Colorblind Significance

In his book, Race, Racism, and American Law, Derrick Bell maintains that the American government is only willing to lessen the injustices imposed on African-Americans if it will positively impact the white community--either economically or politically. The chapter, “Neither Separate Schools Nor Mixed Schools: The Chronicle of the Sacrificed Black Schoolchildren,” in Derrick Bell’s book, And We Are Not Saved, demonstrates this point through the fictional disappearance of black schoolchildren while on their way to their school. At first, there was public outrage over such an unexplainable incident occurring, especially in the midst of all the political and cultural progress made by the recent decision to integrate public schools. Then, it is revealed that the main incentives for the school board’s sympathy and distress were because, “state funding of the schools was based on average daily attendance figures, [therefore] the school system faced a serious deficit during the current year,” (And We Are Not Saved, 105).

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

"If teachers across America would arise and make the personal commitment to do something about racism, beginning with their own selves, their eventual impact would, I believe, be tremendous" (Hacker 191).

Systematic racism within education Institutions, such as the lack of adequate funding as well as subtle discrimination, continues to be the root of the problem that plagues this nation. Even though segregation was abolished in 1964, the lingering effects that remain are significant and cannot be passively mended. Although it is tempting to think that this prejudice is caused by a select few and not the many, it is clear that this problem holds more depth. Recent studies conducted by the National Education Studies (NEA) have proven that even in school’s African American students are often times targeted and punished at a significantly higher rate when compared to their white peers. The study states “Black students make up almost 40 percent of all school expulsions [in the] nation, and more than two thirds of students referred to police from schools are either black or Hispanic” (Blacks: Education Issues). This study conducted by the Department of Education, cabinet-level department of the United States

I chose to read the article “Leveraging Conflict for Social Justice: How “Leadable” Moments Can Transform School Culture” by Enrique Aleman, Jr. The article discusses how an elementary school principle implements her vision of success within a school district that has a diverse group of students with low socioeconomical status. She envisions an environment where faculty, staff, students and parents are working together to create an idyllic school atmosphere. Whenever conflict manifests itself between key stakeholders the principle capitalizes on the instances as “leadable” moments associated with social justice. This case describes how a principle is tested by a teacher’s response to racist and bigoted language, and the implications surrounding the parents and district concerns regarding diversity and equal education opportunities for all students involved (Aleman, 2009).

In 1954 the Supreme Court saw a case called Brown v. Board of Education of Kansas. This case was about segregation of public schools but before this was to be found unconstitutional, the school system in Kansas and all over the United States had segregated schools. For example, Topeka Kansas had 18 neighborhood schools for white children, but only 4 schools for African American children. (Brown v. Board of Education) Many people believe that the problem is no longer existent; however, many present day African American students still attend schools that are segregated. This problem goes all the way back to the 18th and 19th centuries when slavery was prevalent, yet still to this day it has not come to an end. Complete racial integration has yet to happen in many areas. This problem is not only in the Kansas City School District, but all over the country. The segregation of races in schools can impact a student’s future greatly. The Kansas City school district has been known to have the most troubled school’s systems for a long time.(Source) I’m sure the school board is well aware of the problem of racial inequality that is before them, but I will help them become more aware of the problem and how it affects a student’s future. In today’s society it is commonly overlooked on how important the subject of racial segregation really is. In this memo I will discuss the topics of racial socialization and school based discrimination in Kansas City, and the resulting effects that

Police departments across the country have come under scrutiny for racial bias in their stops and

School institutional racism is in the form of teachers, resources and harsher punishment that potentially leads to school- to- prison pipeline towards blacks and minorities starting at a young age. Low income neighborhoods have a higher population of blacks and other minorities, and since those neighboring schools are funded through property taxes these schools are extremely underfunded, understaffed, and lack the resources needed to properly provide these students with the education they need. As stated in the article by Myles Moody, “This current system is set up to fail Black Children (Moody, 2016).” Most teachers who are employed in these low income schools may employ inexperience teachers who lack the ability and experience to bond with their students and their cultural needs (Moody, 2016). This lack of bonding is developed because there is a lack of congruency between the students and the staff. The teachers also lack the experience to also build a good rapport with their students’ parents; therefore, there is a high level of mistrust towards teachers that directly impact the students’ level of education (Moody, 2016). When the teacher, student and parent develop a good relationship with one another, the teacher is more inclined and comfortable to report to the parent any possible behavioral or learning discrepancies

Institutional racism has solidified its position into various aspects of American society. It has installed itself into employment practices, all levels of education, healthcare, housing, politics and the criminal justice system. Institutional racism has made some subtle changes to replace the boldness of slavery and Jim Crow. However, in educational institutions the effects of racism and discrimination are so delicate they typically go unnoticed by students of color. Individual racism usually happens on the personal level where the prejudice is expressed either consciously or unconsciously while there is some form of interpersonal encounter. When it comes to institutional racism it is similar to the individual concepts, however policies and practices are associated with with the belief of racial dominance of one group over another. It is a powerful system that use race to determine power and privilege(Reynolds et al., 2010). Even after the desegregation of school, educational institution are still separated. In Shelby County where I have lived since 1999 there are schools for minorities, and there are schools for whites. The schools for minorities in the city of Memphis have police officers walking the halls and there no books for learning. There are higher numbers of Whites students enrolled in private, charter, and magnet schools in the more affluent segments of the county. They will be exposed to the advantages of a proper education because of their race and privilege

Bill Roberts, the CEO of an urban charter high school, reveals a school leader that holds to one “lack.” School leader Roberts demonstrates having a quality of not only having experience in working with students of color but also thinking about and having the language for talking about race and race-conscious practices. Robert stated that the school he has led for several years “mirrors the city” and the student demographic is around 50% African American and about 65-75% students on free and/or reduce lunch. Roberts recognizes a discrepancy between the cultural background between his teachers and students. Roberts makes the following comment about the discrepancy,

Methods. This paper draws from an interview study conducted Summer 2014-Summer 2015 (with an interviewing design based upon Seidman, 2013) focused on how principals and other school leaders make sense of the achievement gap. The first author has conducted formal semi-structured interviews with 22 school leaders from a sample of both public and charter, urban and suburban districts, both the elementary and secondary level, a wide range of percentages of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, and a various ranges of percentages of white, black, and Latino students. Of the 22 sampled, eight employ what we interpreted as a colorblind leadership perspective, and four have colorblindness as a component of their leadership perspective (Bonilla-Silva, 2014). Some contrasts can be drawn from the remaining ten respondents for possibilities for movement and rethinking a colorblind perspective.

As I learn more about the realities of education, there was one issue that sparked my interest and passion – segregation. Though it is difficult to see first-hand, I can definitely see remnants of segregation through comparison of resources available at schools I’ve worked at. My belief that education serves as an accessible tool for social mobility led me to explore the issue of segregation with the perspective of a future educator. Over 50 years ago in the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court deemed that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. With this in mind, I was under the impression that schools were not segregated (at least to a far lesser extent). However, I was shocked to learn that segregation in schools

On This American life podcast website, the podcast, “Is This Working”, had Ira Glass, the interviewer, use many different stories and interviews from different walks of life to talk about minority discipline in the school versus white discipline in schools. This interview was a compelling story because it uses research and statistics from different states and races. This podcast informs people about how discrimination is still real in the schools but handled differently. Also the interviewers talk to, teachers, students and parents to show evidence.

Jonathan Kozol, Author of “Confections of Apartheid Continue In Our Schools”, begins his in depth commentary on “Apartheid Schools” with a definitive statement that racial isolation in schools still exists today. In addition, he asserts that there has been very little progress in de-segregating schools in the last 25-30 years. According to Krol, this continued racial isolation results in an inequality in schools with segregated schools have limited finances and experience higher turnover rates of teachers and staff. Moreover, he asserts that the high turnover of teachers produces a teacher population that is increasingly inexperienced. As a result, Principals and Administrators faced with these challenges attempt to manage what they view as a long- term problem by deploying new and rigorous controls that Kozol states are unique to “Apartheid Schools”. The text of his lengthy article lays out his proof that these controls are counterproductive and negatively impact students and teachers.

In an Elementary/Middle/High inner-city school,it is not just the condescension and violence exhibited toward minorities that must be taken into account when looking at incidents of racism. Restrictions on minorities' opportunity to succeed are often racially determined. For example, Asian-Americans incur resentment for academic excellence and "overachieving." If racism is explicit at the street level of society, it is often implicit and equally entrenched at the highest levels. (Beswick, 2006) I hate to admit now, once doing this paper, I once have been bias towards Hispanics in my classroom without even knowing. I stated to another teacher: “Well, I have thirteen Spanish speaking students, how do you expect me to have high reading scores for Voyager? Administration is always worried about test scores, but we are