Lowell's Deseg. Plan Raises More Questions About
the Myths of Education Standards
12/19/03

It's time again to ask, WHY?  

As we have recently learned in Andover and Lawrence with the mandatory class sizes, class hours and per pupil spending requirements, many of the educational requirements mandated by the state and federal government have nothing to do with classroom learning or educational excellence. (More Education Myths Debunked...Andover Schools Show no Need for Minimum Hours in Class)  

Now, the City of Lowell has given us another example of how education myths have invaded our school systems with no legitimate educational value.  

It was revealed yesterday in the Lowell Sun that the Lowell School System has not complied with the "voluntary" desegregation policy which requires that each school have a percentage of children from specific races in each school.  

"According to last year's enrollment numbers," the Sun reported, "the district wide ratio of minorities to non-minorities (whites) is 56.4 percent to 44.2 percent. That means that last year, each school's student-body ratio should have been between 46.4 percent and 66.4 percent minority students to between 34.2 percent to 54.2 percent white students.  

At one school, the Murkland Elementary School, only 26.6 percent of the students are white. A travesty of monumental proportions if you believe in the race politics of proportional placement.  

Yet, there is no evidence that the 26.6% of Murkland's "white" students are getting any less of a quality education than the "white" students in other schools. Moreover, the Moody Elementary School has an overwhelming percentage of "white" students (81.9%) with no evidence that the so-called "minority" students at Moody are getting any less of an education than minorities at Murkland as the result of these disproportionate numbers.  

In fact, nation wide, no evidence has ever been presented to prove that ethnic percentages in any public schools have any affect on classroom learning whatsoever.  

This again begs the question not asked by most educators beyond the classroom level; WHY?   Why is it that the race of school students is so important? Why is "racial classification" so rabidly defended in our public school mindset that our education officials concentrate as much on race as they do the content of classroom teaching?  

The reasons are many but mostly rooted in the race politics of liberal ideologues who have successfully promoted the belief that "diversity" is as important as what is being taught in the class. History has proven this type of thinking to be false.  

"Diversity" has done nothing to promote educational excellence, higher test scores, lower teen pregnancy rates or stricter discipline in the schools. It has done nothing to promote American values, love of country and a common culture or lower the incidence of violence in our schools.  

Again, I quote from the Lowell Sun:  

"Travers (the principal of the Bartlett School) said the percentage of minority students does not affect the school's MCAS scores, despite a statewide trend that shows that students with limited English proficiency are struggling. Bartlett achieved the federally required Annual Yearly Progress standard this month."  

Given the fact that there is no real "white race" (as there is a distinct Black and Asian race) the classification of students by race is arbitrary and has no business in education standards or funding formulas.   

How is it that Mexican students who do not speak English as their primary language are considered minorities, yet, Portuguese students are classified as "white" by the Federal government's classification and do not count as minorities even though they require more resources to educate.   The reason is, of course, politics.  

With the reemergence of neighborhood schools and the belief that parents have the right to choose where their children attend, forced diversity is finding itself an endangered species. Even the state department of education is backing off the desegregation standard, at least for the moment.  

Heidi Perlman from the Massachusetts Department of Education said Lowell's violation of desegregation standards would not jeopardize the 90% school building reimbursement rate as required by law "because the state has eliminated financial help to implement desegregation."  

Fascinating!

As I have stated in several other columns, educators at the highest levels must rethink the way we approach education and the so-called standards they hold sacred. It seems as though this is starting to happen…finally!  

Education standards must be based on measurable results.  

Dinosaur ideologies such as class size, per pupil spending and (now) diversity in the classroom must be abandoned for accountability based measures that allow parents to measure the teachers performance and the students progress.  

If the billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars spent on unnecessary ideals (class size, class hours, diversity, etc) were put into real classroom learning, materials and books, programs and discipline just imagine how great our education system in America would be today.