourth-graders, the results are even worse: 63 percent of them scored “below basic” (O’Reilly pg.1).  O’Reillly questions if Clintons methods of improvement actaully improved anything.  Millions of tax payers dollars went to these causes, learning better and the ”strive higher and acquire academic skills that would assure their futures” (O’Reilly, pg. 1), and there is nothing to show for it currently.  Many minority students withing the inner city public schools are struggling to get even the most basic of education, even with help of the president.

Check out the article:   http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=22492

I found an article from 2000 in the New York Times about a study that had been conducted on racial bias within a small variety of large school districts across the United States.  The different districts include, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Durham, South Carolina, Los Angeles, Miami, Columbia, San Francisco, Missoula, and Providence. 

According to the study, “black students in pulic schools…are far more likely than whites to be suspended or expelled, and are less likely to be placed in gifted or advanced placement classes,” (Lewin, pg. 1).  The issue is often overlooked and mistaken for a personal problem among the individual student and the teacher or administrator.  In an altercation at a high school in Decatur, Ill. 6 African American students were arrested and expelled, though it was not specified if students of other races were disciplined the same (Lewin, pg. 1). 

The overall message from the article is that racial bias in public schools exists, and it does not only exist in certain places.  The study was done on a variety of school districts across the US and the results were the same for most.  Minority students are being unequally treated in comparison to their non-colored peers though we are in the era of color blindness. 

Discrimination and racism in public schools is not only projected towards students and faculty of color from non colored students and faculty, it is also projected from person of color to person of color resulting in what is called colorism. Colorism is a form of discrimination in which human beings are accorded different social treatment based on skin color (wikipedia.com). In most cases, colorism is projected at people of the same in group, for instance the comparisons made between lighter skinned African Americans and darker skinned African Americans.

One commonly known instance of colorism among African American students within higher education is the Brown Paper Bag test of the early 1900’s.  This test was used among groups like sororities and fraternities to weed out who was eligble to join and who was not based on the lightness or darkness of a person’s skin.  “If your skin was darker than a brown paper bag, you did not merit inclusion” (urbandictinoary.com).  Within some school systems lighter skinned students were sometimes given privalages over darker skinned students due to the idea that lighter skinned students were closer to being white.  Even in the age of slavery, lighter skin slaves were treated better than the darker skin slaves.  The lighter skin slaves were sometimes made to work inside of the slave master’s home if at all, and they were also given the provilege to become educated, while the darker skinned slaves worked in the feilds and were often mistreated. 

Stemming from this, African Americans project colorism towards eachother in a number of ways, varying to who has ”better hair” to who is prettier or more handsome.  In Spike Lee’s “School Daze” he portrays instances colorism in a historically black college between two sororitites, both who did not get along with eachother because of their differences in skin color.  In the movie the lighter skinned girls refered to the darker skinned girls as “jigaboos” or “tar babies”, and the darker skinned girls refered to the lighter skinned girls as “wannabe’s” or “Baribe dolls” all without the notion that each and everyone of them was of the same race.       

In my last post, I shared a view of racism and discrimination from a public highschool in North Carolina. Two young women that attended the highschool were forced to leave due to the harsh environment and the lack of intervention by the school and school disticts administration.  But what should have been done for them?  How do the parents of minority children lace up their boxing gloves in preparation to defeat the well known champion Discrimination?

Many parents are sending their children off to institutions where their children have the potential to be discriminated against based on their race or ethnicity, without knowing their full rights as far as their child’s education.  Large numbers of children are passed through the education system only to be given minimal privileges and opportunities to let their minds grow.   

An important question asked by a parent to the Public School Parents Network was ”What justice was there for minority children within the settings of public education?”.  As said in the article titled “Fighting Prejudice in Public Education” (also located on the website) this was one of many questions posed by concerned parents hat paved the way for other issues to be brought to light regarding discrimination within public school systems.  For instance, ”Do educators hold different expectations of minority students?” and “Are children denied access to advanced or gifted placement classes based on their race?” (psparents.net).  The ultimate answer to questions like these is “Yes”.  There’s all kinds of discrimination agaisnt children of color that prevent them from recieving special placements in advanced and gifted student programs.  But how do parents actually fight discrimination against their children?

According to the article, the Office for Civil Rights is the way to go.  The article talks about how prejudice and discrimination are a part of American society as almost a kind of norm.  “OCR (Office for Civil Rights), enforces several Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that recieve Federal financial assistance from the Department of Education” (psparents.net).  These laws do not vary by state, race, religion, or ethnicity.  All in all, every child is entitled to the same opportunities in getting their education.

The fight against discrimination in general is a diffucult battle in itself.  With the way that our country was built discrimination is at the heart of everything that we do which makes the issue virtually invisible at times. In all actuality students are discriminated against more often than not.  Many cases of discrimination within public education, go unheard of or they are justified by some higher authority only to be burried and forgotten. Because of these injustices many children are deprived of their very much needed education.  But, now there are options for the parents that will send them into the ring with punches of fury.

Though there a many people who would like for racism to end, there are many who would say other wise.  Racism has been an issue all over the world for many years and, as stated before, it is affecting America’s children.  Racism is seeping into our schools and affecting the way that America’s students are learning.  How is a child supposed to obtain the neccessary education in an environment that may not be safe due to racism?  In this video, WFMY News in North Carolina talks about racism at Northwest High school in the Guilford County school district and how the superintendents plan to take on racism in their schools. 

As an African American student, I have never endured such blaitant acts of racism.  I think that in the case of Northwest High school, maybe its location has a part in what is happening.  Since the southern states are not located very far from North Carolina, maybe there is more potential for open racism than in states like Washington, though I am not sure.  I think that the students in environments like the one at Northwest should be able to express how they are feeling when things like this happen to them.  They should also have somewhere where they can report the ongoings with some confidentiality so that they can feel safe.  I feel that no student is able to learn at their full potential in an evrionment that is threatening to them.