Skew the Bell Curve

Jonathan Kozol is sounding the alarm again, but this time his alarm ignores a few basic facts. As reported in the Washington Post, Kozol made an appearance at a local bookstore and proclaimed:

"Sorry to be so grim tonight," Kozol said as he launched into a plea for "elemental racial justice." He added: "In the inner-city schools I visit, I never see white children. Segregation has returned with a vengeance."

But one reason why "segregation" has returned has to do with the explicit understanding that a certain percentage of children will fail and the complete lack of effort by the educational establishment to fix it.

No doubt Kozol has done much to raise awareness of the inequalities present in our public school systems. Nearly everyone even remotely aware of public education knows that inner city and urban schools tend to be in worse shape physically and academically. I have no problem with Kozol trying to bring these issues to the public, but his choice of words to describe the problem makes matters worse.

"The main reason I wrote this book," Kozol said in an interview yesterday, "is to inspire Americans to look very hard at the virtually complete apartheid in increasing numbers of our school districts -- including in Prince George's County -- and to address it courageously. They should ask themselves honestly: Is this the kind of country they want to live in?"

To be sure, Kozol asks people to ask the right question, but the use of the term "apartheid" invites derision at his ideas. Apartheid is a de jure system, a system of reduced or non-existant rights for a racial group. Such a system of laws does not exist in this country.

Certainly a system of de facto segregation exists, but the reason it exists is, in part, perpetuated by an educational system that continues to accept a certain percentage of failure. If one looks at a bell curve of achievement on NCLB mandated tests, the range travels from Below Basic, Basic, Proficient and Advanced (or something similar). Note: Perhaps Kimberly at No. 2 Pencil can explain why any large group of student grades will take on a curve--but it always does.

We have come to accept this description of a bell curve as normal, thus always a percentage failing. But why accept such a state of affairs. Why not skew the bell curve so that the failing side of the curve is proficiency? The answer I fear is that many will say, someone has to fail.

Again, why? Study after study indicates that a child's capacity for learning is nearly infinite, bounded only by his/her curiousity. However, a child's capacity for learning is not matched by society's capacity for teaching. When today's teachers admit they sometimes give up on disadvantages students, it is no wonder that the inequalities that Kozol is so passionate about continue.