Taking the blame for what you cannot control

At the end of an IEP* today (a conference call meeting in which the mother ended up never calling), I overheard our principal mention something about our school being investigated - by whom I did not hear - because 75% of our special education students are black.

This is a common theme in the ongoing hand-wringing over the "achievement gap"; the fact that black students tend to be disproportionately represented in special education classrooms and in special education programs. Since this statistic is true just about anywhere, I can only assume that my school was singled out because we had an especially skewed number of black students in the program.

I am continually amazed by how obtuse some people can be - in this case, the district/county/state officials who are up in arms over our special education statistics. There are all kinds of disparities out there, but whose fault is it?

One of the best known disparities is women in college sports. All kinds of men's athletics programs have been discontinued in colleges all over the country in the name of equity. According to the fascistic bean counters out there, if the percentage of women in a college's sports programs does not match the percentage of women enrolled in the school, then it is automatically assumed that there is discrimination against women going on in the school's athletic department. The fact that women and men are different, and the natural aggression and competitiveness of the average male is going to cause more male students to gravitate towards sports than female students, is too much for the clipped-haired, mean-faced feminists to bear. I borrowed that term from Michael Savage by the way; I can't claim it as my own.

I always find it interesting when a dearth of a certain demographic in a certain pursuit causes wailing and crying, but an overabundance does not cause any concern. The NBA is overwhelmingly dominated by black players, way out of proportion to their numbers in the general population. Is this too a sign of discrimination? Why aren't activists out there demanding that black players only make up 12% of the League's roster? Shouldn't diversity go both ways? You could make the reverse argument about the National Hockey League as well. Where is the push for more black players in the NHL? To find your answer, simply poll my black students with the following question: Would you rather play in the NBA or the NHL? I'm sure you know what the poll results will be.

Instead of getting indignant about the numbers of black students qualifying for special education services, how about addressing the problems that cause them to qualify in such overwhelming numbers to begin with? This black student whose IEP we held today is a prime example. He is 14 years old and physically looks like he is in the sixth grade; we can only speculate as to why. There is no father in the home, and according to the paperwork, the student is one of "several" children, and mom is currently pregnant with baby-number-whatever. Earlier this year, this student was suspended for urinating on the outside of a classroom because he couldn't find one of the many bathrooms located on our campus, and he has received at least two five-day suspensions for fighting. Are you telling me that this student should be denied special education services because we have already exceeded our black student quota?

The same thing happens to me in my classroom. Today for instance, I walked around the classroom with a trash can, instructing all my gum chewers to spit it out. Every one of my gum chewers was black. Does that mean I only targeted black students? Hell no! Before I went on my gum crusade, I non-chalantly examined every student in the classroom, looking for the tell-tale chewing. What am I supposed to do if only the black students are chewing gum? Let it go for fear of offending them? What does that say about my expectations of behavior if I relax my classroom rules for one specific group of students? Could it be that a disproportionate number of black students try to get away with more misbehavior because they know they have the race card in their holster, and are counting on the teachers to back down? I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that expecting human beings to fit into a nice, neat statistical category is way too much to ask. While we are all individuals, we do tend to follow certain cultural norms. Those cultures can be constructive or destructive. The question of the moment that we as educators and as citizens face is a difficult one. Do we show courage in the face of threats and ridicule and tell the practitioners of a destructive culture that what they are doing is wrong, or do we take the easy, non-confrontational way out by validating their culture; branding it as not wrong, just different?

Some of my more myopic readers have called me a racist for making such remarks, and have expressed their sadness that my children will grow up being raised by a racist such as myself. I ask these knee-jerk reactionaries to please explain to me how they are not the racists for believing that the current social practices of many black Americans are the best that we can expect?

Good Day to You, Sir

*For those of you not versed in edulingo, an IEP is an "Individualized Education Plan" which is a requirement for students who are enrolled in special education. An initial IEP, like the meeting we had today, is the meeting where we go over the results of all the different tests the school psychologist previously gave to the student, and the determination is made as to whether or not the student qualifies for special education services. Personally, I think the whole setup is a big muddy crock of crap.