Although not as prominent as it was many years ago, there are still traces of racism in public schools. Reported incidents of racism are not too common, but every sign of it, no matter how slight, shows that there is still discrimination.
Two examples of public school racism have recently been brought to attention by news sources, such as ABC News and CNN.
In Norcross, Ga., third grade students at Beaver Ridge Elementary School received a math homework assignment from teacher Luis Rivera that contained shockingly offensive word problems, including questions referring to slavery.
There were questions such as, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”, “If Frederick got 2 beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?” and “Frederick has 6 baskets filled with cotton. If each basket held 5 pounds, how many pounds did he have all together?” Alone, the last word problem may not seem too bad, but in context with the other questions it is extremely offensive.
Calvine Rollins, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, says to Aileen Dodd of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the teachers who used these problems should not be so quickly condemned. He admits that they may have used poor judgment, but he explains that they were using the problems to reinforce a lesson on Frederick Douglass, whom the students had learned about in social studies. Rivera has since resigned, as reported by ABC News on Jan. 21.
Though only one teacher wrote these questions, nine teachers handed out the assignment to their students. However, all of the teachers saw these questions before they passed out the assignment. There are those who feel that all of the teachers involved should be fired, but others believe that this should only apply to the teacher who wrote the questions.
But if any teacher has knowledge of a racist assignment being passed out to their students, they are just as much as fault. Furthermore, if the teachers just used “poor judgment” on this situation, what are other situations in which they could use poor judgment? Would they ever slip up and say something racist in class? Any teacher showing any signs of racism or letting children be exposed to racism (except in learning about just the concepts of it, raising awareness, or how it relates to history) should be fired immediately. Although the problems are supposed to relate to previous lessons on Frederick Douglass, a teacher should not expose their students to racism in such a light manner and incorporate it into lessons outside of social studies class.
Another recent example of racism in public schools was the fault of Ted Horrell, principal of a high school in Tennessee. Horrell publicly announced that the school’s black students were “less smart.” This was said after black students scored lower than average compared to other students on recent academic tests.
“The hope was we should share with the students, this is where we are as a school,” said Horrell to Eric Pfeiffer of The Sideshow, a Yahoo! News blog. He also explains, “I did say we have some groups of students that are performing better on standardized tests than others. I certainly didn’t say that white students are smarter than black students.”
OK, Horrell. Although you didn’t say white students are smarter than black students, you said that black students are less smart than white students. It’s the same thing, but worded differently. Horrell also denied that the academic testing drew racial boundaries, because it was an effort to improve the schools overall test scores. If race was not taken into account and the only thing that was relevant was the test scores of the the entire student body, Horrell would not have commented specifically on black students.
Horrell did end up issuing a letter of apology to all parents and students, saying that he “unintentionally offended a number of students on this campus.” That being said, it should be reiterated that the test scores were supposed to be an effort to improve the entire school, so he shouldn’t have said anything at all regarding the scores of certain groups.
The struggling students should receive help, because surely there are both students who need it and students who perform well in every social group, no matter their race. If black students are labeled as “less smart,” it implies that all of the black students are the ones bringing down the test score average, and that they are not better or as good of students then all of the white students, or students of any other race.
Racism in America is a lot less noticeable now than it was in the past, but there are still examples of racism throughout the country. Hopefully there will come a day when no one will discriminate or racially profile in any way whatsoever. Just because black citizens have equal rights, doesn’t mean that today’s society is open enough to completely forget about differences in race and color in treating people as people. Under the law, black citizens have the same rights as any other American. They have the same rights to education, to medical care, the same rights when seeking employment, to access the legal and political system, etc. But, when you look at the reality, they are still being discriminated against, as exemplified in these school-related incidents.
Annabella Palopoli can be reached at annabella.palopoli@spartans.ut.edu.