Anusuya Ramasubramanian, the 2007 Enloe High School valedictorian, flew in from Stanford University last week to implore the new Wake County school board majority not to touch the district's controversial diversity program.
Much of her substantial academic success, Ramasubramanian told the members, is rooted in that policy. She's been able to transfer her culturally diverse school experiences to Palo Alto where, she judged, upper-crust classmates are ignorant of poverty in America.
Her father's testimony was nearly as dramatic. Rama Venkatasubramanian said he had shunned lucrative and prestigious out-of-state job offers so his daughter could benefit from the diversity Wake schools provided. He says North Carolina has benefited from his decision to stay. Venkatasubramanian estimates his work at RTI's Center for Solid State Energetics has netted the state $100 million in investments.
Other students offered their stories. But as compelling and heartfelt as the testimonials were, they also illustrated the diversity policy's critical flaw - its educational benefits accrue mainly to high-achieving white and Asian students.
Not in sight were the underachieving poor, primarily African-American and Hispanic students the policy was designed to help. That's because there's little evidence the policy is doing them much good.
In October, the district issued an analysis of the ultimate measure of its work - graduation rates. The results are not encouraging for diversity's desired beneficiaries.
The four-year graduation rate for African American and Hispanic students is declining. For black students, it fell from 69.9 percent in 2006 to 63.4 percent in 2009. For Hispanics, the graduation rate dropped from 57.7 to 51.1 percent during the same time period.
Male students continue to be the academic anchor for both groups. The 2009 graduation rate for black males was 57.4 percent and a paltry 45.5 for Hispanics.
Wake's diversity policy isn't based on race but on socioeconomic class, as defined by students receiving free and reduced-price lunches. The news is grim on that front too. Such students' graduation rate is on the decline as well, from a high of 63.3 percent in 2007 to 54.2 last year.
True, it is 2 points higher than Charlotte-Mecklenburg, diversity supporters' favorite target because that district abandoned busing in favor of neighborhood schools. But Wake significantly lags behind the statewide graduation rate of 61.8 percent for kids receiving free and reduced-price lunches.
Diversity supporters, including the state NAACP, say the policy is needed to keep Wake schools from racially resegregating, as if that were the most important issue facing minority students. Unfortunately, their 1960s definition of civil rights has blinded them to the academic apartheid that engulfs the district today. In 2009, the graduation rate of whites (89.4) and Asians (88.3) was roughly 25 points higher than blacks and 40 points higher than Hispanics.
Unfortunately, Wake's diversity policy has become a major-league diversion from the foremost civil rights challenge confronting blacks and Hispanics - lagging student achievement. Diversity supporters may find it comforting that Wake schools are racially diverse. But they use that solace to shield them from the reality that the district's educational output is anything but equal.
As a Hispanic, I couldn't care less about the socioeconomic and racial makeup of the classroom where a Latino kid sits. The cultural experiences he or she may gain are meaningless if that child fails to graduate. That's why I tell minority parents no sacrifice is too great to get their kids into a private school. I urge them to ignore the minority leadership and to support policies that will allow our children to escape a public school system that fails roughly half them.
No doubt, the Wake Schools' diversity program was founded on the best intentions. But it has devolved into diversity for diversity's sake. Regretfully, that has unintentionally reduced poor minority children to nothing more than racial pawns.
