Boston school system shuts down its advanced learning program
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The most dangerous game: Woke White Women. School Superintendent Brenda Cassellius
An advanced program for high-performing students at Boston Public Schools was suspended after district officials determined the program would not promote antiracism due to the disproportionate number of Asian and white students, GBH News reported.
The Advanced Work Classes program, which provides an accelerated academic curriculum for students in fourth through sixth grade, will be suspended for one year after Boston Public Schools’ superintendent Brenda Cassellius recommended the school focus on reforming its antiracist policies, according to GBH News.
The program was open to all students in the school district who took a standardized test in the third grade, earned a high score, and won an open spot via lottery. It allows students to study subjects in greater depth, and students are given more schoolwork and home study than the standard curriculum, according to the school districts’ site.
“There’s [sic] been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address,” Cassellius said, according to GBH News. “There’s a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education.”
70% of students in the program were white and Asian, while nearly 80% of all Boston public schools are Hispanic and black, a detailed study found, according to GBH News. Cassellius said that five schools currently offer the program, and last fall, 453 students applied and 116 students enrolled, the outlet reported.
Asked by FWIW whether it wouldn’t be better if, instead of closing the advanced studies program, her illiterate charges received remedial schooling until capable of performing at the higher level, the superintendent was adamant: “that’s a non-starter”, Cassellius insisted. “If they aren’t passing those tests, then the tests are racist, and we’ve got to get rid of them. And if the colored children can’t do basic math, then no one should be allowed to learn advanced math. You know what they say, ‘better I have no cow than my neighbor have two’. Everybody’s got nothing — that’s equity”
“If you can’t meet your own standards, lower your standards”. Once, that was considered an ironic witticism; today it’s the official policy of the education system of the United States.
Sad.
