Cultural Racism in Seattle Enabled By Democrats

I have finally identified the problem with the public school system. Seattle teachers are racists. According to the Seattle Education Association, between 40 and 45% of low-income children will not the pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, exam before their 2008 graduation date. Most of these children, the union says, are “children of color.” If they don’t pass, and if the legislature does not relax the requirement, these high schoolers will not graduate with the rest of their classmates in 2008. And that, the union argues, is unacceptable.
The union has labeled the governor’s plan to postpone enforcement of the mathematics portion of the WASL while leaving the reading and writing portions in place as “racist.”
“This pure (sic) and simply is the definition of Institutional Racism and Institutional Privilege. SEA (Seattle Education Association) and SPS (Seattle Public School System) are working to eliminate the horror of Institutional Racism and Privilege wherever we find it,” the teacher’s union fulminated in a letter sent to the legislature a couple of weeks ago.
And no, I don’t know why supposedly educated people would capitalize the words “Institutional Racism and Privilege.”
The teachers have an ally in state senator Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, who claims to have secured the votes required to postpone enforcement of the entire WASL exam.
"If I'm going to delay something, why wouldn't I delay it all? Why would I just delay math and not listen to the voices for those children who struggle with reading and writing and have not had the opportunity or the resources to meet the standards?" She said.
These children “have not had the opportunity or the resources to meet the standards?” Did she really say that?
If after 12 years in the Seattle public school system these kids have been denied “the opportunity or the resources to meet the standards,” then whom should we blame other than the people who are charged with providing the opportunity and the resources and are failing in that responsibility? And if these kids are disproportionately children of color, then shouldn’t we hold them accountable for their racism as well?
If Don Imus can lose his job for simply hurting the feelings of a future physician and a class valedictorian, then why should teachers who fail to instruct children of color as well as their white classmates get off any easier?
It seems to me that the best way to spare children the horrors of institutionalized racism would be to get rid of the teachers whose results expose them as its most flagrant practitioners. After all, if these children are the victims of institutionalized racism, then with what part of the institution do the children come into their most direct contact? Should we blame the walls? Did the janitor do something wrong? Do not the fluorescent lights burn just as brightly for everyone? They all get the same books. So if it is the children of color who under-perform, then perhaps we might want to examine the teachers and learn if different results are a consequence of lowered expectations.
The Seattle Public School system’s lowered expectations for children of color was reflected in its own definitions of “cultural racism,” which included “having a future time orientation,” known to the rest of the planet as planning ahead, and “defining only one form of English as standard.”
Now this may sound like the standard issued clichéd gibberish of the cultural left. But it is in fact racism. Seattle teachers have given up on teaching their pupils standard English and so denigrate those who uphold the standard as racists. But is it not the teachers who are racist for not believing in their pupils’ capacity to learn English?
The same goes for planning ahead. Seattle teachers should be drumming into their pupils’ heads the consequences of failing to prepare adequately for the WASL. But that would be hard. It’s much easier to dismiss the challenge than to meet it. And so, rather than raise their students up to the standards of the WASL, the Seattle’s educrats instead define the standard as racist.
And they’ll probably get away with it. Like our enemies overseas, teachers know that when eyeball to eyeball time comes, the Democrats will blink. Not only do the teachers unions have a lot of money, but they’re also holding children of loyal constituencies hostage.