Lauren D., Week 5

Is the Educational System Fueling the Racial Divide?

Reflecting on last week’s focus group with an amazing group of diverse Southern Maine youth and young adults, and exploring this week’s reading material, the education system within our country continues to be highlighted as driving force of the racial divide. In our focus group, youth identified local Maine School’s continuing to not be culturally competent and knowledgeable. This trend appears to be present through the United States; not only with competency, but also with unjust and more harsh sanctions on minority populations.  A 2007 Chicago Tribune speaks to this truth:

§  The average New Jersey public school, African-American students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious disciplinary infractions.

§  In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites.

§  In Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get suspended.

§  Fifty years after federal troops escorted nine black students through the doors of an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark., in a landmark school integration struggle, America's public schools remain as unequal as they have ever been when measured in terms of disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions, according to little-noticed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2004-2005 school year.   http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-070924discipline-story.html

With such startling statistics, I would conjecture that minority youth are hypervigilant within the educational system, wondering and waiting for such injustice to occur. One of the young ladies in our focus group spoke to a situation just this year where school personnel scapegoated her for a circumstance with a fellow “white student.”  She explained that while the teacher “coddled” this other student, she felt blamed because of the color of her skin.  How can our country come so far in areas of acceptance, but still lack social justice skills?  Our school system needs to be a place for ALL students to feel inclusive and safe in learning and furthering their education; not a system that continues to fuel this racial divide!