News Berkeley High Poised to Eliminate Science Classes Because They’re Too White

AI Thread Summary
Berkeley High School is considering cutting science labs and teachers to reallocate resources for struggling students, aiming to address a significant racial achievement gap. The proposal, approved by the School Governance Council, stems from concerns that science classes primarily benefit white students. Science teachers oppose the cuts, arguing they will negatively impact all students, including those from minority backgrounds. The full plan, known as the High School Redesign, will be discussed at a school board meeting on January 13. The decision has sparked debate about prioritizing educational equity versus maintaining advanced science programs.
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Berkeley High Poised to Eliminate Science Classes Because They’re Too “White”

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

School district spokesman Mark Coplan directed inquiries about the redesign to Richard Ng, the principal's assistant at Berkeley High and member of the School Governance Council. Ng did not return repeated calls for comment.
SOURCE:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/be...nt?oid=1536705

I am not sure if I fully understand this, the city that has a whole bunch of extremely gifted individuals in the science field, is cutting the science program so the minorities don't look stupid?

Can there please, please, please be a better reason for cutting the science program at BHS than dumbing down the system so the white kids are on par with the minorities.
 
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I'm not sure how the article you linked to came to the conclusion that race was involved (although, actually that was only the conclusion of one parent interviewed).

They're talking about eliminating extra lab time before school and after school. Years ago, the city passed a tax that funded the extra "optional" labs, plus some other extras intended to enhance the school's educational quality. Now, keeping the school open before classes and after classes is seen as too expensive. It is true that improving struggling students' performance was given higher priority than maintaining the best students performance in dealing with a stressed budget.

Over the years, the before-school and after-school labs became "mandatory" in order to maximumize a student's score in class. The after school labs conflict with sports, clubs, etc, so the more active students wind up having to come in before school starts.

If the extra lab time is cut, the classes will still have labs - just less lab time and during school hours, which leaves less time to take other classes, etc.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-06/bay-area/17470276_1_science-labs-parents-protest-regular-class
 
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Ok, lovely. The way I read it was that they were cutting classes so all the "races" were on equal ground. Thanks for the correction!
 


BobG said:
I'm not sure how the article you linked to came to the conclusion that race was involved (although, actually that was only the conclusion of one parent interviewed).


http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-06/bay-area/17470276_1_science-labs-parents-protest-regular-class

Probably had something to do with that "one parent" is on the council that made the decision.
 
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Whoever came up with the name 'High School Redesign' is definitely a product of public education :biggrin:
 


I'm guessing that science courses, like firefighters exams, are "rigged" in favor of white persons.
 


If your community is predominately made up of stupid people who will never be scientist or mathematicians then why would you waste your scarce resources on these topics of minimal use to the vast majority of students? Seem very honest and very practical to me.
 


Of course it might be far cheaper for the country as a whole to bring in fully educated immigrates with high skills/intelligence and not waste any money in a futile attempt to get high tech workers from stupid people (blood from a stone).
 


Kind of a Darwinian survival of the fittest (and who says evolution has stopped for humans).
 
  • #10


BobG said:
I'm not sure how the article you linked to came to the conclusion that race was involved (although, actually that was only the conclusion of one parent interviewed).

They're talking about eliminating extra lab time before school and after school. Years ago, the city passed a tax that funded the extra "optional" labs, plus some other extras intended to enhance the school's educational quality. Now, keeping the school open before classes and after classes is seen as too expensive. It is true that improving struggling students' performance was given higher priority than maintaining the best students performance in dealing with a stressed budget.

Over the years, the before-school and after-school labs became "mandatory" in order to maximumize a student's score in class. The after school labs conflict with sports, clubs, etc, so the more active students wind up having to come in before school starts.

If the extra lab time is cut, the classes will still have labs - just less lab time and during school hours, which leaves less time to take other classes, etc.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-01-06/bay-area/17470276_1_science-labs-parents-protest-regular-class

We had that in high school. I hated that. You were suppossed to come in at seven AM twice a week for "lab" which was basically an extra hour of AP physics. Seven in the morning is not the best time to learn physics (this was before I was home schooled)
 
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