GUEST POST: By Dr. Lauren McClenney-Rosenstein---The Nefarious Confluence of Race, Schooling, and Dyslexia
When teachers say they love all students and that they want to teach in urban schools to make a difference, I always wondered, what are they really saying? The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) breaks down the percentage of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools from school years 1999-2000 and 2017-2018. In 1999-2000, 84% of teachers were White and 8% were Black. In the 2017-2018 school year, there were 79% White teachers and 7% Black teachers. Data supports White teachers dominate the education field, and this is problematic in educating Black students.
The United States of America was built through racism and privilege on the backs of countless Black slaves. There is no amendment in the Constitution that protects the right to education, which means historically, those who were educated, were White and privileged. This privileged-based system sets the tone for Modern American education including the pervasive and pernicious achievement gap between Black students and their White counterparts. Frederick Douglas once said, “once you learn to read, you will be free forever.” This begs the questions, why are we still trying to literally and metaphorically imprison our Black students and withhold knowledge from them? Eighty percent of prison inmates in Texas are functionally illiterate and 48% have dyslexia (Prevalence of Dyslexia Among Texas Prison Inmates).
The confluence of race and dyslexia is almost nonexistent in research. In other words, there is a scarce amount of research studies about dyslexia among Black students and its implications. It’s easy to believe dyslexia is only prevalent in White people because the American school system clearly value white students. Furthermore, white families may have the cultural and economic capital to pay for tutors or send their children to private school for a specialized approach to teaching dyslexics. Conversely, some families of color disproportionally lack the same levels of cultural and economic capital to seek supports. Most public schools do not know about dyslexia and teachers aren’t trained in college or graduate school about the neurodevelopmental disorder. This sets up future educators with sparse knowledge on structured literacy. Robinson cites, “Black males who have dyslexia potentially face a ‘triple’ burden. They face the mutual problems of other Black students such as prejudice, discrimination, and inadequate resources” (Ladson- Billings, 2012; de Valenzuela, Copeland, Qi, Park, 2006; West-Olatuji, Baker & Brooks, 2006).
Why should many Black communities suffer and not have the same access and opportunities that significant numbers of White families can leverage? Reading and writing are civil rights, and everyone should have the opportunity to receive the supports they need to be successful. A Texas study found that students who are disciplined through removal from the classroom (i.e. suspended, expelled, or sent to a behavior program or specialized school for behavior) are more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system and that students who are suspended have a higher rate of repeating a grade or dropping out of school altogether. Black students are suspended or expelled three times more than their White counterparts. According to federal data in the academic 2011-2012 school year, Black children made up 16% of enrollment in public schools yet, they accounted for 31% of all in school arrests (Nelson & Lind, 2015). These statistics are alarming and disheartening.
Nationally, Black males who make it to the 12th grade are performing at least four years behind White males in reading and math. The Black-White achievement gap can be viewed in various ways: teacher quality, academic rigor, high academic expectations, family involvement, and exposure to literacy-enriched environments. All of these components significantly influence students’ achievement (Robinson, 2013). The achievement gap between Black and White students is widely recognized as an urgent crisis, but what are we as a society really doing to recognize and actually make a change?
In 2014, a researcher from Columbia University discovered that five-year-old boys whose fathers had been incarcerated were ill prepared for school in comparison to their peers whose fathers were not incarcerated. Consequently, making the Black boys who don’t have a father present in the home more likely to be placed in special education for their behavioral disabilities (Lind, 2014). We as educators need to be proactive rather than reactive towards all students but especially to Black students. White teachers, especially those who struggle with unconscious bias and white privilege blindness, tend be reactive to Black students. Thereupon, this leads to addressing symptoms rather the root causes for symptoms. Understanding the child’s home life needs to be the number one priority before any decision is made about special education services. All too often academic concerns are treated as behavioral problems creating an adversarial relationship with the students and their families on one side with teachers and administration backed up by the weight of historically racist school systems. Educational Psychologists and special educators need to understand what dyslexia is, recognize the signs, and know how to support students. Moreover, students of color.
In order to make a systemic change within the school district, it has to start from the top. Michael D. Thompson, a co-author of the report generated by Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University’s Public Policy Research Institute states, “The bottom line is that schools can get different outcomes with very similar student bodies,” he adds, “School administrators and school superintendents and teachers can have a dramatic impact.” (George, 2011). However, to make this dramatic impact, we need to look at unconscious bias, structural, and systemic racism and its deleterious impact on Black students. Furthermore, we, as stakeholders, must examine with courage, honesty, and sincerity about how microaggressions, teacher bias, and white privilege all coalesce around the teaching and learning of Black students. It is evident that Black students are seen as less than their White counterparts on many levels. Love states, “Teachers who disregard the impact of racism on Black children's schooling experiences, resources, communities, and parent interactions will do harm to children of color. This ignorance, is not just a painful sign of a blatant lack of information—a function of racism is to erase the history and contributions of people of color—it is a dangerous situation as these teachers go on to take jobs in schools filled with Black and Brown children (2019)”.
My own schooling experiences give credence to the statistics cited previously in this article. The vast majority of my teachers throughout my K-12 journey were White women. As an educator myself, I remember being the first Black teacher hired in a private school serving students with dyslexia in Atlanta. I didn’t feel uncomfortable because I grew up in an affluent middle-class area where I was almost always the minority or one of the few Black students in class or at social gatherings. I learned to assimilate very early in life. I can remember having a Black woman as my 3rd grade teacher and a Black woman as my 8th grade social studies teacher. The Black faces seen throughout most American schools wear the uniform of custodians, coaches, or food service employees. Thinking back to my public-school experiences, I can draw upon a multiplicity of microaggressions, outright oppressive comments, and lower expectations aimed squarely at me. In fact, I recall several White teachers commenting on my fitness for assignment completion or certain college acceptances. White students constantly and consistently see and engage with White role models through their teachers, assignments, administrators, and historical and literary figures in traditional heritage-based history and/or English classes. Conversely, growing up Black, Indigenous, or as a person of color (BIPOC) in American schools deprives these students of role models that look like them, share their experiences, and think like them. Thus, the model to shoot for in American schools is to be like the White people, denying their own cultural heritage and history to assimilate into the dominant White culture. One only needs to read Ruby Payne to get the message: BIPOC students will achieve success when they act White and middle class. Unfortunately, this leads to misdiagnosing and handling of Black dyslexic students. When you grow up Black, Indigenous, People of Color, (BIPOC) and attend school where you don’t see positive role models that reflect you, your heritage, or understand your culture, it makes you feel unimportant and less than your White counterparts. This is a racial systemic issue that has got to change today if we want to see a difference in our American schools.
Citations:
Dyslexia’s Part in the School-to-Prison Pipeline: The Inequality Inherent in Our Education
System. (2020, February). Dyslexia United. https://dyslexia-untied.com/2019/10/29/dyslexias-part-in-the-school-to-prison-pipeline-the-inequality-inherent-in-our-education-system/
George, D. St. (2011, July 19). Study shows wide varieties in discipline methods among very
similar schools. The Washington Post.
Love, B. L. (2019, March 18). Dear White Teachers: You Can’t Love Your Black Students If You
Don’t Know Them. Education Week.
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/03/20/dear-white-teachers-you-cant-love-your.html
National Education Center for Statistics. (2020, May). The Condition of Education - Preprimary,
Elementary, and Secondary Education - Teachers and Staff - Characteristics of Public
School Teachers - Indicator May (2020). The Characteristics of Public School Teachers. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_clr.asp
Nelson, L., & Lind, D. (2015, February 24). The school to prison pipeline, explained.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/news/8775
Robinson, S. A. (2013). Educating Black Males With Dyslexia. Interdisciplinary Journal of
Teaching and Learning, 3(3), 159–174. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1063059.pdf