Generationa Discrimination in Dekalb County Schools

Today I was informed that my daughter’s score for the gifted program was just not high enough.  The ironic thing is that before I was even told that her score was not high enough.  The gifted coordinator at her school told me that she had not made it in.  I had originally requested that she be tested in Kindergarten because her Kindergarten scores were so high.  The funny thing is that everyone claimed that they did not know how the process worked and when I asked the principal at the beginning of the year to place her in the gifted program he told me they were based on standardized scores, I waited and my daughters standardized scores came back placing her in the 93% percentile combined in the ITBS.  I then went to the principal who refereed me to the vice principal who referred me to the gifted teacher and she told me that my daughters scores were still not high enough and further more a renzulli test a test where the teacher got to ask questions about the child had resulted in an extremely low evaluation by the teacher.   All of this was very interesting considering I had had a particularly checkered past with this school.  I had requested that my child be placed in another room because her teacher did not speak and write standard English and the principal had refused until I told him I would place the improper English on the Internet.  As I write this my daughter has just walked in the door with the results of her test I would like to tell you that the gifted teacher has left off my daughters complete composite score which is 93% and there is a place for the composite score. I suppose I would not be so bothered by the testing but it seems really strange that when I was in the fifth grade and scored in the 98% in reading my mother requested and requested that I be tested for gifted and it was never done.  In addition the result of the test the teacher was supposed to have taken is not on this sheet.  In my suspicious mind I think the teacher lied

My daughter was tested but I believe deeply in my heart that the testing was biased and my daughter probably would have had a better chance in a predominantly white school.  All of my educational years when I did encounter non blacks they were willing to appreciate my intellect whereas blacks were more concerned with initiating their friends in the process of anything good and valuable.  Many people wonder why black children score so law by the time they reach high school and why they don’t make comparable scores to their white counter parts it probably because some black teacher in the south has knocked the truly gifted child out of the way for their friends child.  Unfortunately I have found myself caught up in the black world with all of it’s despair and hopelessness because the truth is in the United States, the blacks that are their for black children are their because of some strange clique situation that eliminates the brightest and the best as soon as they are born.  I hope honestly that I can find some sort of light for my children.  

Finally I suppose I could be a bitter mother but there have been two generations in the Dekalb County Georgia School system and both of us have scored extremely high on nationally normed tests.  However in our black districts we have never been labeled as the so called black gifted.  I suppose I have to repeat what a resource teacher told me in high school when she gave me a test we had a bet that you would score higher than the people in the gifted program and you did .  In any event I just hope my daughter gets a better shake out of life.  In a world where blacks are constantly asking for affirmative action and I have never received it, I suppose its reserved for friends of friends, it is extremely odd that a black district is working overtime to keep qualified individuals out of the gifted program.  While other districts are working overtime to find and identify gifted children.  Here is an article in the Washington Post that discusses the tactics the some districts are using to identify the gifted http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201316.html  .

I will summarize my feelings about black America and the chances for the gifted of this race to succeed while working through black society with one incident I saw on CSpan and another comment made while in a conference with the teacher who did not speak or write standard English.

The first comment was several months ago while I was watching a segment on blacks and public policy a professor from a No less “Georgia College”  went to the podium and said yeah the “lower classes” need to stop feeding  their children orange soda and honey buns for breakfast, that’s why they are not achieving and their test scores are so low.  They need to be like Booker T. Washington and walk from Alabama to West Virginia to get a job.

And the problem with the above comment is that this so called professor said that Booker T. Washington marched from Alabama to West Virginia, this was such  a fallacy Booker T. Washington was from Virginia and West Virginia and did eventually make it to Alabama after walking from his Virginia home to Hampton Institute. Hah maybe this professor had had Hennessey and a Honey Bun for Breakfast.  

Another incident surrounded the non-standard English speaking teacher who said some people just don’t test well but they are still smart.  I agree but it was just the way it was said.  I just believe that blacks really want to tear down other blacks and other people with higher scores just to prove that test scores don’t matter and while they do not this does not give them the right to ignore them and basically destroy the gifted from the cradle on. I suppose what I am saying is that antiintellectualism  is not just confined to the school bully but walks the halls of the highest educational institutions in the country.  As long as these attitudes persist blacks will continue needing educational affirmative action and thus extending  these needs into the work place.    Finally while the county I went to did not recognize or acknowledge me as gifted after I took the PSAT the Secret Service did write me a letter inviting me to join because of my scores, unfortunately I had been so indoctrinated into the poor and the downtrodden and how the government, “the man” took something away from black people I could not join.  However if this offer is ever extended to my daughter she will join as an American.     Help from the SOUTH!!!!!!!  I FEAR FOR MY CHILDREN!!!