This class session is devoted to social justice. No one ever actually defines what social justice is--if you have to ask, you're probably not very good at practicing it and if you really don't know, tell us why you're here in ed school again?

Ed school's notion of social justice is very Obama: teachers have to promise to be "agents of change" to graduate. They have to promise to work for equity and heterogeneity. They have to promise that they will stand up to the rampant racism of American schools, which are all operating in ignorance of Brown vs. Board of Education. Injustice = underrepresented minorities; no poor whites or Asians need apply.

It's all very romantic. It's also very nearly complete nonsense. Defacto segregation cuts both ways; blacks and Hispanics aren't taking advanced courses because they don't want to. As a tutor and Kaplan instructor I have run into a good number of low income under-represented minorities who are absolutely qualified to take advanced courses, but they don't want to. I've forced a couple of them to do so anyway, and the results have been mixed. But I digress.

In class, we are given reading material like this:

I grew up in North Richmond, and I'm not sure if you are familiar with North Richmond, it is considered the most depressed area in the city of Richmond....I didn't see Black people in positions of power, authority. You know. I grew up seeing the "Brady Bunch" on television, "Leave it to Beaver" on the television, "Happy Days," the "Partridge Family"....But I have to admit getting some factual things about Black history has demonstrated to me that we did accomplish things, that we weren't always in the condition we're in, where we were slaves. Now we are sort of like growing up in communities that are plagued with all types of problems, but for the first time I started seeing that there was a different sie to being Black.....I'll be honest, I thought that Black people wer infererior and White people were superior because of what I saw in the world around me. And then also as a child growing up, I can count on just about one hand the Black teachers that I had....That had an impact on the way I felt about my own people. I saw people that were not Black as my teachers. So that made me self-consciously come on with the thought that Black people are just not that smart. White people are smarter than us. That's why most of my teachers are White.

I always liked math....I was in a math class, a regular math class in the 7th grade, and I got a B the first quarter and all A's the other 3 quarters in math. And not only that, but whenever Ms. Berks asked a question in the classroom, my hand was usually the first hadn to go up and it was so obvious that Ms. Berks would call on other students first to give them a chance to answer....And the only other student in the classroom whom I thought of was Bruce. He was a White student who wore braces and he got an A all 4 quarters.....So anyway I remember Ms. Berks at the end of the school year telling me that she made a mistake not putting me in the algebra class in the 8th grade. And I remember her telling me this and not realizing what algebra was and I was just "Oh well, no big deal to me."

But she put Bruce in algebra, I remember she said she should have put me in algebra also...But the first time I really found out why she made that decision was when I requested my school records this past summer....I found out that in 7th grade, I scored in the 90th percentile for mathematics....And when I read that and saw that...I was angry. I was like 'Man, I should have been further. I should have been pushed further along in math than what I was.' ....But anyway that's to me an example of the fact that Black children, even when you do well, your educational future is not planned out properly for you."

So we read this in class, and our C&I assistant instructor, says, "See, this is what happens every day to many children."

I can't stop myself. "This was writting a long time ago, right? In the 70s?"

"Yes," says the C&I head instructor.

I said, "Yeah. The whole setup--a teacher who didn't recommend an African American for advanced math class--is so very late 60s and early 70s. I very much doubt your average teacher these days would be anything but enthusiastic to recommend a talented underrepresented minority to algebra. If a teacher was a bigot, there's still a few layers of bureaucracy to go through, including people who look for kids who might be missed. So this was written 30-40 years ago."

Assistant C&I instructor: "Well, it might be, but it still could happen today. It happened to me."

And then she tells a story that is EXACTLY NOT the same thing. In her case, she was put into algebra in 8th grade, and struggled. When the teacher suggested she move back to a less challenging class, she agreed--and her mother signed off.

Her story happens every day to white kids, black kids, Hispanic kids and yes, lots of Asian kids. Rich, poor, or middle class. Any student who isn't a) ambitious to succeed or b) well-represented by a parent who understands the system is going to have thirty stories like this.

Her mother signed off. That's the problem. Many parents are well-intentioned people who make one simple basic mistake: they assume the teacher is acting in the best interests of their child.

Let's all pause to laugh hysterically.

I'm a suburban parent, with the views and values of my peers. Go ask a suburban parent what they think of their children's teachers. Any number of them will cheerfully tell you that TEACHERS ARE THE ENEMY. Teachers have a dozen competing agendas. Who knows why they suggest what they do?

PSA for parents: Never, ever, EVER do anything simply based on teacher's advice. Don't do it to make nice, don't do it to earn a good reputation, don't do it because you think it will make your kid's life easier or the teacher happy. Take action on the advice because you review the situation and decide that it's a good idea and will help your child's education beyond this year in the classroom. Never trust teachers simply because they are teachers. Remember that so far as your kid's academic choices go, teachers have next to no control and less than that when faced with a determined parent. So fight fearlessly if you disagree. And don't take their disagreement personally.

(Cognitive dissonance, much? But it's true. Never assume a teacher's giving disinterested advice. EVEN ME.)

Many parents, regardless of income or education, don't understand this. I've been a tutor for five years now, and the number of kids from wealthy families going to great public or private schools who have been put in a lower track simply because their parents trustingly accepted a teacher's advice, recommendation, or purported fiat simply boggles my mind.

So when I hear a similar story offered in support of "bigotry and bias", I get annoyed at the incredible dishonesty. There was indeed a time when bright minority students were shunted into vocational tracks, but today's segregated classrooms can't be blamed entirely on institutionalized segregation, either by race, income, or class. The causes are deeply complicated and have no easy answers.

And here's the great irony: I'm pretty sure that progressive educators know all this, too, and that's what aggravates me. Progressive educators want to eliminate any form of tracking--even in math, even in high school. So are they pushing stories about the horror of inaccurate tracking because they want to fix tracking? Naw. They want tracking gone.

I believe in social justice, too. I just define it differently. For example, social justice declares standardized tests a Great Evil that contributes to inequities, and that's such a lie. In fact, standardized tests are the great equalizer and they produce quantifiable benefits to all students who know how to use them to show their abilities.

My version of social justice: I want all low income kids who want to go to college to have a genuine education that isn't faked in the name of "social justice" I want them all to have access to good information and training for standardized tests. I want them to understand that despite the swill that high schools and colleges preach about the value of good grades that when kids actually get to college, the only thing that matters for placement is test scores. I want them to know that good test scores, more than phony classes in pretend calculus, can save them money and shorten their time in college.

Will ed schools ever be interested in exploring different paths to social justice? Not.