Systemic Ills and Educational Transformation: Accurate Counting, Institutional Accountability and Student Achievement

The United States finally appears to be taking serious stock of its public educational track record in full view of the general public. The Time magazine cover story (April 17, 2006), entitled “Dropout Nation” (written by Nathan Thornburgh), regarding high school students who drop-out or do not graduate at the end of their initial senior year, launched the first salvo by stating that the dropout phenomenon was not relegated to students from minority groups, or even the poor, but was a general phenomenon affecting some 30 percent of the high school population, and that it had been transpiring for the past two decades! The story served as the bellwether for the change in accountability climate and direction that was to hit two months later in June 2006 with the simultaneous publication of Who’s Counted? Who’s Counting? Understanding High School Graduation Rates (Alliance for Excellent Education) and Diplomas Count, An Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center)—both funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.* Time’s general dropout figure of 30 percent pales by the lackluster graduation rates of states like Georgia, where 41% of the white male student population that could graduate, does not (2002-2003 Graduation Profile, reported in EPERC referenced above) or the national figure of 1.2 million students not completing the high school cycle, which translates into 7,000 high school students dropping out per day (Overview, AFEE study referenced above.
All of the studies acknowledge—ex post facto—that graduation numbers have been over-reported by educational and related agencies—even the Census Bureau.

African American and Hispanic drop out rates are much higher—a well known, perennial phenomenon whose resolution in any substantive sense continues to elude public education (see, for example, Latino Policy & Issues Brief, No. 13 March 2006, at www.chicano.ucla.edu, which reports that 54 of every 100 “Chicanas and Chicanos” do not complete high school and that only 8 of every 100 earn an undergraduate degree; see also, the June 2006 study by Sara Mead, "The Truth Suggests Otherwise: The Truth About Boys and Girls" available at http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/ESO_BoysAndGirls.pdf).

Asian Americans—burdened but certainly not broken by the albatross of the “model minority” label, which surfaced in 1966 (see 2003 “Brief of Amici Curiae” reference, page 18 at http://chronicle.com/indepth/michigan/documents/briefs/respondent/NAPALC.pdf)—have, among various other socio-economic and cultural-linguistic indicators, a continuing history of within-group disparate drop out and poverty rate figures. In Georgia, Asian/Pacific Islanders, as a group, have the highest high school graduation rate (75%), which is still lower than the national average (77%). A higher percentage of API girls in Georgia (78%) graduate from high school than do API boys (71%). The percentages for these groups at the national levels are somewhat higher—80% and 73%, respectively (see Diplomas Count, referenced above). The pattern of disparities is generally found within particular sub-group categorizations within the larger Asian American classification (see, for example, the 1995 Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons—AARP—report available at http://www.aarp.org/research/reference/minorities/aresearch-import-509.html; the 2000 Illinois Immigrant Policy Project white paper available at http://www.roosevelt.edu/ima/pdfs/immigrant-whitepaper.pdf; and the May 2006 research report entitled Asian & Pacific Islander Americans in Sacramento [California], at http://www.csus.edu/news/communityprofile/AsianAmericanReport.pdf). The broad label, Asian American, embraces in the U.S.: Asian Indian, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese, Guamanian, Hawaiian, Samoan, and others (for a U.S. Census listing of all categories see http://www.imdiversity.com/Villages/Asian/reference/census_what_is_an_apa.asp). In the late 1990s, the category of Pacific Islander was “disaggregated” from that of Asian American (www.opportunityagenda.org), as educational, income and other demographic statistics varied significantly from that of Asian Americans. Pacific Islanders, for example, in the Sacramento area have the lowest postsecondary education completion rates of all ethnic or racial groups, 8.1% (http://www.csus.edu/news/communityprofile/). Pacific Islander American educational and income levels tend to be decidedly lower than those of Asian Americans (see, for example, a 4-state comparison using 2000 Census data at www.calstatela.edu/centers/ckaks/census/71803_table3.pdf).

While many voices with access to media identify teachers as the salient variable in students’ performance, and other voices isolate particular types of schools (“low performing”), few voices characterize the problem as systemic and endemic to U.S. culture. The famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Et Al. Supreme Court decision was a critical moment in the attempt to transform public schooling by providing quality schooling to all children—the intent—through desegregation, although in the context of the times it specifically related to African American students. Fifty-two years later, the U.S. still has a dismal track record in educating its poor, or students who are designated as non-white or distinct culturally or linguistically from the mainstream (read white, upper middle class) standard, or, for that matter, achieving school desegregation. It is common to point to the “with all deliberate speed” statement by the 1954 Court as it allowed States to determine, over the next decade (read the violent struggle between States rights vs. federal mandate, culminating in the Civil Rights Act 1964; http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/sunstein_brown.html), their individual rate of speed in attending to school desegregation, or, to put it in more meaningful terms, in attending to providing quality schooling for black Americans.

Asian American voices have had an historical presence in the U.S. American legal system, and by extension, culture, as well. The Lau v. Nichols Supreme Court decision of 1974 related to the

“failure of the San Francisco [California] school system to provide English language instruction to approximately 1,800 students of Chinese ancestry who do not speak English, or to provide them with other adequate instructional procedures, denies them a meaningful opportunity to participate in the public educational program [and violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964].”
www.nclea.gwu.edu/pubs/lau

The justices further stated:

“…there is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for student who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education.”
www.nclea.gwu.edu/pubs/lau

The justices left the manner in which to “rectify the language deficiency” up to the schools; thus, it was not an absolute mandate for instruction in the students’ native language (Chinese). The reality was that no more than half of the students were receiving even “special English instruction”
(www.nclea.gwu.edu/pubs/lau)

On February 14, 1993, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Asian Law Caucus, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Et Al. submitted a brief of Amici Curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the Grutter v. Bollinger case (see http://chronicle.com/indepth/michigan/documents/briefs/respondent/NAPALC.pdf). Grutter claimed that the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions criteria favored underrepresented minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) preference over Whites and Asian Americans. The court decided against Grutter, upholding the affirmative action admissions policy of the UM Law School. The brief of Amici Curiae assertively supported the affirmative action admissions policy of the U of M and boldly stated that the model minority myth associated with Asian Pacific Americans was:

“empirically false and ignores current discrimination and racism against Asian Pacific Americans [and] rests on stereotypes of Asian Pacific Americans as being more racially and culturally inclined to be hard-working and industrious than other minorities. [In fact,] Asian Pacific Americans’ socioeconomic status reflects the lingering effects of a long history of racial discrimination[;] Asian Pacific Americans also have been unable to achieve income levels commensurate with their academic training and credentials…further, discriminatory employment barriers…have hindered Asian Pacific Americans’ ability to advance to management positions.”

The momentum gathered and gains made by the Asian Pacific Americans in the legal and research domains demonstrate admirably the well-organized thrust for effective self-identification and self-determination through the democratic process, and it continues (see Equal Justice, Unequal Access: Immigrants & America's Legal System: Recommendations for Action and Collaboration, 2005, published by National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium). A group can and must understand itself, its circumstance (economic, educational, social, cultural, linguistic, political, etc.), advocate for itself, and, ultimately, be its own change agent—although other groups will certainly play a meaningful role. The 2005 research-informed study Equal Justice, Unequal Access, cited above, boldly and articulately takes this next step in inter-group collaboration.

The educational system of the U.S. must transform itself in order to serve equitably its population—particularly that vast segment that has been denied quality schooling. The question of how this transformation will take place, the pace at which it will take place, and who will act and advocate for the transformation remains open—and, lamentably, even unacknowledged in light of so many voices. Thus, as has been historically the case (e.g., 1954, 1964, 1974), this era's mandate for universal quality schooling continues to be led generally by the groups seeking redress, rather than reflecting a general national mandate by an informed and unified public. Under these conditions, it is even more difficult to treat, much less cure, our systemic educational illness, although there is no choice, from a human rights perspective, but to continue.

* For related, current educational reports, see: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004009.pdf, http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/sld/databook.jsp, http://pace.berkeley.edu/NCLB/WP06-01_Web.pdf, and
http://www.aed.org/ToolsandPublications/upload/cogs.pdf