Oakland County Schools Achievement Gap Commentary

This commentary is offered in support of the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) and State Superintendent Mike Flanagan. This is a response to an article that appeared in The Oakland Press on Sunday, October 21, 2012, written by Diana Dillaber Murray entitled, “State slams Oakland Schools for wide achievement gap.”

Essentially, the MDE is holding the Oakland County Schools accountable for being among the 10 percent of schools in the state that have the largest gap between the 30 percent of the highest achieving students and the lowest achieving 30 percent of students.  Their position is that schools need to develop strategies to improve the achievement levels of those students.  We concur, wholeheartedly.  However, I would caution the MDE to avoid the biggest problem associated with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act established by the Bush Administration.  NCLB is a punishment system, not a leadership program.  It is not enough to point out discrepancies and issue warnings.  School districts, of course, as a first step need to be required to acknowledge that there is a discrepancy.  However, they also need to be pointed in the direction of a solution.  That is what is missing in our educational world.

Superintendent of the Oakland Schools, Vickie Markavitch is attempting to defend the indefensible by using code words that hark back to the days of “separate but equal.”  Her position is that even though the African American and lower income children (the lower 30%) are not performing on par with the top 30% in the schools, they have reached levels of “near proficiency” that are good enough for them to be “work and college ready”.  Even though these children’s achievement falls way below the other children in their same school, the level at which they are performing is good enough because it is above the statewide average.  We have to ask some hard questions today when the definition of public education is for some children to be “near proficient” and for others, in the words of Superintendent Markavich to take AP Physics, major in Chemistry and become prolific authors.  She doesn’t state explicitly what occupations the “near proficient” children can expect or deserve.   Is that the role of government to make those designations?

Her use of the term “proficiency” harks back to the days when the argument was made that unequal separate schools for Negro and white children in the South were in fact equal.  Her argument suggests further that the bottom 30% are doing well enough – certainly as well as they would be doing in a low performing Priority school – where they belong?

The “elephant in the room” is the activity of upper middle class white parents.  Principals and superintendents know that on any given day 70% of the parents in their schools can yank their children and enroll them in private schools.  They are catering to those parents.  Upper middle class white parents want to create private schools within the public schools.  They want to penetrate the politics of the public schools and create private school outcomes for their children without having to pay private school tuition.

This cadre of parents whom Lisa Delpil says are connected to the “culture of power” know the “code of power”.  They are only in favor of school practices and policies that elevate the achievement of the top 30% in a single-minded fashion.  That is the condition of their remaining in those schools.  This is the population that the superintendent represents. The parents of the lower 30% do not have the savvy to be able to penetrate the school power structure to change what is happening to their children.  Sometimes it is all they can do to deliver their children to those schools.

As a result, the spotlight should also be shined on the covert activities of schools in affluent communities.  Reports have been made of parents being informed upon entry to high school, that if their child does not have good grades in the 8^th grade and does not pass a proficiency test, they will involuntarily be bussed to an alternative school.  This is an effort to prevent the Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in the affluent school from being dragged down by an influx of children who need to be taught. 

Reports have also been made that if there are enough high achieving children in the school that can “mask” the children who need to be taught, the middle range children can remain in the building.  However, for the lower third of children, strategies are brought into play to eliminate them from the assessment pool so that they don’t show up and drag down the AYP when assessments are given.

More time and thought is being given to erecting these evasive strategies and polishing the data interpretation angles of administrators than is spent in seriously trying to meet the educational needs of these children.

The “Hide and Seek” scenarios in private schools are not any different.  In my book, Learning While Black, I chronicled my struggle to guide the journey of my African American male son through an elite private school in Michigan.  Even though he was tested as gifted, the politics of everyday life in the classroom resulted in a constant struggle against his having been tracked and placed in lower ability groups.

The MDE and the Superintendents of schools need to step back from talking to each other from data bases.  They need to avail themselves of the growing body of literature that documents:

1.  the rabid competitive culture perpetrated by white upper income parents in trying to achieve unending advantages and separation for their children;

2.  the ways in which teachers structure statuses in the classroom that result in African American and lower income children entering school eager to learn and departing increasingly disadvantaged for each succeeding year of their journey through school.

What is needed is cutting edge in-service training of teachers and administrators.  However, in order to prescribe that training, the administrators who design solutions need to look beyond the test score data to school climate and classroom solutions.   In my book, I set forth a model of school reform for creating an instructional accountability infrastructure within each school that delivers educational excellence to every child. 

We also have to ask ourselves as a society the question of, “What is the purpose of public education?”  Public school education was created in the 1890’s for the children of white immigrants.  It was never intended for African Americans.  African Americans who were only a few years free from slavery were required to pay taxes to support the quality public school education of white children while being relegated to inferior schools themselves.  They had to use near slave wages to fund schools and colleges to give their children a chance at a better life.  Public colleges and universities that they were taxed to support were allowed by law to exclude them.  

Public school education began when the nation was in a transition from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy.  Public schools were created to give every white child an opportunity to be connected to the 20^th century economy.  Public school education was designed to provide an opportunity for white children to be connected to the future.  What is the plan for all children today?  It sounds like the plan in the Oakland County Schools is for African American children to be “proficiently” unemployed.

Julie Mushing sent the following comment:

Doing a little more search, I came across the response from the Superintendent, you may want to add a link to the information from your blog, to see if people agree or disagree with her statements:

http://www.oakland.k12.mi.us/Home/ThoughtsandresourcesfromDrMarkavitch/FocusSchools/tabid/3338/Default.aspx

Thank you,

Julie