Breaking the cycle

Missouri's school district report cards released this month contain information that isn't easy for everyone to read and not everyone wants to see.

Because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping public education reform act passed last year, those reports now contain information broken down by race and income levels and reports of disciplinary incidents that resulted in suspensions of 10 days or more.

This information can help end the most racist process of all: systematically ignoring the needs of a certain group of students.

Since school desegregation in the 1950s, public education in America has attempted to be colorblind. But the worst-kept secret was that the results weren't the same for every student. Middle-class students in general were more likely to achieve higher grades and have fewer discipline problems than their peers from lower socio-economic levels.

Because there's no proof that race, ethnicity or socio-economic status affect children's potential, it can be assumed that the problem is a cultural difference that isn't being addressed.

In the past, every public school student was lumped together for an average outcome for an entire school. All a school had to do to look successful was improve its best students, and its worst performers would be lost in the averaging.

No Child Left Behind forces schools to break out standardized test scores, drop-out rates and other figures for various groups of students.

In the latest round of school report cards, a comparison of the similarly sized Jackson and Cape Girardeau school districts revealed distinct differences. Cape Girardeau comes considerably closer to reflecting the face of America: 74 percent white and 26 percent minority enrollment with 41 percent of students from families that qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches. Jackson School District is 97 percent white with 22 percent of students qualifying for the lunch program.

Cape Girardeau had five times the discipline incidents as its neighbor and a considerably higher drop-out rate.

But there were some notable positives too. Cape Girardeau's ACT score average was less than a point lower than Jackson's, and 71 percent of Cape Girardeau students go on to college; only 63 percent of Jackson's do so.

Without breaking down performance data by race and socio-economic status, no educator can even begin to address inequity in the public schools. Now that No Child Left Behind is forcing the comparison, it's also forcing some serious self-evaluation.

Public schools are the only places where adults outside the neighborhood and family can have a significant impact on students. So school is the place where the cycle of low achievement for some must be addressed. That process starts with acknowledging the facts.