"I am told that 'I act white,' and I wanted to know what acting white means," student Derrick Kirksey wrote (1999). He surveyed his classmates in his highly diverse high school to find out. Wearing baggy pants was acting black; polo shirts, white. Playing hockey, white; basketball, black and white. Kids went on to describe all the preferences—from brand-name clothing to tastes in music. Then they got to the part that makes educators sad: Book smarts were white; street smarts, black, they said.
"What color are people who possess both?" Derrick wrote. "I have traced my roots. I am black, white, and also Native American. . . . I can't act black or white; neither can anyone else. . . . With all the advances in our social structure, one would think that we could rise above simple generalizations that can cripple our growth."
"The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line," W. E. B. DuBois wrote in 1903. Almost a century later, we see that although the color line has blurred, the United States—increasingly multicultural, increasingly diverse—is hardly a blended nation. Kids in our most desegregated schools still must cross the line every day.
If we examine the statistics on school achievement and access to higher education—let alone those on access to health care, housing, and the highest salaries—the situation looks bleak. We see that the color line, the class line, the culture line, and the gender line have not been erased. Those who have been denied full opportunity in the past are not yet experiencing the good life in the same ratio as their more privileged fellow citizens.
Yet there is reason for hope. For one thing, many students today do attend multicultural, multiethnic schools that mirror the world they will live in as adults. The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, which has been tracking changes in attitudes for 50 years, notes that people of all groups report far more cross-group friendships than they did even in the 1980s. More Americans of all races admit to progress, in addition to problems that defy simple answers. "For all the history of separation and name-calling, stereotyping, and over-simplifications, Americans now see race relations in hues far more subtle than black and white" (Ladd, 1998).
And, despite the disagreements about how to reach the goal—this issue of Educational Leadership reflects some of the conflicts about tracking and bilingual education—there is a national consensus about commitment to equal educational opportunity. Authors in this issue ask, What is effective education for students who have historically been given fewer opportunities to achieve? and What are the strategies that lead to higher achievement and fuller enjoyment of learning for all kids?
Historian Ronald Takaki (p. 8) and educator Deborah Menkart (p. 19) remind us that we must know history and share it with our students. Enlarge the curriculum to include diverse voices, and go beyond tolerance to respect, they urge. In an effort to understand "the other," we must participate ourselves in a dialogue about the diverse and similar experiences of racial and ethnic groups.
Speaking at the ASCD Annual Conference last month on "Schools We Need, and Bridges to Them," Michele Foster said that she would one day like to see schools where all black and Latino children were achieving, where kids of all races and ethnicities found joy in the hard work of using their minds. That would mean seeing gifted classes in which all the children were not white and Asian, hallway lines outside the principal's office where all the children were not black, and schools where parents of color were not blamed for every problem, she said. These schools would commit to desegregation because, as research shows us, children at desegregated schools are far more likely to go on to higher education. Further, these schools would not be engaged in probing why children fail. Rather, they would be dedicated to helping all children, despite all the obstacles in their past and present, succeed.
