Florida Board of Education To Hold Asian American Students To Higher Standard

By Jeff | Monday, October 29, 2012 | 4 Comments

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readinggoals 600x291 Florida Board of Education To Hold Asian American Students To Higher Standard

The Florida Board of Education joined Virginia in setting race based achievement goals that hold Asian American students to a higher standard. The rightmost column in the above excerpt from Florida’s educational strategic plan shows the differing expectations. As you might expect, this standard generated some angry responses.

Winnie Tang of the Asian American Federation of Florida said that the benchmarks are hurtful to Asians:

We still have a lot of students who are average and below average. Being [perceived as] a higher achiever really hurts a lot of students

Hilary Shelton of the NAACP Washington Bureau invoked a phrase from former president George W. Bush, saying:

It’s, what do they say? ‘Soft bigotry of low expectations.’ They’re really letting the educators off the hook playing it this way. We have to challenge our educators to meet the standards of every child.

Cheryl Etters, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education, said the numbers were not meant to lower expectations but set “realistic and attainable” goals:

“Of course we want every student to be successful. But we do have to take into account their starting point.

A comment on this blog about the subject brought up the point about multi-racial children – how would they be counted? In a way to maximize the overall percentages?

I think a better approach would have been to set the same number for all groups, and if the board were to insist on breaking down achievement goals into racial categories, they could give different length timelines for achieving those goals. That would take into account differing circumstances but in the end set equal expectations.

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Facebook Comments (Beta)

rc1978

Blacks are dummer than special needs students? I’m telling Jesse Jackson!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ahmed-Sanchez-De-La-Cruz-Kim/58700922 Ahmed Sanchez De La Cruz Kim

There’s kind of a problem with education overall. Like a lot of pundits say, there needs to be some reform.

The Modern education system was a great equalizer and is still a tremendous opportunity provider for many people. However, it’s ideals are a little outdated. It was based on some industrial-mass production mimicry as if every child is a product that need to go through several phases (a.k.a. grade systems) to be furbished till its’ ready for the market (i.e. “the workforce”).

Every kid is unique in his or her educational progress and pursuits. Each child will naturally go at his or her own pace. Technology nowadays and in the near future allows kids to learn at their own level and whatever subject they will need to learn for their practical goals.

I’m really hoping that within a decade or two, education will reform to be more individualistic. There will still be some type of standardization involved of course, but if it’s more individual-oriented, a lot of (but not every) problems associated with race “might” be gone.
http://twitter.com/Herostratus356 Herostratus356

White people hate affirmative action…unless it’s for them.
John

This article focuses very narrowly on API only. If you were to look at the chart presented, it raises the bar for EVERYBODY. Race-based criteria is unsettling though.

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