Jeff Bergosh Blog: SPLC Lawsuit Raises Uncomfortable Questions.....

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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

SPLC Lawsuit Raises Uncomfortable Questions.....

I’ll start this post by saying I honestly believe we treat all students equally. We give all students equal facilities, textbooks, athletic opportunities, and academic instruction. When students misbehave, we discipline them equally as well, utilizing established school board policies, rules, and state law as the guide. If two students of two different races commit the same

offense and have essentially the same disciplinary history—these two students should receive equal punishment. And in this district they do. If this is found not to be the case, I will be the first one in line demanding immediate change. But I do not believe there is a systemic issue in our district where students are disparately treated.

I think the issue is much more cut and dried. It comes down to personal responsibility.

Does personal responsibility matter? The complaint filed with the Department of Education’s office of Civil rights yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center glosses over personal responsibility. According to the SPLC---It is the schools’ fault that non-white students are expelled at a higher rate than white students, when their percentage of the schools population is factored in. But what the SPLC fail to address is this: Why do these students misbehave at a higher rate? Would they really have us believe that all races of students are misbehaving at the same rate? Would that even be possible? Of course this is not the case….

I would ask the SPLC to dig deeper into this issue, drill down the reasons why bad behavior is rampant among some, moderately high among others, and nearly non-existent among others. A California study recently looked into this very issue, and the results were intriguing.

But the SPLC won’t do this-they will come down and call a press conference, get the liberal media to buy into their pseudo-scientific, superficial and fatally flawed analysis of selected statistics, and grab a quick headline for it. The truth? I don’t think they are really interested in the truth, particularly when this truth is that we as a district are doing our jobs, but some segments of our population are not doing their jobs as parents!