Education is a necessity of life. Without an education, life can be a series of disappointments and arduous labor. In 1982, the U.S.Supreme Court recognized this when it ruled that no one could be deprived of an education because of lack of citizenship.
The dilemma local school districts have is how to educate an increasingly diverse community. Nine Utah school districts are under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education, for ineffectively meeting the needs of minority students and depriving them of an equal education. How do we know if everyone receives an equal education? Easy, we test them don't we? Not in Utah.
The State Board of Education recently released standardized testing results that reveal only 25 percent of Utah students are proficient in math. And reading scores are falling. Concurrently, American College Test results were down. An interesting insight is that minority students did not take any tests in numbers large enough to affect the results. Fewer than 3 percent of the ACT test takers were Hispanic.
Minority students are not tested because educators are worried they will bring the scores down lower than they already are.
The solution to falling test scores, says the State School Board, is to throw money at them. The Board of Education has asked the Legislature for $19 million earmarked for educating minority and second-language students.
Currently, school districts use money earmarked for second-language or minority students as the primary source of expenditures to educate minority students. They also use funds earmarked to help minority students for general student needs. Theoretically, per pupil money is supplemented by earmarked money. Not in Utah. Per-pupil funding is used for purposes other than educating minority students. Minority students are deprived of their proportionate share of funding. Sound deceitful? It is.
For decades the education system has failed to give an equal education to minority students. When I was in high school I was told, as were all minority students, I should work with my hands. I was given time off from school to work in the lumber mill because it was assumed that is where I would end up.
When applying for law school, I was counseled that there were no Hispanic lawyers in Utah because we were not cut out to be professionals. In other words, I was not smart enough to be a lawyer. I graduated from law school and passed the Bar six months ahead of my class. But, even being a lawyer does not inhibit prejudice.
For decades our education system has demeaned and abandoned minorities to "dumb-bell" classes based on our last name or color of our skin. Educators have low expectations of minority students. The State Board of Education has, through its denouncements of minority student intelligence, abandoned its mission to provide an equal education to all students and thrown in the towel with current minority students.
Only when the State Board of Education and school districts take responsibility and initiative to provide everyone an equal education will our community find solutions. This I learned in kindergarten.
Utah native Mike Martinez, an attorney in private practice, is active in Hispanic affairs. He has previously worked in the Utah Attorney General's Office, the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office and for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington D.C. E-mail: mmartinez@inquo.net