Will Arkansas Officials Support Black Student Achievement?

Earlier this month, we delivered more than 130,000 petition signatures -- the product of tremendous activism on the part of the ColorOfChange.org and Change.org communities -- to local school officials in support of recent high school graduate Kymberly Wimberly.

ColorOfChange.org has followed up with hundreds of phone calls to the superintendent and school board members in McGehee, Arkansas. That's where Wimberly, a young Black mother, was forced to share a "co-valedictorian" designation with a lower achieving White student. This after the high school guidance counselor assured the Wimberly family that Kymberly was the top-ranked senior, and a staffer worried aloud that having her in that role would cause "a big mess."

Despite all the petition signatures and calls, district officials are continuing to pretend as if they've done nothing wrong. So more than 100 ColorOfChange.org members have now called state-level leaders. The commissioner of Arkansas' education department and members of the state board are staying tight-lipped as well, refusing to make statements in support of Kymberly.

What Arkansas school officials fail to realize is that by staying silent, they're saying plenty about their beliefs on the topic of Black student achievement. The situation in McGehee has never been solely about Kymberly. The equal protection lawsuit she has brought against the district alleges that administrators and teachers there routinely discourage Black students -- nearly half the high school student body -- from taking honors and AP classes.

As much as the events in McGehee sound like an aberration, they're not. This spring, a district in Malverne, Long Island, mistakenly named a white student valedictorian. Once the error had been exposed, school officials attempted to name her co-valedictorian with the higher achieving Black student. The community pressed for the district to fully fix the error, and the school board eventually voted to name the black student, Aalique Grahame, the sole valedictorian.

In Sumter County, Georgia, the Black community began organizing around a similar issue in 2009, when a high-achieving Black student at Americus-Sumter High School didn't make the cut for valedictorian. Suspecting that some teachers were giving Black students lower grades to ensure that they stayed out of the top slot, the local NAACP petitioned school officials to explain why only one Black student had been acknowledged with the honor in the previous eight years, and why high-achieving, ostensibly eligible Black students were not being permitted to apply for a federally-funded scholarship administered by the school.

Ignored by local officials, the Sumter County Branch of the NAACP eventually took its complaint to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR investigated whether the district was discriminating against Black students, but before it could issue a recommendation, the district asked to resolve the complaint. Superintendent Roy Brooks signed a resolution agreement in April, agreeing to revise and clarify district policies around valedictorian selection, train all staff who advise students about the valedictorian process, notify parents and students of the criteria for achieving the honor and to provide other information on a timeline established by the OCR, which will continue to monitor the district. It's a process that's just beginning, but it appears that the federal government -- after being called upon by local activists -- is pushing a major culture shift in this Georgia school district.

In McGehee, where ColorOfChange.org members' attention has been focused, the district is expected to respond to the Wimberly family's lawsuit within the next several weeks. But in the meantime, officials there would do well to pay attention to what happened in Georgia. Ignoring a groundswell of activism is what school leaders did in Sumter County, too, and it didn't serve them well. If the activism of more than 130,000 people around the country can't set things right in McGehee, perhaps the U.S. Department of Education will have to.

 

Follow Rashad Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rashadrobinson

Comments

[RuhRoh]

04:05 PM on 09/27/2011

Colorofchange.org or Rashad Robinson...I would be interested in a response to cbelin's responses below on this issue. If in fact, what this person is commenting is true, then the superintendent's position seems fair and reasonable. As a colorofchange member, I respectfully request that you respond to this additional information.

[cbelin]

01:18 AM on 09/24/2011

On an additional note schools need people in AP classes. The more kids the better. It's a numbers game. So if a black or white or Hispanic student had any hope of passing an AP class, any school would want them in those classes. But if a student can't pass the mere Arkansas basic skills End of Course Exam then how can they handle an AP class and in McGehee only 16% of Ms. Wimberly’s black peers passed the biology EOC. And in McGehee numbers, that's only 7 black students. So the real question isn't whether Ms. Wimberly deserves to be the only valedictorian, but why so many students are not up to par for enrolling in AP classes (in McGehee, you can't be valedictorian without an AP class)? And why aren't more parents involved because parents have power. If parents were that involved and wanted their children in an AP class, they could get them in those classes regardless of skill and aptitude. This problem about lack of AP preparation is not just a McGehee issue, it's everywhere. Just read one College Board report. And next time get your facts straight because 1 million signatures behind a half reported story is nothing more than Internet Spam. ~C. Belin

[mushroomlingo]

03:53 PM on 09/27/2011

Taking an AP test in any particular subject is NOT the same as taking the respective class. There are a number of kids who ultimately decide not to take the test at the end of the year, but do quite well in the class itself and are awarded a great grade. The test score (distributed by the College Board and graded by proctors employed by them) is sent to students in the summer and then on to colleges designated by the student. The scoring scale is totally different from the average high school grading system. Your statement above is confusing when declaring that "if a black or white or hispanic student had any hope of passing an AP class, any school would want them in those classes." Do you mean the test, and not just the class? They are totally separate entities. Generally, a student would want to take the class in order to have a solid chance of scoring well on the TEST that's available to take at the end of the year. The test itself must be registered for separately, and paid for by the student. In order actually get college credit, the student must obtain a score of 3, 4, or 5, and the college of their choice must offer the credit for their submitted score.

[cbelin]

01:18 AM on 09/24/2011

Both transcripts show each girl as "valedictorian' and both are ranked #1. The "co" is only used for announcements and the graduation ceremony. McGehee has a history of multiple valedictorians. In 1997 there were 3 and in 2006 there were 4. Many have made this a white/black issue, but ironically the superintendent is black, and there are as many black people on the school board as there are white (3 each and 1 Asian), and the president of the school board is black. But no one wants to report those statistics (I mean what kind of spin and argument would Mr. Robinson here have if he included that information?). When people collect and submit 130,000 signatures to the school board demanding the white valedictorian be stripped of her title based on misguided information provided by the media and bloggers, it really shows the quality of ignorance in this country. I previously wrote about all of this in my blog edspressway.com but have since taken the major articles down as they are currently in the works of being published in the American School Board Journal. The black superintendent Thomas Gathen said that explaining GPA on an AP system is difficult in a single quick quote, so here is a link to my explanation. If you believe that highest GPA rules and that this really is about race you should take a second to understand the complexities of GPA calculation: http://www.edspressway.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

[mushroomlingo]

04:19 PM on 09/27/2011

While some schools follow the grading system you describe, it's not universal by any stretch. Since both students in this instance followed the guidelines directed by their school for the honors designation and both finished with virtually the same grades, then the problem here truly lies with how the McGehee school district handled this situation, regardless of the racial demographic of the school board and officials involved. They should have known their actions and/or statements were going to have pretty toxic consequences, and the district should have tried to clarify this unfortunate incident instead of cutting off communications.

[cbelin]

01:17 AM on 09/24/2011

I actually know some history about this one. McGehee didn’t offer AP classes until 2006. The counselor at that time realized the issues with calculating GPA under the new AP system and met with the board and they agreed to add in the clause in the student handbook about the ‘not being penalized’ for taking extra classes. This happened back in 2006 and has yet to change. The white valedictorian GPA was a 4.089, and she had 29.5 credits with her extra class being a regular class, advanced music. Ms. Wimberly had 29 credits and the 4.093 GPA. Both students made 1 ‘B’. Ms. Wimberly’s ‘B’ was in college prep English (a non AP class) and the other valedictorian made a ‘B’ in Physical Science, also a non AP class. They took the same amount of AP classes, 3 and both made 'A's in all 3 classes. So the only difference in their achievement is the white valedictorian took more classes, regular, yet still more than Ms. Wimberly. The Monticello school district located 30 miles from McGehee has the identical policy about rankings in their student handbook–so this is not a case of changing the game at the end. Had the school not named the white valedictorian as valedictorian, then the school would have clearly not followed the guidelines in the student handbook.

[mushroomlingo]

03:38 PM on 09/27/2011

Generally, the number of classes taken after a student completes the requisite amount required for graduation would make no difference in the naming of valedictorian. There are thousands of kids out there every year that are named "valedictorian" who didn't take the absolute hardest classes in their respective schools, or compile the most rigorous schedules, but if their grades are the highest, then they are awarded the top spot. Sure, the vast majority of valedictorians take a lot of APs or IB courses and amass a GPA that in a weighted environment, surpass the 4.0 mark. Taking an extra class or two could help student's GPA as much as hurt, especially if it's a relatively easy class -- an extra "A" averaged into the mix is generally a good thing. My two high-school aged children (both of whom take weighted courses in very grade-conscious schools) wrangle with the GPA conundrum all the time.

[RuhRoh]

04:35 PM on 09/27/2011

But if the school district is taking the time to actually compare transcripts so that the student taking the harder classes is given more weight, then shouldn't we be applaudiong this instead of the district taking the easy road and just putting everyone on the same scale?

[alawyer826]

06:48 PM on 08/30/2011

other then disheartened how are we supposed to feel, it's wrong to be angry THEY say we have no reason to be...but look at this...how is this allowed and I shouldn't be angered, disappointed and untrusting of THEM.