The Sacramento Bee's editorial page weighs in on the racial remix controversy at Will C. Wood Middle School, coming to the defense of the school's principal:
A Bee analysis found that 80 schools across the state changed racial designations for students in ways that allowed the schools to meet federal standards. And why not? Race is an artificial social construct, not a science. When a child is half black and half white or half Asian or part Indian or part Latino--what exactly is she?
And:
The situation at Will C. Wood highlights a conundrum posed by No Child Left Behind. While the performance of racial, ethnic and socio-economic categories of students can reveal much about how well a school is meeting its needs, those categories by themselves reveal little. A struggling student is a struggling student, whether he or she is white, or black, or Latino, or Asian.
It sounds like Liam's arguments might be having an impact on the Left Coast. Perhaps it's time to move past NCLB's obsession with race, after all.
