Transcript
American Educational Racial Discrimination 1 Title: African-American students have not suffered from educationally racial discrimination in the United States for recent decades Student’s name: Đinh Nữ Hà My Course title: Writing 3 Instructor’s name: Nguy ễ n M ỹ Bình Date: 7 th December, 2012 American Educational Racial Discrimination 2 African-American students have not suffered from educationally racial discrimination in the United States for recent decades “Racism”, as Fredrickson (2002) defined, which is a very short word containing a long history in the United States of America, portrays the antagonistic attitude of one ethnic group towards others. He also articulated that it was used commonly in 1930s, and its climax occurred in 20 th century in the fluctuation of the so- called “overtly racist regimes”. Racial segregation trespassed every aspect of African-American people ’ s life, such as housing, economy, culture, and especially the education system. Up to now, the termination of racism in American education has been an unanswered question. Many people believe that it completely ended, whereas others claim that it persists. From my point of view, African-American students have not had to undergo racial discrimination at a high level in schools for the past several decades. In the period of time from the late 18 th century to the first half of the 19 th century, schools remarkably contributed to developing racism in America. Grant (1975) pointed out that not only did curriculum and examinations manifest institutional racism, but methods and techniques also noxiously affected black s tudents’ academic achievements . Furthermore, he also contended that the situation reached the peak when black children were labeled and put into different classes that did irreparable harm to their spirit. The reality, nevertheless, totally penetrated the fourteenth amendment of U.S. Constitution which is “separate but equal” (Unger, 1996 a). Therefore, five appeals evolved from different cases, which formed the Brown v. Board of Education, reached the Supreme Court at nearly the same time to deal with the same issue known as the institutional racial discrimination. The first appeal was sent to the Court in 1951. Still, it was not until 1954 American Educational Racial Discrimination 3 that the Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in American public schools was illegal. First of all, owing to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954, American education had a brand-new countenance with a remarkable drop in racial segregation on the basis of skin color. Many researchers regarded this group of five appeals as a positive signal of the end of racial prejudice. For example, Unger (1996a) concurred that this reminded us of the cessation of racism not only in school but also in all public facilities in the US. To clarify, in 1964, the Census Bureau did a survey and indicated that the percentage of black students achieving at least a high school diploma has significantly increased (about 53 per cent) (Thernstrom, 2002). In addition, Thernstrom made a comparison between the black’s and white’s attainments, and finally, he inferred that blacks had a greater ability to acquire a college diploma than whites with the same twelfth-grade examination. Apart from being a positive signal, Brown v. Board of Education also reformed the American education system. To prove it, Thernstrom emphasized that what followed the Court decision in 1954 was an unprecedented change not only in the way in which black students were allotted to schools but also in how they were treated. For instance, almost all African-American students were no longer isolated, despised, and considered to be in an inferior class in high school like they used to be before Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954. Furthermore, Witt (1994) stated that the Court also aggrandized the responsibility for desegregation to school districts where abiding racism had been imposed by both law and school board policy. This was an indication of a radical amelioration in American education. The endeavor of the principal of Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Inglewood, California was a strong evidence of the American Educational Racial Discrimination 4 improvement. Thanks to her policy, black children, who took up 45 per cent of the total, were enhanced their reading levels from the third percentile to the fifteenth percentile in just four years (Sowell, 2006). Furthermore, the legislation to ban institutional segregation has contributed to eliminating racism from American education system. In the past, black students were sheltered by the Government. A typical example is that the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act which proscribed all official actions considered as institutional racial discrimination in 1964 (Unger, 1996b). Another proof appeared when a Court whose name was Burger reinforced the legitimized weapons against racism in education and declared that “State and local school officials had a duty to take affirmative steps to ensure effective school desegregation” (Witt, 1994, p. 368). Additionally, currently, granted that Barrack Obama is the first colored president in American history, the black would have more chances to be protected. One of the most convincing evidence was corroborated in a report of Brown (2012) when he cited Obama’s policy: “ To reach the ambitious education goals we have set for our Nation, as well as to ensure equality of access and opportunity for all, we must provide the support that will enable African American students to improve their level of educational achievement through rigorous and well-rounded academic and support services that will prepare them for college, a car eer, and a lifetime of learning”. However, not everyone admits the exertion of authorities in eradicating racism from the pedagogic environment because there are a small number of people professing that no matter how hard the Government tried; racial disunion in school has been a serious problem in the United States. On the one hand, they seem to be true when picking up that American Educational Racial Discrimination 5 institutional racism used to be an acute issue. On the other hand, this viewpoint may be inaccurate in this modern day due to globalization. Globalization, which is a trend that the world is following nowadays, makes a request for racial harmony of all countries around the world become indispensable than ever. In particular, globalization contributes to healing the majority of educational racism cracks by bringing students together. Firstly, homogeneity leads to the educational exchange which is predominant in America today. This narrows down the gap between black and white children in school, as Hall, Clark, Ely, Jr, Grossman and Hull (2002) underscored that the global unification pulled African-Americans out of the lower class and simultaneously dropped them into the middle class of society. To highlight, they also asserted that black students were offered a great deal of opportunities in higher education and a vast number of vocations. Not only does homogeneity result in an interchange in education, but it also makes America become a cosmopolitan nation that forms a solid foundation for multicultural education system ’s development which emerged as a protest against racial segregation in school in America (Schlesinger, 1998). Besides, Banks (1991/1992) was also an upholder when he guaranteed that multicultural education is constructed in order to make a reduction in racial discrimination in school in the United States. To sum up, given the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954, the law and globalization, on the whole, the racial separation in American education system has no longer been a considerable issue for recent decades. To thoroughly tackle this psycho-social problem, children should be educated soon to be aware of the wrongdoing of disregarding others’ self -esteem so that they can behave in a right way to everyone no matter what his/her skin color is. Plus, family and the school should be held
