News From San Franselma

From the Contra Costa Times comes this inspiring story regarding diversity and cultural sensitivity in California's beautiful Bay area:

With schools under increasing pressure to improve test scores, Mount Diablo High School has resorted to a new way to motivate students: by race.

The Concord campus on Friday held separate assemblies for students of different ethnicities to talk about last year's test results and the upcoming slew of state exams this spring.

Jazz music and pictures of Martin Luther King greeted African-American students, whereas Filipino, Asian and Pacific Islander students saw flags of their foreign homelands on the walls. Latinos and white students each attended their own events, too, complete with statistics showing results for all ethnicities and grade level.

"They started off by saying jokingly, 'What up, white people,'" said freshman Megan Wiley, 14. Teachers flashed last year's test scores and told the white crowd of students to do better for the sake of their people.

[snip]

Principal Bev Hansen said she held the student assemblies by ethnicity this year and last year to avoid one group harassing another based on their test scores. The 1,600-student campus, one of the most ethnically diverse high schools in the Mt. Diablo school district, is roughly half Latino, 30 percent white and 15 percent black, with Asian nationalities rounding out the mix.

[snip]

Ultimately, however, Hansen said she did not know why parents seemed so concerned. The state has reported scores based on race for years. The school assemblies simply reflected those same categories in reporting the numbers to students, she said.

"In this country, race is a very uncomfortable topic, and it's time we got over it," Hansen said.

A sentiment we can all get behind, methinks. Perhaps further progressive multi-cultural thinking will lead to the conclusion that entirely separate schools for Asians, for Latinos, for Blacks and for Aryans is an even more advanced and sensitive way to go. It’s surprising that hasn’t been tried.

Oh, wait . . . .