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Educators Say 'Racial Privacy,' Prop 54 Would Hide Inequities in Education

By Jennifer Coleman | Associated Press
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A child's race shouldn't matter -- if he or she is failing, that's what needs to be fixed, said Diane Schachterle, with the campaign for Proposition 54.

The proposition would bar the state from gathering information on race, ethnicity or national origin. It also would stop California from collecting racial information from vendors doing business with the state, prospective students at Universities of California and California State Universities, and others.

Opponents, including many Hispanic groups, have raised more than $500,000 in campaign donations, according to the campaign documents at the secretary of state's office. Supporters list a balance of about $46,000.

"For the last 40 or 50 years, we have collected education statistics,'' she said. "They have become more and more racially segregated, and as we collect more statistics, the achievement gap widens.''

Not so, said Rick Miller, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. Minority students have improved their test scores, helped in part by programs started in response to the documented need.

By separating students by race in the data, educators can see through misleading statistics, said Kevin Gordon, executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials. In some districts, for example, "it would appear that a school was successful, but when you looked closer, we discovered the system was failing Hispanic, African American and other minority children.''

If Proposition 54, called the Racial Privacy Initiative by its supporters, is approved by voters on Oct. 7, "it will make it more difficult for us to make sound educational decisions'' because educators will lose data it currently collects, said Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

The initiative includes exemptions for data required by the federal government. A new federal law tracks student achievement in English and math, and sorts it by race.

"We would still be collecting data, but we'd be prohibited from using it,'' O'Connell said.

The federal No Child Left Behind act requires that states track math and reading or language test scores by race, but that is just a fraction of the information California collects on its own standardized tests.

The federal law looks at data for third- through eighth-grades and once in high school in English and math.

California gathers that information from second- through 11th-grades in English, math, science, history, spelling and writing.

That information helps lawmakers and the public understand the inequities in California's education system, said Russlyn Ali, director of Education Trust-West, an advocacy group.

Though the initiative's supporters say federal laws require racial information to be collected, Ali said that information isn't as complete as what the state gathers now.

"We need to measure every discipline, look at who is getting access to materials, who has access to which classes,'' she said.

Without that kind of detailed information, the state won't know what it needs to fix, she said.

A land-use consultant who was appointed as a UC regent 10 years ago, Connerly believes racial data doesn't address the true problems, which are socio-economic, Schachterle said.

And collecting the information from college applicants is useless, said Schachterle, because it is illegal to deny or accept a student based on race.

The measure will share the Oct. 7 ballot with an initiative to dedicate part of the state budget every year to infrastructure, such as schools and highways, and the possible recall of Gov. Gray Davis.