“Berkeley High’s equity plan sparks race, class debates”
The debates goes on as Berkeley High’s campus leadership has proposed cutting before-and after-school labs of Advanced Placement science classes, which gives college credits for high school work. Decreasing science instructions by 20% to 40% , and using this fund to support “equity” programs for struggling students, who are mostly African Americans and Latino students, ” to close one of the widest racial and ethnic achievement gaps in the state.”
This became race and ethnic issue because AP science classes with labs are predominated by whites while regular science classes without labs are predominated by struggling African American and Latino students. Some parents, students, and teachers who protest against this move spreaded the words and seek for support through internet petition with headlines saying, “Berkeley High may drop ‘white’ science labs.” This seems to bring a debate between ‘whites’ and ‘colored people,’ stimulating it more racist problem. They disagree with helping less wealthy, or underachieving students, who are moslty blacks and Latinos.
However, I see this more as a financial/family income problem. Berkeley High is the only high school in town, therefore you get the white kids of professors, doctors, and working-class. However it seems like most of African American and Latino students come from less income families; they have to take care of their younger siblings while their parents work. It became more race issue because majority of students who take AP classes are whites who could spend their time in labs, meaning they worry less about financial problems.
According to the state Department of Education, at Berkeley High, 30.8% of African American students are proficient in English and 31.3% in math whereas over 90% of white students are proficient in English, 87.1% in math. It seems as if the society pushes less wealthy kids off the side; if parcel tax money on education was equally used for both advanced class and regular/struggling student class, it will narrow the ethnic achievementl gaps in the state and will give equal opportunity of education to every race.
