Reading, Writing and Race in San Diego Schools

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Class is in session. Today’s pop quiz will test our perceptions and sensitivities about race relations in San Diego’s schools. Read the following real-life incident, which occurred not long ago in one of the city’s more diverse inner-city schools, and then answer the multiple-choice questions that follow.

A white female math teacher, a former California teacher of the year, is having trouble with a nonwhite girl who’s been disruptive throughout most of the lesson. The seventh-grader yells obscenities at the teacher when told—for the umpteenth time—to take her seat and be quiet. The student punctuates her profanity by throwing a chair at the teacher. The teacher sends the child to the vice principal’s office with a discipline referral.

The student tells the vice principal the teacher is a racist and picking on her. The vice principal goes to the classroom, takes each student aside, and asks if he or she believes the teacher is a racist. “Fortunately,” the teacher says later, “they said I wasn’t, or my career would have ended.” The student was not disciplined, and the incident was not reported to the school district offices.

Question 1: This Mid-City school is:
a) Culturally diverse
b) Desegregated

Question 2: The teacher believes the girl’s behavior problems are caused by:
a) Tensions of an overcrowded campus that accentuate the normal anxieties of teens
b) A home environment where profanity and violence are not entirely uncommon
c) Parents who don’t discipline the girl or help her with schoolwork
d) An inability to perform the math work demanded of her

Question 3: The vice principal in this situation:
a) Overreacted
b) Underreacted

Question 4: The teacher wishes to remain anonymous because:
a) It’s uncomfortable to talk about things like this
b) The media always overplay these types of stories, and she doesn’t want to be criticized
c) The school is continually making improvements to deal with race issues, and she doesn’t want to label it a problem

Answers: There are no wrong answers. And no easy ones.

This incident illustrates, in day-to-day terms, many of the more complex concepts engendered by discussions of race and education. By the numbers, San Diego schools today are more desegregated and more culturally diverse than ever. Rapid population growth has led to classroom overcrowding, which can hamper learning and lead to discipline problems. More minorities are teachers, but the majority are still white females. Today’s parents may or may not be in the home to do all those expected mom-and-dad things—preparing breakfast; getting the kids to school on time; helping with homework.

There are large numbers of parents in San Diego who don’t speak English and don’t know how to work with one classroom teacher, let alone a school district layered in bureaucracy. The term “latchkey kid” no longer requires a parenthetical definition. Nor does the term “political correctness.” Save for the zealot fringe, no one wants to be labeled prejudiced, biased or bigoted. Politicians, community leaders and the media stress such terms as “ethnic and cultural sensitivity” and lambaste what has become known as “a history of exclusion.” Everyone wants to do “what’s right.”

We all want a good future for our children, and we know that starts with a good education. The question is: What is right? And what is wrong?

“The problem with schools,” a local education official once lamented, half-jokingly, “is that everybody’s an expert. Everybody’s been to school.”

Today, throughout San Diego County’s 603 schools, there are 470,000 new experts-in-the-making—kindergarten through 12th grade. There are reams of statistics on these children. Skim through the data, though, and certain race-related trends emerge from the blur of numbers:

The majority of San Diego schoolkids are minority, accounting for 56 percent of countywide enrollment—a 64 percent increase in 10 years. Students who speak little or no English make up about 35 percent of the collective student body—an increase of more than 100 percent since 1989. Countywide, the dropout rate for African-American and Latino students is about twice that of white students. The number of students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals, used as an indicator of low or moderate family income (and often associated with minority students), has increased 39 percent since 1992. On standardized tests of basic skills, nonwhite students generally continue to perform below the level of white students. “For kids in this county, the issue is hope,” says Rudy Castruita, superintendent of San Diego County Schools. “What opportunities are afforded to them in their schools that give them the opportunity to compete with the general population?” Castruita echoes a theme that invariably plays through any dialogue today about race and education. “We don’t have equal access, and that’s what the minority population is frustrated about,” he says. According to findings from a survey of 808 county residents (commissioned by San Diego Magazine and conducted by Viewpoint America), 77 percent of African-Americans here see “a lot of or some” discrimination against them when it comes to equal access to a good education. Asked the same questions, 53 percent of Latino respondents also perceive a lot of or some discrimination against them. Conversely, some 78 percent of Asians and 81 percent of Caucasians say they feel little or no discrimination. Equal access to a quality education is a multifaceted issue. It concerns access to solid academic resources, experienced teachers and an environment where racial and cultural diversities not only are tolerated but also understood. And it means access to parents, perhaps the most difficult issue of all. Because of language problems or a whole host of socioeconomic issues, parents of minorities often do not get involved with their children’s educations

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