Civil rights lawyers have criticized a Chicago-area school district’s program to racially segregate English and math classes to boost the scores of minority students, saying it is “unconstitutional.”
“There’s no way you can pass the legal test if someone sues,” legal expert David Bernstein told the Washington Free Beacon of the two Evanston Township High School programs that will offer separate seminars in algebra 2, precalculus, advanced placement calculus and English for black students. and Latino students.
He added that the AXLE (Advancing Excellence, Lifting Everyone) program for black students and the Ganas (from the Spanish expression meaning “give everything you have”) program for Latino students are “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Bernstein pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees everyone “equal protection under the law.”
In the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that the Amendment prohibited segregation, which it said was inherently unequal.
Evanston Township School District Superintendent Marcus Campbell said separate English and math courses for black and Hispanic students are optional to provide “a different, more familiar environment for kids who feel really anxious about being in a class.” AP”. Evanston Township High School
Those in favor of the AXLE and Ganas programs argue that they are optional courses for students in the majority-minority district, which is only 44% white.
They provide students of color “a different, more familiar environment for kids who are really anxious about being in an AP class,” Superintendent Marcus Campbell told the Evanstonian.
He added that equity guides many of the decisions made by the Evanston Township school board, which says in a stated goal: “Recognizing that racism is the most devastating factor contributing to students’ declining student achievement, ETHS will strive to for eliminating the predictability of academic performance based on race.”
But students do not have to be black or Hispanic to participate in AXLE or Ganas classes, district officials clarified following backlash earlier this year.
They removed the term “restricted” from the course descriptions and replaced it with “although open to all students, this optional section of the course is intended to support students who identify as ‘Latinx’ or ‘Black,'” according to the Evanstonian.
School officials removed the term “restricted” from course descriptions after backlash earlier this year. Evanston Township High School
“That changed because what was written does not reflect the practice,” Campbell said. “It’s just not restricted. The courses are open to everyone.
“If things get complicated and you look at the master schedule, and a kid needs calculus in that period and there’s nothing else that works and that kid is white, of course we’ll put them in the affinity class.”
There are currently 105 students enrolled in the Ganas program and another 86 enrolled in AXLE courses, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Many students in the programs say they offer them a sense of belonging.
“I feel like I represent myself and not the entire black race in this AP class,” said one student in the program.
“It is a safe space,” he added. “In AP classes that are mostly white, I feel like if I answer wrong, I’m representing all the black kids. I stay quiet in those classes.”
A student in the Ganas program also said she felt “accepted for the first time in a long time.”
In total, a recent survey found that 56% of ETHS students felt a “sense of belonging” at the school, according to Evanston Now.
By race, that represented 62% of white students and 49% of black students.
The programs also appear to be helping, with students of color showing higher scores on AP tests than in previous years.
The programs also appear to be helping, with students of color showing higher scores on AP tests than in previous years. Evanston Township High School
But William Trachman, a former official in the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, argued that the Title IV law, which prohibits racial discrimination in federally funded programs, “does not distinguish between mandatory and optional activities.”
A racial equity consultant who worked for the school for more than a decade also admitted it would be better if they didn’t need the program.
“The ultimate goal is not to have an affinity section in algebra, but to have no disparity,” Glenn Singleton said.
For now, however, black and Hispanic students continue to underperform.
“Our black students are, for lack of a better word, and I hate to use this word, but they are at the bottom and they are constantly being outperformed,” school board Vice President Monique Parsons said at a meeting last month .
“It’s not good,” he said. “We’re always chasing this and trying to figure it out.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn