Florida Damaged message

Florida “Success” Benchmarks Send Damaging Message

Submitted by Adrienne van der Valk on February 14, 2014

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Printer-friendly versionImagine you are a child on the first day of school. You sit at your desk, glancing nervously around at your new classmates, waiting to find out what the year has in store. Your new teacher starts to hand out readers. You notice something. She’s handing the white children thicker readers; the children of color get slimmer volumes with larger print, shorter words.
This teacher doesn’t know you—but she knows the color of your skin. It’s brown. “But I’m a good reader!” you think. “I read chapter books this summer!” The teacher arrives at your desk—and hands you a lower-level reader.
If it doesn’t feel good to imagine that knowing your school expects less of you based on your skin color, consider how it must feel to live it. Yet, for black and Latino children in Florida (more than 50 percent of the state’s schoolchildren), the bureaucratic equivalent of this appalling scenario has been happening since the state’s board of education set lower reading and math standards for students of color in October 2012 as part of their strategic plan.
Under this plan, the state will have met its goals if “74 percent of African-American" and "81 percent of Hispanic students" are reading at grade level by 2018. Those numbers for white and Asian-American students? Eighty-eight and 90 percent, respectively. The state also expects 92 percent of Asian-American students and 86 percent of white students to perform at grade level by 2018, but only "74 percent of African-American students" and "80 percent of Hispanic students.”
The fact that an any discrepancy exists between the state’s definition of “success” for students of different races reveals serious flaws in Florida’s own success enacting equitable education policies.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a federal civil rights complaint in August 2013 asserting that race-based achievement standards are “unsound and institutionalize self-fulfilling low expectations that promise to hinder the educational progress of an entire generation of Florida’s children.” Says SPLC deputy legal director Jerri Katzerman, “By setting lower expectations for black and Hispanic students, Florida is telling these students that it is their skin color—not their hard work and perseverance—that will determine their success in school. This plan will only widen the achievement gap in Florida classrooms.”
SPLC, in cooperation with the Dream Defenders, recently launched a petition asking Florida voters to voice their opposition to the race-based discrepancies between definitions of educational “success.” The opposition is based on more than political philosophy; research on stereotype threat, for example, reveals that academic performance suffers when students are aware that their performance could be viewed “through the lens of racial stereotypes.”
“The research is clear: Low expectations result in low achievement,” says Katzerman.
Even if you don’t live in Florida, take a moment to familiarize yourself with (or refresh your knowledge of) the concept of stereotype threat. Do you see unequal, race-based expectations at play in your school? It may not be as obvious as thick and thin readers.
van der Valk is a writer and associate editor for Teaching Tolerance.