By: Ira Glass and Nikole Hannah Jones
“While Normandy is falling apart, over at Francis Howell, none of the things that parents were worried about came true. No one got stabbed. Test scores did not drop-- at all. And at least so far, the influx of black students hasn't caused white parents to flee. Mah'Ria's thriving. Where the transfer law forced integration, it's working.” - Jones
“The US Department of Education put out data in 2014 showing that black and Latino kids in segregated schools have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers. They also get the worst course offerings, the least access to AP and upper-level courses, the worst facilities.” - Glass
One connection I can make to both quotes is from working in the Admissions Office. Test scores, of course poorly performing schools, have statistically lower scores. However, students of color are consistently scoring lower than their white advantaged peers. This is because of the privilege that they hold and the fact that they can afford more test prep, tutors, and additional resources that allow them to succeed. A current event connection that I can make is College Board’s new initiative to add “Adversity Scores” into SAT scoring, breaking the score down into seven categories, crime, educational level, housing stability, median family income, family stability, and college attendance. One could also argue that becoming a test-optional school can also increase diversity within the student body, and would definitely increase our 1:3 racial diversity ratio, meaning that 33% of our students identify as students of color.
“So I'm hoping that their discipline records come with them, like, their health records come with them.” - Anonymous Woman
“I want to know is there going to be metal detectors?” - Beth Cirami
“Yeah, you're absolutely right. We have to do this. We have to follow the laws. We don't have to like it, and we don't have to make it easy. Has anyone considered changing our school start times? Moving start times up 20 minutes, maybe 40 minutes? Making it a little less appealing?” - Anonymous Man
These quotes from the meeting where the parents found out black kids were transferring from Normandy to Francis Howell are extremely powerful and perfectly exemplify the parent's feelings toward their school becoming more diverse. In summation, they are basically saying that they're perfect, well behaved, smart, white children are doing so well, adding the black kids from Normandy will ruin everything and ruin their kid’s success. They act like these children are delinquents and are only coming to ruin their school, however, both Mah’Ria and Rihanna, two very smart, black, young ladies, proved them otherwise and continued to be high performing honors students after transferring to Francis Howell. Another important example is Ruby Bridges, “She said she thought about Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. She's the little girl guarded by US marshals in the famous Norman Rockwell painting called The Problem We All Live With. - Jones” Ruby, who I actually had the privilege of seeing speak at RIC’s Commencement Ceremony a few weeks ago, was the first “...when she became the first black child to attend the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans at the age of 6” (Amaral, 2019). This was in 1960, and it is so crazy to me that desegregating schools is still an issue when this podcast aired in 2015, with the desegregation plan of Francis Howell began in 2013. That is over fifty years later, and we are still fighting this fight. Racism, systematic oppression, and prejudice all still occur and are prevalent in today’s society. It is both sad and honestly, disgusting, how awfully these people are treated.
I felt the same frustrated way as you, Vanessa! It is just plain despicable that our society still fights this issue as intense as ever. Just being in this course and opening my mind in these past few weeks alone have made me "see clearer" and with a less privileged assumption about others and their outcomes. I go to the Dunkin drive thru, and every few days I say hi to the upbeat Black cashier at the window (who knows me well haha!), and now I wonder what challenges she may face in her daily life....it's so personal now, so real. We have to keep talking about it, and keep making it a part of the conversation to spread the problem. I feel those parents at Francis Howell had probably been very uneducated and "privileged" to realize how offensive their own stereotypes and judgmental worries came off to those folks who are aware of this issue.
ReplyDeleteI completely felt the same way regarding these quotes (I also wrote something similar in my own blog for this week). Though the parents at Francis Howell were passionate about the incoming students, their is such a thin line between being concerned for your students safety, and being concerned with your students safety because a bunch of POC students are joining the school.
DeleteI felt the same way as you and Danielle. It's not only frustrating and disgusting, it's pathetic too. Everyone is so busy to point fingers and discriminate against race, while forgetting that the only race is the human race. People are people, with their own lives, experiences, good times, bad times, etc. And I feel sorry for those who do not see others like this. They would live much fuller lives if they could just see people as people, not as different, not as 'others', but people. And I think it starts at home. Have conversations with your kids, so they can grow up seeing the world as it is and how it could be, not with rose colored glasses.
ReplyDeleteHi Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteI found your connection to the Admission’s Office fascinating (I want to work in Admission’s one day so I was really into your post). The lower test scores is not something that surprised me as we have been talking about it this week in regard to privilege and the podcast. However, I had no idea about the College Board and the “Adversity Scores” initiative. Test optional schools are something that I have heard of in the past. I still wonder, however, how schools that are test-optional would decide how to admit or deny students. What would the standards be? Would they be similar to community colleges? If the College Board uses these “Adversity Scores” how would they be categorized? Like what would be considered “acceptable”? These are all questions that I think would come up in a conversation between those who have privilege and those who do not. What are the ways to create equity in this situation? Thanks for your post …it really stretched my thinking!!
The correlation with the issues presented in the interview and working in the Admission's Office doesn't get any more real. Unfortunately, making this text/ interview to world connection is disheartening. The fact that others have an opportunity to get ahead, and that is exactly what it is, an opportunity, affects us all at different magnitudes. The deepest affected, is in fact those who are in a lower social economic bracket, with limited educational options, amongst other elements against them. If the government will not take a stand to allow all people equal opportunities in our public schools, I wonder if there are other means to help and offer others with less opportunities.
ReplyDeleteGreat points, Vanessa. Here is a link to an article one of my colleagues posted recently about the Adversity Score issue. Seems to be (as Christian noted earlier) a bandaid on a broken leg. https://theconversation.com/the-sats-new-adversity-score-is-a-poor-fix-for-a-problematic-test-117363?fbclid=IwAR2z255E4RbDYyCbEw45AtWe7qjdRBFwPXBB64PW_hSBJk8BNZa9h69dVd8
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