School System Adopts Race-Based Goals: Expecting less from Minorities

A Florida State Board of Education has a new plan for education goals: expect less from minority students. That’s right. The new guidelines for math and reading set new targets based on race. Asians and whites are expected to do better than blacks and hispanics. It’s affirmative action gone crazy.

As reported by CBS Tampa, the state board “passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race.”

The board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level. For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent. It also measures by other groupings, such as poverty and disabilities, reported the Palm Beach Post.

The plan has infuriated many community activists in Palm Beach County and across the state.

“To expect less from one demographic and more from another is just a little off-base,” Juan Lopez, magnet coordinator at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Riviera Beach, told the Palm Beach Post.

Can you believe it? With goals like that, does anyone actually think that minorities will be pushed to do better?

The Palm Beach Post reports that other in the community agree with Lopez, but Florida’s Education Department has a different take:

But the Florida Department of Education said the goals recognize that not every group is starting from the same point and are meant to be ambitious but realistic.

For instance, the percentage of white students scoring at or above grade level (as measured by whether they scored a 3 or higher on the reading FCAT) was 69 percent in 2011-2012, according to the state. For black students, it was 38 percent, and for Hispanics, it was 53 percent.

In addition, State Board of Education Chairwoman Kathleen Shanahan said that setting goals for different subgroups was needed to comply with terms of a waiver that Florida and 32 other states have from some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Here’s a report from Fox News:

So what do you think? How about teaching the basics and if someone excels, great, but if someone needs more help, give it to him or her? Accepting less from any group only ensures you will get exactly that: less.