Pinellas County FL Lawsuit on Achievement Gap

Almost a year and a half ago, I talked about this case in Pinellas County Florida, where a group of parents was suing the school board over the failure of the county to close the achievement gap between blacks and whites in schools. As the wheels of the court system slowly move forward, a proposal of sorts from the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit argue

Now, in a class-action lawsuit that has Pinellas County's top educators on the defensive, the plaintiffs say the policy of equal access has failed the school district's 20,000 black students.

Black kids, they contend, will need uniquely tailored programs if the district ever hopes to erase an education gap that has them lagging behind every other ethnic group in school performance.(emphasis added)

What kind of tailored programs? La Shawn Barber asks that question and provides these answers,

Let’s speculate: textbooks with lots of pictures? teachers who speak ebonics? a curriculum laced with watered down, intellectually light instruction designed to raise self-esteem? elimination of tests that measure academic progress and knowledge?

One has to wonder.

Has the racial politics of education spanned so far that only a lawsuit is contemplated? I don't think so. In this case, one class of individuals has decided to play the blame game and take on the mantle of victimhood in order to rectify what, in the end, is their failure of responsibility.

The case of William Crowley vs. the Pinellas County School Board - seven years old and finally headed for trial - may be the only one of its kind in the nation.

"What's unique about it is the unadorned claim that if you have an achievement gap, you are violating the law," said Michael Kirk, a Washington, D.C., lawyer hired to help defend the district. If that were true, he argued, then every district with a significant number of minority students would be liable.

The call for a unique set of programs to help black students has been a central theme in recent days as lawyers prepare for a two-week jury trial starting July 9. The plaintiffs' attorney, Guy Burns of Tampa, has summoned the entire Pinellas School Board for depositions, as well as superintendent Clayton Wilcox and his top deputies.

In the four depositions to date, Wilcox and three board members have stayed on message: The district provides equal opportunity for all students to learn, they said. What students make of that opportunity is up to them.

If the district does any tailoring, they said, it's with an eye toward individual student needs, not race. They said the causes of the gap are too varied and complex to be solved by a single program or set of programs for black students.

The school board leadership is no doubt correct, they provide the same opportunity to all students and it is up to the student and parents to make the most of those opportunities. Are there differences between schools within the system, I have no doubt and making a case based on those inequities may have more merit since you are talking about something that is measureable, i.e. funding, facilities, etc. But in this case we are talking about something with so many complex imputs that it is impossible to judge where the school board's duty ends and where parental involvement begins.

I will close this post with the same words as my last post on this case:

Rest assured the plaintiffs bar across the country is watching this case closely. If the case suceeds, other lawsuits will follow. Instead of organic change or legislated change, which is how school systems should change, we could find ourselves in a country whose education system is run by judges and lawyers--not a good combination.