Last week the Florida Board of Education decided to institute a new set of standards for grading students reading prowess in their state. Florida’s new student achievement goals are designed to take into account the unique family life and socioeconomic background of different races and there effect on student reading scores. In other words different races will be graded differently because as we all know we are all products of our environment.
Florida like most states has been struggling with substandard minority reading scores for some time. Last year in the sunshine state, 69% of white students tested at grade level on the state FCAT test. Hispanics came in second at 53% while less than 40% of black students managed to prove they could read at grade level.
In an attempt to meet the terms of waivers granted to Florida (and 32 other states) from provisions of the federal “No Child Left Behind Act” (as well as bridging the minority student to non-minority student achievement gap); Florida is lowering reading standards for minority and some poor students. Apparently in Florida kids don’t have to read at the same grade level anymore especially if their black and poor. Oh brother!
In fairness to the Florida minority community some are upset with Florida’s new standards in grading. Many as you would expect are screaming racism at the Board of Education’s new policies. From what I have read many Florida educators are offended over the state’s public acknowledgement that black students aren’t learning to read at the rates of other racial groups. Apparently they see they states desperate move to maintain school funding levels as a form of “soft racism.”
Can you imagine going to your CEO and saying: “Hey don’t worry about the Accounts Receivables for the minority contractor we use in Florida. The guy went to a Florida Public School so he doesn’t have to pay his bills on time. Quite frankly I don’t know if he can read them.” I’m sure that would go over real well.
Like so many other government inspired policies Florida’s new unfair grading standards are an outrage. Minority communities should not only be embarrassed, but they should be picketing the State Board of Education every day. What sane parent would accept that their children may be pushed through a school system and never learn to read at grade level? What future hope does any child have for self-sufficiency without the ability to read and write?
Sounds to me like the Florida Board of Education is hiding behind a covert form of affirmative action; and I can almost guarantee that hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars tax will be spent defending their new policies in court. What in the heck were they thinking?
All across America young people are being short changed by a failing public education system. Now the experts are trying to change the rules to accommodate decades of failed policies and failing families. I’m sure the teachers union is behind this insanity, but when are we going to reach a point where it stops? Minority communities better get their collective act together and start pushing their students to achieve real grades on real subject matter or they will eventually get left behind.
Are minority communities so blind that they don’t see the damage they are willingly inflicting on future generations of Americans? If so they have nobody to blame but themselves. They elect these people and they are welcome to the consequences of their voting behavior.
The post Florida Says It’s OK That Minorities Don’t Read Well appeared first on The Last Resistance.