Racial Bias at Gwinnett County Charter School
New Life Academy of Excellence Lacks Significant Diversity
Norcross, GA 30071
United States of America
The Gwinnett County Georgia's School Board approved New Life Academy of Excellence in 2006, as the county's first and only elementary charter school. The founder and director of the K-3 school, Mr. Alphonsa Foward, Jr, put together a then 100% African-American administration. According to AYP test data from the Georgia Department of Education in 2008, the student body was also approximately 82% African-American and 84% in 2009. (In fact, in many test categories whites represented "Too Few Students" to yield statistically relevant data.) For a public school, this in and of itself, doesn't seem unusual, until you look at the racial makeup of the surrounding community. According to city-data.com, Gwinnett County is only 13% African-American and 67% White (11% Hispanic and 6.8% Asian). Clearly, the racial makeup of the county is not equitably represented within the school. Essentially, one race is enjoying overwhelming access to this limited educational resource, while another has been somehow restricted.
Normally, public school attendance in Gwinnett is assigned strictly by residential district; however, New Life Academy of Excellence is the only publicly funded school where the county's elementary students may attend regardless of where they live. It should follow then, that the school's admissions would draw equally from all of Gwinnett County's students - yielding equal access and equal educational opportunity.
Now geographically, Gwinnett is a very large county, and perhaps it is the distance of the commute that accounts for the school's lack of diversity - that it attracts students from its more immediate vicinity - the city of Norcross. Yet, the number one most populous race in Norcross is Hispanic at 40%; the number two race is White at 32%. The African-American population comes in third place at only 21% (and all Asian gruops register a mere 5.8% combined). So, the explanation must lie elsewhere.
(While the reporting of a "Mixed Race" category may have some effect on race numbers, only 2.2% in Gwinnett and 3.6 % in Norcross were reported as Mixed Race. Also of interest, is that while NLAE purports to specialize in teaching Chinese language and culture, Asian-American attendance is also considerably low.)
It is not known how the school's student body was originally selected; however, admissions to Gwinnett's only charter school went on a waiting list for the 2008-2009 school year. (Attendance for 2009 was reportedly 283 students.) Then for the 2009-2010 school year, after the word got out that the 2008-2009 scholastic tests indicated that high percentages of students were meeting or exceeding standards, the waiting list rapidly grew. As a result, admissions for 2010-2011, it is rumored, will be switched to a lottery system. As stated on their re-enrollment information sheet, returning students and their siblings will be given first priority. So, the student statistics are not likely to change a substantially from year to year.
As for the administration's make up, Nepotism is also undeniably part of the equation. New Life's Business Manager is the wife of the school's Director, and its Facilities Administrator is the husband of its Executive Administrator. It was not until the school's third year (2009-2010) that the first non African-American joined the administration. She hails from South India.
It is not until you look at the school's teachers that you find representation more closely reflecting the community's composition. However, while the data on the Georgia Department of Education's website reported there were only only two "black" teachers last year, this is yet to be verified. This year there are approximately seven by my count.
In our modern, inclusive society, it is troubling to find educators, who were perhaps among the first to promote racial and ethnic diversity in America's educational system, exempting themselves. Most likely New Life Academy's administration will claim that the out-of-balance staffing and student ratios are not the result of a conscious effort. However, one of the main ideas put forth by America's Civil Rights movement was that there does not have to be a single verifiable incident of racial bias in order to prove that discrimination exists; one need only look at the numbers.
Published by D. Calhoun
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7 Comments
Post a CommentThank you, D Calhoun, for writing this article and for this exposition. If I'm not mistaken, this school enjoys extras, such as karate, at no cost to the student. My tax dollars are paying for this, while the public non-charter schools my children go to suffer economically.
Another poster commented earlier that they would consider sending their child to another school if the school had an underlying agenda. Well, (on a lighter side) I'm not saying that this is the case, and I'm not sure how much History a young student can keep straight, but my NLAE student did tell me that, The first president of the United States was Barack Obama, and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "freed the slaves!"
In addition Dena, government schools pay more per child than private schools do, so more money is not the solution. And student achievement has not improved and has arguably declined since the inception of the US Department of Education, therefore more "expert" government bureaucracy supervision has proven to be ineffective. The fact is the government never does a better job than the Free Market, even when it attempts to provide a safety net for the poor or provide a minimum acceptable level of educational services to society.
Dear Dena, Charter schools are experiments allow in order to see if there are better ways of educating students than the current public school have been. When they were chartered there was no guarantee that they would do a better or a worse job. The theory is that perhaps politics, bureaucracy, and unions, have failed the students and that school choice and innovation are possible solutions. I agree that freedom of choice is very important. It has always worked well in free market economies and is a fundamental America value. Loss of freedom, in this case mandatory attendance according to residential zone, is the inherent evil encountered when ever and wherever socialization of any aspect of our society or economy is attempted. If you want better public schools, you will need to consider school choice, school vouchers, the elimination of government employee unions, home schooling, and charter schools, until results reveal the best solution.
Dear Nothing else to complain about. I feel the same way you do in all areas of life, but I wonder if you do. When minorities were complaining that their numbers were not being represented equitably in other areas of the economy and making charges of "racism," where you saying, "who cares what's the ethnic make-up of that company, group, or organization, they do a fine job or put out a fine product and that's what counts?" It's the hypocrisy of educators that I find interesting here. Plus, the article was more about the diversity of the students than the staff as you say. I hope that the "nick-pick"iness of the article, would point one to the conclusion that perhaps the founding fathers of our country got it right when they sought to guarantee equal rights to every individual, and contemporary liberals get it wrong when they parcel-out rights and privileges only to members of increasingly difficult to define groups.
Why arn't all kids given a good education? Why are these kids so special. I want a good education for all. No public funds for special people. Let then put their special kids in private school and pay for it themselves. Improve our public education system.
Seriously, who cares if the staff is racially unbalanced. This school is producing great results. Shouldn't that be the number one priority? In a time when so many school districts are stressing test scores, complaining about the lack of diversity of the administration is ridiculous. As long as the children are being cared for, the race and/or heritage of the staff is unimportant. All across America schools are racially unbalanced, be it the staff or the student population. I think it its sad when people nitpick at something that is going so well. Also, before you talk about how the school's population doesn't reflect the community, maybe you should find out if anyone from the community attempted to enroll their child at the school.