The St. Petersburg Times reports that a three-judge appeals panel has bolstered black students’ lawsuit that alleges they are not being properly educated.
The decision sets the stage for what will likely be one of the most important lawsuits in US education in recent years.
The big question is whether schools alone can be held accountable for inequities in achievement and disciplinary actions experienced by black students.
The strategy of the Pinellas County School District will be to argue that differences in achievement are an individual student matter— that some black students do well while others don’t and that the factors behind their performance vary.
At it’s heart, this strategy is a based on a deficit model of learning and works to protect the status quo in terms pedagogy, curriculum, and school organization. The fundamental idea is that students must adapt to schools, rather than schools taking responsibility for meeting the needs of students.
Another key issue will be how the so-called “achievement gap” is defined. For all intents and purposes the current discourse on achievement is narrowly focused on test scores. That is, as a result of NCLB, schools operate with a truncated definition of achievement success that deflects attention away from issues such as the limitations of instruments used to measure achievement; the narrowed curriculum (which is often racist and classist); and how the accepted educational practices, such as the use of high-stakes tests, leads to the under-serving and mis-serving of all students.
For more on the harmful effects of high-stakes tests see the American Evaluation Association’s Position Statement on High-Stakes Testing in K-12 Education
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