CO school segregates tutoring program: No white students allowed

School letterThe message seems as clear as the difference between night and day: If you are white you have already gotten all the extra help you need — or, at least, all you are going to get.

CBS Denver reports that an elementary school in Aurora, Colo., sent out a letter to parents on Wednesday, telling them that an after-school tutoring program was off-limits to their children.

The letter, written by Andre Pearson, the principal at Mission Viejo Elementary, said in no uncertain terms that special assistance in school coursework was available only to students of color.

Parents were understandably shocked. One of them, Nicole Cox, told CBS, “I was infuriated. I didn’t understand why they would include or exclude certain groups.” Cox says that her 10-year-old daughter needs tutoring.

View slideshow: CO school practices segregation

Before Cox could complain to the school, Pearson reached out to her directly by phone, but the voicemail he left only seemed to reinforce the notion that the tutoring program was segregated:

This is Andre Pearson. [Afterschool tutoring] is focused for and designed for children of color, but certainly, if we have space for other kids who have needs, we can definitely meet those needs.

Pearson should read the school’s motto, which appears outside the building. It reads: “Mission Viejo Elementary: To inspires every student to think, to achieve, to learn.”

Better still he should read Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that stated that “separate educational facilities” for black and white students “are inherently unequal” and, therefore, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Related Articles

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook.

Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 4:24 PM

5 comments

  1. From the article I read on Drudge:

    “The new tutoring program was started by parents of minority students to help bridge the achievement gap.”

    So, to achieve this end, they think it is perfectly fine to use the resources the whole school district pays for, while excluding white children who are suffering from an achievement gap of their own. After so many years of racial quotas, affirmative action and everything else this country has done to try to make up for past sins, it looks like this is never going to end. It’s very sad.

    Would it be okay if the white parents formed a study group that excluded minority children, saying that the minority children hold the white children back? I think not.

    • they think it is perfectly fine to use the resources the whole school district pays for, while excluding white children who are suffering from an achievement gap of their own

      Bingo!

      • I do not know why, but this story really bugs me. They spend how much time in school teaching children how awful slavery, poll taxes, Jim Crow Laws, etc. were, and then turn around and display the exact same thing in their schools? How do they explain that? It’s okay because we managed to make enough people feel guilty that they will put up with anything so we don’t call them racists? We can’t explain why our children aren’t doing well in school, so we’ll blame white people and set up a program that we won’t let them participate in, and that will make our children smarter?

        My niece is half Hispanic, and lives with and around all her (illegal) relatives from Mexico. She is an honor student and can speak two languages at the age of eight. This problem has nothing to do with being a minority, it has to do with parents who do not impress upon their children that doing well in school is expected, and unless they are mentally incapable, it is their job to do well in school.

  2. wow

    and crickets from the lsm…just imagine if there was a whites only program…sharptong and jackson would be marching in the streets…

Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>