Is Discrimination a Major Cause of Unequal Achievement?
Racial and ethnic discrimination and prejudice in America, the Report maintains, have had a large adverse impact on the academic performance of “underrepresented” minority students. No attempt is made to estimate how large. Having adopted the position that the performance gaps between White and Black, Latino or Native Americans must be eliminated, no matter what or where the sources, the Task Force is not under pressure to ascribe the gaps wholly or mostly to discrimination. The Reports views concerning the role of discrimination and prejudice are largely speculative, unsubstantiated and conceptually unclear. For example, it points to two factors that may involve substantial racial discrimination or prejudice: the widespread existence of racial separation in neighborhoods and schools, and the possibility that many teachers have lower expectations of minority students. Unfortunately, there is no effort to analyze the cause of the separation or to measure its impact on the performance ga
