“Learning loss” due to COVID is part of a deficit narrative—like the “achievement gap”—that is racist. These models proclaim Black kids to be behind white kids without acknowledging:
1. The brilliance of Black kids
2. What Gloria Ladson-Billings calls “The education debt”
1. The brilliance of Black kids
2. What Gloria Ladson-Billings calls “The education debt”
It’s true that High stakes standardized tests (originally invented by eugenicists) show that on average Black students are behind white peers. These tests are good at identifying:
1. Who is good at eliminating wrong answer choices
2. Your proximity to white middle class society
1. Who is good at eliminating wrong answer choices
2. Your proximity to white middle class society
But when we change the evaluation tool and the goal of education to be about identifying problems in the world and finding collective solutions, it turns out that Black students are some of the most advanced.
When I eliminated multiple choice testing in my class, it was a challenge for some of my Advanced Placement white students. When I centered collective problem solving to challenge injustice, my Black students excelled & their white peers came to see them brilliant intellectuals.
I would argue Black youth turned in one of the best group projects in history when they organized rallies after police murdered George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. They educated the nation about the depths of structural racism & the effectiveness of solidarity!
Black kids aren’t behind—it’s that we are measuring success incorrectly!
And where there are places that Black students need supports to grow and learn, it’s not that they are failing to achieve, it’s that our institutions are failing to support them.
The education debt that is owed Black kids in this country has to be confronted. Predominantly white school districts receive $23 billion more in funding annually compared with districts that serve mostly students of color. npr.org/2019/02/26/696…
The great historian @KeeangaYamahtta really broke down what’s wrong with the “learning loss” narrative in an insightful piece for the New Yorker google.com/amp/s/www.newy…
In her piece @KeeangaYamahtta writes: “The dystopian imagery of a ‘lost generation’ of Black youth is redolent of earlier moral panics: the discoveries of “crack babies” in the 1980s and “super predators” in the 90s were also rooted in anecdote-driven, pseudo-scientific evidence”
We must reject the Biden administration’s call for Spring high stakes testing to measure learning loss and instead infuse the schools with what they need: COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, vaccinations, psychologists, nurses, social workers, trauma counselors, and more!
Sign this petition to join the movement against high stakes testing. Join the @BLMatSchool movement. Teach for Black lives. Celebrate Black brilliance. Join the resistance. networkforpubliceducation.org/dr-cardona-ple…
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