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2020-

2020-11-27 e
BLACK AND WHITE (soft bigotry edition)
"Expecting less from someone based on his or her race used to be called racism or bigotry."

In The Name Of Anti-Racism, San Diego Schools Will Teach Black And Hispanic Kids Less

Expecting less from someone based on his or her race used to be called bigotry. Condescension toward black students hardly qualifies as ‘anti-racism,’ but is instead its antithesis.

During his successful run for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush warned against “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Then-candidate Bush delivered his remarks at the 91st annual meeting of the NAACP on July 10, 2000.

Bush added, “A great movement of education reform has begun in this country built on clear principles: to raise the bar of standards, expect every child can learn; to give schools the flexibility to meet those standards; to measure progress and insist upon results; [and] to blow the whistle on failure. . . .”

But that was then, and this is now. Apparently soft bigotry is not only alive but thriving in San Diego—or at least among the leaders of the San Diego Unified School District. They recently took one small step for a woke administration, but one giant leap for low expectations. You wouldn’t know this from the San Diego Union-Tribune’s headline introducing the story: “San Diego Unified changes grading practices to be equitable, less punitive.”

Would that the “changed grading practices” actually were more “equitable” and “less punitive”! Sadly, that’s not the case. Instead, it is “well-intentioned” racism, what Bush labeled “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Here’s why.

The Union-Tribune story informs us that, “starting this school year San Diego Unified will eliminate non-academic factors, such as student behavior, from academic grades, following a unanimous vote by the school board Tuesday to overhaul the district’s grading practices.” Why? The answer: “partly to address racial and other disparities in current grading practices, officials said.”

To remedy lower grades in the district reported for “Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander high school students” relative to white and Asian students, “experts, teachers and students have said that including non-academic factors into grades and not giving students second chances to learn or make progress can contribute to unfair disparities in grades.”

Under San Diego Unified’s just-adopted grading policy, “academic grades will only be about showing progress toward ‘mastery of standards,’ rather than rewarding students for completing a certain quantity of work.” The new policy will apply to middle- and high-school students.

The new approach is called “standards-based grading.” What exactly does this mean? (read more)

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