Black students not expected to excel... not in my school district.

 I will give the link here for you to read the article yourself in case I am mis-interpreting it.

As I see it, Gwinnett County wants freedom from state education mandates.  Such a mandate dictates things like required instructional time and class size.  To avoid these mandates they must create and sign an agreement with the state called IE2 contracts. 

So far, it sounds fair enough.  Meet reasonable benchmarks, set your own rules.  Cool. 

The details of the agreement are the problem. Simply put, They set acheivement standards of African American Students lower than that of White and Asian students.  Also, standards for hispanic students are set just above that of students with disabilites, and ESOL students are even lower than that.  

This is very telling.  Approximately 40% of white and Asian students are expected to meet benchmarks.  Meanwhile just 25% of blacks are expected to meet the same standards.  It just spirals down for Hispanic students.  

There is a mindset here that is troubling at best.  This tells me that my African American child is not given the benefit of doubt that he or she can meet the same standards of their white neighbor.  Meanwhile, they live next door to each other.  We may even go to the same church, and be on the same sports teams.  Heck, they may even be best friends.  But because my child is perceived to be less academically strong, for no other reason than the color of their skin,  they will surely not be given the same kind of attention in the classroom.... because... why bother?  We don't expect much of the anyway.

And people wonder why we homeschool.


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