Still no equality in education, teachers union leader says
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Education Writer
The leader of the nation's largest teachers union said yesterday that disparities based on race and income persist 50 years after the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal public education for minority students is unconstitutional.
Reg Weaver, the president of the National Education Association, told Hawai'i educators and business leaders that the achievement gap between students will not end until lawmakers adequately invest in public education and teacher quality.
Weaver
"I believe right now that in effect we have two school systems in America and they are stratified by income, race and ethnicity. And they are not equal," Weaver told a lunch-
eon held by the University of Hawai'i-Manoa College of Business at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
The 1954 court ruling known as Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka outlawed racial segregation in public schools. But performance gaps between students continue across the country, particularly between black and Hispanic students and white and Asian students. In Hawai'i, the gaps are more closely linked to poverty, although Native Hawaiians typically score lower on standardized tests.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to track test scores by race and income in an effort to identify gaps between students and to eventually narrow the differences. The law expects all students to be proficient in core subjects by 2014.
Weaver praised the spotlight that the law has given to the achievement gap but accused the Bush administration of not providing enough money to schools to meet the goals, a charge the administration has disputed. He also said sanctions against schools that fail to make annual progress under the law are too punitive.
Sixty percent of Hawai'i public schools did not make performance goals under No Child Left Behind in the 2002-03 school year.
The law should be changed, Weaver said, so schools that make gains but still fall short of performance goals are not penalized. On Wednesday, the Education Commission of the States, a Denver education research group, also recommended that Congress reassess annual progress under the law by finding ways to measure student performance over time.
"No Child Left Behind is a lot of stick and a little carrot," Weaver said.
Weaver, who also spoke to Honolulu Democrats last night, said that the teachers' union supports Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for president over President Bush and is urging educators to back candidates at all levels who are advocates for public education.
Hawai'i Republicans have said that they would make education a focus of the fall elections after the Democrat-controlled state Legislature rejected Gov. Linda Lingle's proposal to break the state Department of Education into school districts with elected school boards.
Lawmakers did adopt a new student spending formula and new community councils at every school in the hopes of giving schools more power and authority and sparking academic improvement.
"I think it's going to be a very big issue, especially on the Neighbor Islands," said state GOP leader Brennon Morioka, noting that there is stronger support for local school boards outside O'ahu.
Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.
