Black students added to discrimination probe at L.A. Unified

Under pressure from local community leaders, the federal Office for Civil Rights will look at whether low academic achievement of African American students results from discrimination -- intentional or not -- by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The probe, disclosed in a recent letter to community groups, expands an ongoing investigation into services provided to students who are learning English.

Black community leaders hailed the news at a Saturday community forum at the Southside Bethel Baptist Church in the Green Meadows neighborhood of South Los Angeles. But participants also said they were disappointed that their calls for an investigation took so long to bear fruit.

“To initially focus on one group and exclude others could have been divisive and counterproductive to overall reform,” the Rev. Eric P. Lee said prior to the forum.

“It is unfortunate that it required the civil rights community to demand from the Department of Education that children be provided educational equality,” added Lee, who is president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles.

Officials with the federal agency said in March that they would focus on English learners at L.A. Unified because the district has about 220,000 -- more than any other school system in the country. English learners, most of them Latino, make up a third of students in the nation’s second-largest school system. Black students make up 10.8% of enrollment.

Federal officials said they are pursuing potential discrimination concerns involving black students in other regions of the country. They added that evaluating programs for English learners should benefit all underserved students, especially the many black students who do not speak standard English.

Black community leaders were not satisfied. L.A. Unified enrolls more than 70,000 African American students, far more than any other school system in the state. And civil rights leaders have argued that black children never achieved the equality promised by integration and other past reform efforts.

“The message being sent to Los Angeles’ African American community is that the devastation to black students being caused by the failure of public education is of little consequence to you or your department,” a coalition of black leaders wrote in a May 21 letter to the federal Department of Education.

As part of the original review, federal analysts have been examining how English learners are identified and when they are judged fluent enough to handle regular course work. They're also looking at whether English learners have qualified, appropriately trained teachers, and at how teachers make math and science understandable for students with limited English.

The expanded inquiry will compare five largely black elementary schools in Carson, View Park and Hawthorne with five largely white elementary schools in Bel-Air, Tarzana, Studio City and Encino. 
 
“Our administration is committed to responding to communities and the civil rights issues they confront for all students,” Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in her letter to community leaders.

Federal officials have stressed that poor academic results do not, by themselves, prove discrimination. But discrimination does not have to be intentional to be subject to federal remedies and sanctions, they said.

Participants in the Saturday forum included Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles); Blair Taylor, president of the Los Angeles Urban League; and Leon Jenkins, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

-- Howard Blume

Comments

[lgilsig]

When I read "non-standard english", I can't help but worry that "ebonics" is attempting to crawl from its grave...

[Chris]

Maxine Waters a participant? That says it all. Another day taking her people backwards. What a horrible person.

[BLM]

Yeah, the low achievement of black students is due to discrimination. Oh com on people. You have got to be kidding. Wasting precious resources investigating this kind of foolishness. How about taking a little personal responsibility and adding a little hard work.

[Frank]

This article is very interesting! Unfortunately it does not talk about how genetically it's been proven that African Americans are inferior when it comes to intelligence. Their brains develop much slower than the average human being.
However, just like everything else, there are exceptions and from time to time African Americans, such as our current President develop extraordinary intelligence!

[Yo Mama]

If the system was so racist against minorities in LAUSD, how come there is an achievement gap between Asian students and their Hispanic and Black counterparts?

[Jenny]

When are these parents going to be held responsible for their complete and utter failure to nurture their children? When will our society wake up and start finding ways to clean up filthy homes, permanently imprison child molesters, fully fund foster care, and engage in a multitude of other activities that promote a culture that respects children? Before we go off and accuse a school district, that is entirely overwhelmed by the vast social ills of Los Angeles, let's take a look at the lack of any sort of decent childhood any of these children have had and find a way to punish these parents! What parent doesn't know if their child can read or not? What parent doesn't understand the importance of learning English? What parent doesn't know if their child knows his/her multiplication tables? The kind of "parent" that doesn't know the answers to any of these questions belongs in prison. They are disgusting and are responsible for the failure of their children. Why would any of us blame the schools?

[syscom3]

And just what is the federal storm-trooper lawyers going to do? Make the state spend more money it doesn't have? Demand the illegals stop sending their kids to school because they take up so much of the budget? Demand the parents of students to speak proper english at home?

[erics]

Three things here.

1. This isnt just a black thing, the kids that are not making it, normally lack parents who value education.

2. Until ALL classes are held in english, American will be held back as a whole.

3. LaRazaUSD wont do anything about this since a "mexican" twist can be put on it.

[True Freedom]

At some point, people will have to stop pointing fingers at others to cast blame, but rather turn the finger around and look in the mirror.

[L.A. Story]

And they (LAUSD) continue to deny permits for our youth to attend schools in other districts, but refuse to provide them with a quality education in LAUSD. Our black leaders need to get on LAUSD about that issue as well and sue the pants off of them for refusing to let parents choose what district they would like to enroll their children in. All LAUSD see's is dollars.

[Dodger Tony]

The lack of comments on this story says it all.

[TheBigPicture]

How embarrassing....

[Jojo]

Its not new, ESL has taken president over every American public school student, even when it has not proven successful. The school board don't give hoot, as long as they keep their positions, and Unions can manage to keep its members with jobs.

[Beastyboi]

The glaring discrimination against African American students in Los Angeles Unified has been obvious for many years. I applaud the political leaders of the African American community for standing up for these students. There are Hispanic/Latino activist who are determined to manipulate the school system for the benefit of English Learners who speak Spanish as their first language. There will be no unity in our community when the citizens lose the bond of a shared language which in this country is English. The days when citizens held their tongue for fear of being labeled a racist are coming to an end. This post is coming from a person who is Hispanic but an American citizen first and foremost.

[Randy]

How is it that Black students, presumably born & raised here, don't have sufficient English fluency to perform well in school? What would their primary language be? As a dedicated "progressive", the only explanation I can offer is that it must be racism!

[Seen it all!]

Parents need to take a good look at what they can do to promote academic success. I am a teacher. I have students who have missed many days of school this year.

Parents often pull their child out of class early because they have to take care of "personal business." I can't teach students who aren't present.

Parents haven't bothered to attend the conferences we hold twice a year to discuss academic progress and how we can work together to help their child. They don't bother to attend Back to School Night at the beginning of the year to learn about the year's academic program. They don't show up for Open House so their child can share what they've learned this year.

I resent that money is being wasted on this when teachers are being laid off, and arts and other programs are being cut.

Take responsibility for your children. Step up to the plate!

[whitenoise]

a comparison between asian and latino english learners would tell the story: hard work versus little to no effort. there was a time when public education was a two way street: the teacher teaches, the student does the work to learn. i remember; i grew up in LAUSD and in a bilingual home. now, the district spends billions of dollars on consultants and vendors who provide politically correct programs to compensate for the lack of student participation in their own learning. as a teacher, i have also worked with "language learners," many of whom were born here; ironically, it's the more recent immigrants who tend to be hungry for education.

we can't have empowerment and equality without personal responsibility; without personal responsibility we get dependence, entitlement, learned helplessness, and a generally passive, uneducated servant class. what we need is a bill cosby to run our education department.

[Keep It Real]

@ Frank...

Yeah African-American's are so genetically inferior that they wrangled the power of your ancestors right from their hands...a black man in the "White House"...yeah I would say that's pretty inferior LMAO!!!!!

[Homeless in LAUSD]

This is such a waste of man hours. These folks need to roll their sleeves up and get in there and help by mentoring, tutoring, or funding such extra activities for the neediest students. How do these folks think things should be changed? Things in Green Meadows and others such areas of the US have been the way they are for years with no real changes. How is it soley the schools' problem?

[Bltihe]

Stop pointing to Asians as being the standard for all "minorities" to follow- Asians are THE example to follow. By saying that Asians are the "model minority" is to say that it doesn't even matter how hard-working or intelligent you are- you will still be thought of as an outsider to American society. Stop calling Asians the "model minority." They are simply the "model."

If the American educational system were totally fair, there would be more Asians in schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton than there are now. The only reason why caucasians still maintain predominance at old Ivy League schools is because whites maintain their own system of affirmative action- except they call it a "legacy preference."

That being said, there is only so much help and so much money you can give to students. You can only lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Sooner or later, some people will have to bag groceries or pump gas for the rest of us, because that's their choice; they refuse to take advantage of what lies before them.

[Artis Callaham]

In working with thousands of inner-city students over the past 29 years, some of us have committed our efforts to building positive self efficacy in our youngsters to empower them to navigate through the system. However, in LAUSD, a brilliant African American student has only to enroll in the wrong prestigeous public school to be treated as a stereotype; receive racial verbage from teachers; be treated with scorn; isolated; degrated and eventually have gone from being straight "A" students to discouraged, failing youngsters. I have too many subjects to support this phenomenon. It is sad... Attempts to resolve these issues are confronted with arrogance, denial, and more attacks on the victim.