Look How Far We Haven’t Come: The Possible Implications of Current Educational Context and Practices for Young Black Males by Amanda VandeHei Carter

Abstract

Data that are derived from high stakes testing in the United States have created rhetoric of fear and criticism around our public K−12 educational system. Stakeholders often blame these low-test scores on the school, administration, or teachers. Due to the way that this data is shared with the general public Different from this narrative, within many schools, high stakes testing data are reported in an aggregated fashion, usually by students’ race. While the general public may be pointing their finger at schools, administrators, or teachers for poorly achieving students, these folks can quickly shift the blame to certain populations of students who are not performing well on standardized tests. Teachers spend time sorting and labeling children into groups and categories in an effort to “fix the problem”. While sometimes well intended, the planning, instruction, and assessment of daily and weekly instruction is focused on an end result of getting particular groups of students to score better on standardized tests. This article provides the counter narrative to this conversation and it strives to tell the story of a student who has fallen victim to standardized unauthentic curriculum. Multiple case study was the methodology used for this research. Consistent with this methodology, the data were gathered through one-on-one interviews, classroom observations, and small group discussions. Hardiman’s model of White Identity Development (WID) and Freebody and Luke’s four resources model were the conceptual frameworks that were used to guide the study. The findings shared in this article represent the data collected from one participant in this multiple case study.

Keywords

• counter narrative
• critical literacy
• white identity development
• children