Question

Review the article titled "Florida Passes Plan for Racially-Based Academic Goals". Next, argue for or against Florida's plan to alter academic goals for students based on their race. http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/florida-passes-plan-for-racially-based-academic-goals/

Answer the following questions: Why would Florida pass this plan? Do you think that other states will begin to follow suit? Provide a rationale and support for your position. Respond to at least one other student. Based on your professional experiences, identify two (2) challenges confronting diversity and education, and explain how they are the same as or different from the main challenges of the last century. Provide a rationale for your response

Answer 1

Review: The Florida State Board of Education passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race. On Tuesday, 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.

Argument against Florida's Plan: Earlier in the year we saw Jesse Jackson in Florida demanding school disciplinary punishments be levied based on race via racial quotas.   Now the state board steps in and applies the same insufferable stupidity to acadamic expectations.

Their methodology is: Blacks are the least intelligent therefore blacks should have lower goals and expectations.    Asians are the most intelligent therefore they should have a higher bar of achievement….  

Typical Liberal Mindset – It is all based on race. After all, it is their mindset that removes responsibility for self and instead places the blame on others. Just like this new education plan.

Why would Florida pass this plan?

The goal is to close the gap between the percentage of white and Asian students scoring at or above grade level on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and the percentage of black and Hispanic students doing so.

Confronting the Challenge of Diversity in Education:

More often than not, the increase in racial and cultural diversity that is occurring in schools across the United States is thought of as a problem, or even a threat.

Why is the rise in diversity seen as a problem? This is an important question, for I believe that in framing the growth in racial and cultural diversity as a problem, educators, policy makers and journalists, have set the stage for how communities will react to this change.

The arrival of new groups, especially racial minorities, often leads to racial conflict and the venting of various kinds of prejudice and intolerance. Too often, those receiving the new arrivals feel threatened and insecure and react with hostility and resentment.

Diversity tends to be perceived as problematic because American schools have historically seen cultural assimilation of immigrants and non-whites as central to their mission. During the nineteenth century, one of the major concerns of educators and politicians was how new immigrants would be absorbed into the American population. For many, public schools were the most logical place at which the task of converting foreigners into Americans could carried out.