Episode 99: Navigating the Undercurrents of Racism — The Struggle for Equality in American K-12 Education

This is part two of a three-part series. Confront the stark reality of racism's grip on American K-12 education  in the second part of this riveting series. Prepare to face uncomfortable truths as I dissect the segregation that lingers in school cafeterias and unfold the demographic shifts propelling students of color to the forefront. The specter of Proposition 209 looms large in my discussion, a sobering reminder of the hurdles that African-American and Latino students continue to face in accessing top-tier public universities. This episode doesn't just chart the waters of educational disparity; it seeks to navigate the undercurrents of systemic inequality that demand our urgent attention and action.

Witness the broader implications of changing racial dynamics in American society, where the impending shift to a  White numerical minority fuels anxiety, hate crimes, and divisive rhetoric. I shatter the myth of colorblindness, exposing how unconscious bias infiltrates decisions in emergencies, employment, and more. My exploration goes beyond Black and White narratives, casting light on the struggles of Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans, from police violence to the burdens of stereotype. Join me for an essential discussion that emphasizes the complexity of discrimination and the urgent need for an inclusive, educated approach to racial justice in our nation's schools.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:39

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr Kim J Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microaggressions that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids, who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. Support my children in their education progress. This podcast is at the intersection between education, research and parental actions. If you're looking to find out more about the current trends, issues and themes in education that could affect you or your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and advocate for your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and advocate for your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 education topics is important to you, so keep listening.

Speaker 1: 2:11

On today's episode, I'll be discussing the persistence of racism in society and its impact on K-12 public education classrooms. Racism a term that conjures mostly negative images of injustices experienced by people of color in the United States, and it extends into the US public education system. Even within that context, it's a broad subject area. Children and families from underrepresented groups have to deal with systemic racism, both covert and overt both covert and overt on a daily basis in public school classrooms across the country. I'll address three key areas of racism in public schools over the course of this episode and the next episode. In other words, this is a three-part series. You can check out my discussion about part one the background and genesis of racism in K-12 schools by listening to episode 98. This episode furthers my discussion by exploring how racism persists to this day in 21st century America, with relevant examples provided. Part three will explore the various interventions that have been proposed to combat racism in public schools. I end part three with action steps you can take to implement some of these interventions at the local level.

Speaker 1: 3:53

This is part two of this three-part series. It addresses why racism persists in America and in K-12 public schools. Let's untangle this. First, let's again establish a common definition for racism.

Speaker 1: 4:13

Racism is basically any act that willingly or unwillingly tolerates, accepts or reinforces racial unequal opportunities for children of color to learn and thrive, inequalities in opportunity as if they were normal and acceptable, or treats people of color as less than worthy or less complex than white people. These actions taken in an educational setting harm children of color or privilege and value some children or communities over others in racial terms, sometimes without educators meaning to do this at all. Interactions in an educational setting can either help build or dismantle racial achievement gaps. To a student of color, one action can change everything. These acts can include a number of scenarios, from how educators talk with students and discipline them, to the activities that are set up for them to do, to the ways they frame and discuss communities in the curriculum, as well as the ways they assign students to groups, grade the papers, interact with their parents, set expectations and envision their futures.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Racism persists in K-12 public education because it persists in American society. If you were to take a quick look across the cafeteria in an average racially mixed US high school, you could physically see that racism is alive and well. This in spite of the fact that the new American majority are people of color. The 2014 school year marked the first time in US history that the majority of elementary and secondary school children were children of color black, hispanic, asian or Native American. In the 20th century, african Americans represented the largest minority group. However, in the 21st century, people of Latin American descent or Hispanics are the largest population of people of color in this country. African Americans comprise roughly 13% of the US population, whereas Hispanics comprise 17.6%. This is not counting this nation's multiracial population, a group which has grown significantly over the past couple of decades.

Speaker 1: 6:57

It might be a surprise for you to learn that public schools in this country are segregated more today than they were in 1980, with the highest rates of segregation in the Northeast, where more than 50% of Black students attend schools that are classified as 90 to 100% non-white. A similar situation exists for Latina students, where approximately 80% attend schools where students of color are in the majority and more than 40% attend schools where the white population is less than 10% of the student body. Schools where the white population is less than 10% of the student body Separate remains unequal in schools with high poverty and racial segregation, and where teachers are less experienced. The teacher turnover rate is high, the school physical facilities are inadequate and the classrooms have fewer resources. Even though some would say that we've made some progress in the way that society has improved its perspective on racism, there are still some setbacks. Beyond the stubborn persistence of neighborhood and school segregation, these setbacks include the anti-affirmative action backlash of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the economic collapse of 2008, also known as the Great Recession, and the phenomenon of mass incarceration.

Speaker 1: 8:26

The anti-affirmative action backlash had significant impact on Black, latino and Native Americans because it impacted their access to the best resourced public colleges and universities. A case in point would be the California Proposition 209 initiative, which had a devastating effect on enrollment of African-American and Latino students at the two leading public universities in California UCLA and UC Berkeley public universities. In California, ucla and UC Berkeley. Proposition 209 prohibited preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in employment, education and contracting programs, which effectively ended all state-run affirmative action programs. This inspired other states to place a ban on affirmative action in state-run affirmative action programs. This inspired other states to place a ban on affirmative action in state-run programs, noting in states like Washington, florida, michigan, nebraska, arizona, new Hampshire and Oklahoma, to name a few, the proportion of African-American freshmen enrolling at UCLA still remains low, and the same is true for UC Berkeley. Similarly, latino undergraduate enrollment also fell sharply because of Proposition 209 at both institutions. In fact, at UC Berkeley, latino enrollment dropped a staggering 52% when Proposition 209 was approved in 1996. Almost 30 years later, the enrollment numbers are still low. This decrease in students of color has led to a greater sense of isolation among those who do enroll. A similar impact was seen in Michigan following the approval of their Proposal 2, which became law in 2006. Just like Proposition 209 in California, this proposal banned all affirmative action programs that gave preparatory treatment to people of color in state contracting, employment and higher education.

Speaker 1: 10:39

And higher education Without taking race into consideration. It's very difficult to achieve representative levels of diversity across the higher ed landscape, despite the demographic changes of the 21st century. The second setback the economic collapse of 2008, had a disproportionately disastrous effect for many African American and Latino families. This led to the rise of lenders like Countrywide and high-interest subprime loans. Loans that were approved for African American and Latino families led to losses between $75 billion and $98 billion in home value wealth from subprime loans, while African Americans lost between $71 billion and $92 billion. That represented the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in the modern US history. Losing their homes was one thing, but these families also lost their jobs due to disparate unemployment rates. These economic disparities translated into educational disparities as well.

Speaker 1: 11:49

The third setback of the late 20th century and two decades into the 21st century is the impact of mass incarceration. Because some white voters were unhappy about black gains, politicians started using phrases like law and order, welfare reform, school choice and war on drugs. That became a coded language, and young black and Latino men became the targets of aggressive stop-and-search policing and harsh mandatory sentences, even for first-time offenders. These policies and the criminal justice system practices that followed from these policies escalated under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. This mass incarceration applies not only to Black men, but also to Black women as well. Let us remember that the increase in incarceration was not due to a rising crime rate, but could be traced back directly to changes in drug sentencing laws and policies At the federal level. People incarcerated on a drug conviction make up half the prison population, and most of these people have no record of violent offenses and were not major players in the drug trade. The negative social, emotional and economic impact of families affected by mass incarceration cannot be underestimated. Black and Latino children are especially impacted, since 90% of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states are Black or Latino, despite the fact that the majority of illegal drug users and dealers in the United States are white.

Speaker 1: 13:40

You may be saying to yourself that surely something has changed for the better in the last 20 years, and for many, the thought of a positive change in race relations in the 21st century occurred with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. You may also recall this shift in paradigm about racism, which can create anxiety and a psychological threat due to the feeling that the basic assumptions of society were changing in ways that could no longer be predicted, and this was expressed in a series of ugly campus incidents that took place just before and after the election, incidents such as the hanging of an effigy of Barack Obama at the University of Kentucky, the appearance of a noose on a tree at Baylor University and the post-election Facebook post by University of Texas students that called for all the hunters to gather up because we have a black man in the White House. Now my use of black man is a substitute for the actual racial epitaph that was used in that post. The fact that a black man was in the White House was a change that threatened some, because they felt that the racial hierarchy that had advantaged white people for so long was disappearing. The election of Barack Obama disrupted the usual narrative of white victory and it represented unpredictability, and unpredictability creates anxiety.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Over the last 20 years in this country, we've seen the level of anxiety rise. A large part of this anxiety comes from the fact that white people will soon be in the numerical minority in the United States. This is also reflected in the K-12 public education system. Each of these societal changes represent the challenge to a certain set of assumptions, represent the challenge to a certain set of assumptions which are deeply held by many in this country, and anxiety, as well as fear, is the result. This fear has led to a sharp rise in hate groups, in racially and ethnically motivated hate crimes, and in the divisiveness and rhetoric that proliferates major media outlets and social media.

Speaker 1: 15:59

The notion of colorblindness comes to the front again, where people believe that, because the United States elected a black man as president, that race no longer plays a role in attainment. As I indicated in part one of this series, there really is no such thing as colorblindness. In order to be colorblind, you have to acknowledge that first there is color. Instead, what we may be living in is a color-silent society, where many people have learned to avoid talking about racial difference. The fact of the matter is that even when refraining from mentioning race, the evidence is clear that racial categories are still noticed and that behaviors are guided by what's noticed. This leads into the topic of unconscious bias, in which attitudes that influence behavior are sometimes affected, and that behavior is often below the level of consciousness. Those biases manifest themselves in a number of ways, like who you offer help to in an emergency, who you decide to hire, who you give a warning to instead of a ticket, or who gets shot during a police encounter. This last example is the most glaring evidence that we are not living in a post-racial world.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Societal racism persists, and it continues to infect the K-12 public school system. Lethal encounters between people of color and police do not just happen to black people. There's a high rate of police shootings per capita in Native American communities. Native Americans are 3.1 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans, yet there's very little news coverage when the victim is a Native American. The media in this country typically highlight issues of racial discrimination between black and white race relations, while the experiences of other groups of color are overlooked. They face the same issues of incarceration, disparities and isolation and marginalization on historically white college campuses campuses.

Speaker 1: 18:26

To just focus on racism from a black-white relationship would be short-sighted to the other peoples of color and the experiences of Latinos, native Americans and Asian and Pacific Islanders. Racial and cultural oppression has been part of their lived experiences and it plays a role in the identity development process for the people who are in these groups. Although the Latino population is the largest community of color and size in the United States, it is no longer the fastest growing demographic segment in this country. That designation now belongs to Asian Americans. It was the increase in babies born to Latino families in the United States that drove the population growth from 2000 to 2015.

Speaker 1: 19:09

The grouping of Latino includes Mexican-Americans, puerto Ricans, salvadorans, cubans, dominicans and Guatemalans. Much like African-Americans and Native Americans, mexican-americans were initially incorporated into US society against their will. There's a strong connection between language and identity for members of the Latino community, so it's important for educators to think carefully about how they respond to Latino children's use of Spanish at school. The bilingual education programs of the late 20th century have largely been eliminated. While fluency in English is an unnecessary educational goal, a child's fluency in Spanish doesn't need to be undermined in order to achieve that. The elimination of bilingual education programs had a negative impact on student learning, because any good teacher knows that learning builds on prior knowledge and experience and, as in the case of students with English as a second language, this means that their native language can be a strong foundation for future learning.

Speaker 1: 21:12

It's impossible to know how many millions of indigenous people there were in North America before exploration began, but what is certain is that contact with the Europeans was disastrous for them. The main reason it was disastrous was because of the diseases and epidemics that were brought with the Europeans. That wiped out 90% of the Native American population. The Native American population grew slowly in the first half of the 20th century, but has grown rapidly in the second half due to high birth rates and reduced infant mortality. More Native people live in poverty than any other racial group, and they have the lowest educational attainment rates of all ethnic and racial groups in the United States. They also face some of the lowest high school graduation rates nationwide A significant development in the economic history of Native Americans was the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which allowed some tribes to regulate gaming on their land as a way to promote tribal economic development, self-sufficiency and strong self-government. In the public education setting invisibility in the classroom is a common experience for Native American students. Additionally, historical omissions and distortions don't just affect Native American students. They also contribute to the miseducation of everyone else.

Speaker 1: 22:48

Asian and Asian Americans are terms that encompass people of many different national origins, histories, cultures, languages and religions. The federal government defines Asian as a person that has origins in the Far East, southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, including Cambodia, china, india, japan, korea, pakistan, the Philippines, thailand, malaysia and Vietnam. Collectively, asian Americans have the highest median family incomes, highest levels of education and lowest rates of residential segregation in this country. Given that this group of people of color includes diverse countries, it's easy to see why they are the fastest growing racial group in the United States. Many in the majority culture in the United States characterize Asian Americans as quote-unquote model minority, because they're quiet, get good grades and are hard workers. This success frame is rewarded by teachers who assume that Asian children are smart, hardworking and destined to be high achievers and consequently they're more likely to provide them access to best resources in public schools, like gifted, intelligent programs or advanced placement courses, than non-Asian students. Unlike the stereotype threat that tends to deflate the performance of black students, asian students are likely to benefit from this stereotype premise, where the expectation is higher for them to succeed. Even when Asian students exhibited mediocre or below average academic performance, they were given benefit of doubt by teachers and encouraged to improve, sometimes being placed in honors or AP courses without the academic profile that's usually required for such placement. By way of contrast, mexican students were rarely placed in honors or AP classes. The model minority stereotype may actually work against some Asian students who, being aware of their lack of English proficiency, may shy away from writing and speaking abilities and pursue math and science, which require less verbal fluency.

Speaker 1: 25:14

The myth of the model minority obscures the reality of racism in the lives of Asian Pacific Americans and often encourages their silence about it. The fact is that public schools systematically racialize, marginalize and impact the opportunities of students of color and impact the opportunities of students of color. Students and teachers need to understand the importance of racial literacy from an individual perspective as well as an institutional perspective. A primary component to developing students' racial literacy was the teacher's ability to understand and discuss racism. Students who had positive racial identity and positive self-concept in their academic achievement and resilience were able to navigate and process racism within racialized experiences. For example, latino and Puerto Rican students' use of hip-hop to understand their racialized experiences in the United States with the means of resistance to official school policies that relegated them to the margins. In another instance, parents' resistance, as well as students' resistance to racism, was highlighted in a hunger strike activism of Black and Latino families in Chicago, which was used to challenge systemic and racist withdrawal from the community that manifested in the form of school closures. Students of color continue to be dehumanized and disproportionately denied academic and economic opportunities. Here are this episode's takeaways Racism persists in K-12 public education because it persists in American society.

Speaker 1: 27:18

To a student of color, one action can change everything. These acts can include a number of scenarios, from how educators talk with students and discipline them, to the activities that are set up for them to do, to the ways they frame and discuss communities in the curriculum, as well as the ways they assign students to groups, grade papers, interact with their parents, set expectations and envision their futures. Asian Pacific Americans, latinos and Native Americans are all disparate groups, but they do share with people of African descent the struggle for identity, where whiteness is defined as the American norm. The racism issue in America has never been just black and white. To find your racial or ethnic identity in this country, you have to deal with negative stereotypes, resist internalizing negative self-perceptions and affirm the meaning of your ethnicity for yourself, especially in the public school setting.

Speaker 1: 28:36

If you like this podcast and what I've been discussing, click, follow on your podcast player of choice to subscribe and get the latest episodes and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K-12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle, and be sure to stay tuned On the next episode. I'll continue with part three of my discussion about addressing racism in K-12 schools. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.