Title: Six: Structuring Inequality: How California Selectively Tests, Classifies, and Tracks Language Minority Students
Abstract: STRUCTURING INEQUITY: HOW CALIFORNIA SELECTIVELY TESTS, CLASSIFIES, AND TRACKS LANGUAGE MINORITY STUDENTS Yang Sao Xiong, Doctoral Student, Department of Sociology, UCLA Min Zhou, Professor, Departments of Sociology and Asian American Studies, UCLA “Today, education is…a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him (her) for later professional training, and in helping him (her) to adjust normally to his (her) environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he (she) is denied the opportunity of an education.” U.S. Supreme Court, 1954, Brown vs. the Board of Education “These reforms express my deep belief in our public schools and their mission to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every part of America.” President George W. Bush on No Child Left Behind, January 2001 1 Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on school desegregation more than half a century ago, the American public and its political leaders, educators, and other professionals have held high and firm the democratic ideal of equal opportunity, believing that the best way to ensure that opportunity is to enable all children, regardless of race, class, and national origin backgrounds, to succeed in school (Rothstein, 2004). Past and recent research has repeatedly shown that levels of education are strongly related to levels of earnings and that having a high school diploma is barely enough to secure a well-paying job. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has recently reported that full-time adult workers with less than a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $401 in 2004, compared with $574 for high school graduates without college education and $916 for college graduates holding at least a bachelor’s degree. 2 However, after decades of educational reform, the school achievement gap between non- Hispanic white students and racial or immigrant minority students has been persistently large. A student’s race and family socioeconomic status (SES) have continued to serve as the most reliable predictors for his or her educational outcomes. Race and class often interact with national origin to affect the access to educational opportunity and school achievement. Existing research has shown that the racial gap has become more severe in schools with disproportionately high numbers of low-income racial or immigrant minority students. Students who cannot read or write in English have a greater likelihood of dropping out of school and that they often face a lifetime of diminished opportunity. In the 19 states that have high school exit exams, the
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 10
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