Tag Archives: discrimination

A Square Peg in the Round Hole of Public Education

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A single failure by a single student in a public school is evidence of a flawed educational process. Rarely, if ever, is there a single failure, however. In almost every public school in the U.S. there are multiple failures and in many public school districts in America there are hundreds or even thousands of students who fail. Multiply either of those numbers by the number of public school districts in the America and we are talking about an unacceptable number of children who are failing in school.

Would we accept that many deaths in a hospital emergency ward? Would we accept that many deaths or serious injuries because of a flaw in a major component of a make of automobile? Would we continue to dine at a restaurant if 30 percent or more of the meals we order were inedible? Teachers may well have done everything they can for their students within the context of the educational process employed by American public schools but since when have Americans been constrained from fixing something that is broken?

When a child arrives at school with a hearing or vision impairment we are required, by law, to take whatever steps are necessary to accommodate the child’s disability. The same is true if the child has some physical impairment or has been found to be mentally or emotionally impaired. These are not choices we make, these actions are required by law.

Within in the context of an socio/political environment governed by such laws as the American Disabilities Act, et al, how can we continue to deny such accommodations to children who, through no fault of their own, arrive for their first day of school with some level of “academic preparedness deficiency?” Making accommodations for children who are burdened with disadvantages resulting from insufficient academic preparedness is not nearly as costly as making our buildings handicap accessible or as burdensome as other extraordinary measures.

All we must do to meet the needs of children with “academic preparedness deficiencies” is to acknowledge what the evidence has been telling us for the last half century or more: “the educational process employed by American public schools does not work for children with these types of disadvantages.” These children both need and deserve meaningful accommodations. They desperately need us to take the time to understand how far behind they are and in what ways and then design an academic plan that gives them the time, attention, and support they need to be successful.

That educators have failed to recognize that the current educational process does not work for these children is one of the great mysteries of the last 100 years and it will be unforgiveable if we continue to ignore the needs of these youngsters. The only possible justification for perpetuating this gross injustice is if we truly believe poor children, children or color, or children for whom English is a second language are incapable of learning.

We like to blame poverty, discrimination, and segregation as the reasons why these children fail because that belief, we think, absolves us of responsibility. The truth is that discrimination is the only reason why so many of these children fail and why so many leave school as young adults with little if any of the knowledge and skills they will need to make a place for themselves in mainstream America.

The horrible and uncomfortable truth is that these children fail because the public educational process in America, and the professional educators who are loyal to that process, discriminate against these children. We discriminate against them because we ignore their unique requirements and insist on trying to push their quadrilateral peg through the round hole of public education and the educational process on which it relies.

Trying to force these boys and girls through the proverbial round hole has not worked for the last seventy years and it will not work for the next seventy years. The irony is that in seventy years it won’t matter, anymore, because the U.S. will be so far behind the rest of the world that it will be the United States of America that needs an accommodation.

Freedom of Religion Misconstrued

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It is difficult to imagine that our founding fathers envisioned that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America would be used to justify discrimination against any person or persons or to provide an exemption from compliance with the laws of the land.

The Constitution was adopted to guarantee the rights of citizens to choose how they wish to live their lives and to protect them against abuses by their government. Such protections were a high priority of the framers of our Constitution given that so many of their families had fled to America to escape such abuses. The Bill of Rights refers to amendments to the constitution that were intended to define the rights that were considered to be most precious to a free people.

The First Amendment specified freedom of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to peacefully assemble, and “to petition the government for redress of grievances.” With specific reference to freedom of religion, the intent was that not only are citizens free to choose their religion but also that the government is prevented from interfering with those choices.

Annually, at Christmas and Easter, we hear complaints that the refusal to grant permission to have displays of Christian worship symbols within or on the grounds of public buildings is somehow an infringement of the religious freedom of Christians.

This is a clear misinterpretation of the First Amendment. Our government’s obligation is to protect our right to decide how we worship, not play favorites. Public buildings belong to Jews, Muslim, and practitioners of other religions every bit as much as they belong to Christians and these American have every right to object to those symbols being placed on property funded with their tax dollars.

That Christianity has long been the dominant religion in the U.S. makes it that much more important that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others be protected from persecution or domination by Christians. Christians have no right to preferential treatment, their claims that the U.S. is a Christian nation notwithstanding.

The truth, today, is that the other religions of the world have become and will continue to become more prevalent in American society. While the adjustment to this reality may not come easily to Christians, it is an adjustment that cannot be avoided if we are to remain a free society.

Recent proposals to restrict the freedoms of Muslims, in the aftermath of both domestic and international terrorism by radical Islamic terrorist groups, proves the vital importance of such Constitutional protections. Imagine infringing on the rights of Christians, for example, following terrorist acts committed by armed anti-government militia groups who profess to be radical Christians executing the wrath of God.

History has shown that human beings, Christians included, are capable of horrific acts of violence against other human beings. Each and every one of us deserves the same protections under the law from individuals or groups that lay claim to the Divine right to pass judgment on their fellow man.

The same would be true for the rights of gays and lesbians. To think that we could use our constitutional right to freedom of religion to justify discrimination against any population of Americans, including gays and lesbians and now transgenders, is scary. The American Congress, as duly empowered by the Constitution, has passed legislation prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and these laws have been found to be Constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Claiming that religious freedom grants one license to disregard the law of the land is a frightening prospect in a free society, no matter who does the proclaiming.

The United States of America may well be one nation, under God but it is for individual citizens to determine how they wish to profess their faith and beliefs, or not at all.

Racial Violence and Police Brutality Have a Similar Genesis!

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The rioting taking place in Baltimore over the past couple of days is not the first nor will it be the last incidence of young blacks, mostly men, acting out in anger in central cities throughout the U.S. Unlike those who engage in thoughtful protest, violence is all many of these young people know.

They are part of a growing population of young people, a large percentage of which are black, who are disconnected from mainstream society. They have been chewed up a spit out by a flawed educational process, have access to minimal health care, feel targeted by the criminal justice system, and feel imprisoned in their own communities. Do these factors justify such behavior? Certainly not, but we are not seeking justification.

What we are seeking, what we must seek, is understanding. Until we understand the forces that drive such behavior we can only react to it and reaction only prompts a chain reaction. We need understanding if we are to have any hope of a meaningful resolution.

That being said, is the rioting in the streets in Baltimore any different than a group of cops losing control and beating a black suspect in the streets? History is full of examples in which seemingly peaceful groups of people can, when conditions are ripe, morph into a violent mob to which they seem compelled to relinquish their self-control.

That human beings have a propensity to surrender to the mob is a given and it is a powerful force of human nature. What concerns us are the factors that trigger such behavior.

In the case of white cops and young black men in urban America, the dynamics that trigger such violence are remarkably and ironically similar. In both instances, the triggering emotion is a heightened sense of frustration born of powerlessness in the face of forces that affect their daily lives. Let us remind ourselves that the overwhelming majority of African-Americans do not engage in senseless rioting in the streets of any neighborhood, let alone their own, and the overwhelming majority of police officers do not engage in the senseless beating of suspects of any demographic.

Young people living in poverty, hopelessness, and powerlessness are reacting to a world that does not seem to care about them and from which they see no escape. While this group includes people of all races, creeds, and ethnic heritage, African-Americans are disproportionately represented and possess a unique sensitivity to discrimination. This burgeoning population of Americans live in a world that is separate and apart from what is perceived to be mainstream society and the chasm that separates them is widening, relentlessly.

When these young people take to the streets, it is almost always begins as a reaction to what they believe to be police brutality or other forms of institutional racism.

The police officers who respond with violence are reacting to their own sense of frustration over their inability—their sense of powerlessness—to bring perpetrators of a virtual avalanche of criminal activity to justice in an environment in which they believe the courts to be ineffectual. Imagine how any of us would feel about a job in which the problems that keep us from doing our job are overwhelming and where our employer seems incapable of doing anything about it. None of this excuses this type of behavior but it does help us understand.

The reality that we face as members of a democratic form of government is that the world is changing faster than ever and the tools we have at our disposal are becoming obsolete. No matter how much some people might wish it, we cannot turn back the clock to a time when the white man ruled the roost and values were simpler and clearer. This is true whether you are viewing the scenario as a conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, tea-party member or socialist.

The combination of conservative and liberal policies employed by our leadership over the last 65 years are what brought us to this point in history. These policies did not work then and they have even less chance of working in a world in which the gaps that separate us as a people seem impassable; where the population is growing steadily more diverse; and, in which our elected legislators seem incapable of working together.

There are tens of millions of young people who feel disconnected from mainstream society and the number grows, daily. Somehow we must find a way to pull them into the mainstream, not shut them off from it. We need new ideas, new solutions; we need to think exponentially.

These new approaches must begin in our public schools where public school teachers are presently under attack by educational reformers who do not understand the challenges of public education; who think that simplistic, jingoistic solutions can solve complex problems; and, who are oblivious to the damage they do!

We must call upon professional educators to acknowledge that the way we have been teaching kids for decades no longer works. We need them to come together as a profession and seek new educational processes that are focused on the meeting the real needs each and every child and to create the necessary structure to support that effort.

To paraphrase Zig Ziglar, “if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting.”

The reader is invited to explore my book, Reinventing Education, Hope, and the American Dream: The Challenge for Twenty-First Century America, where I offer a blueprint for action.