The soft bigotry of low expectations is among the best phrases ever offered in American politics. It belongs to George W. Bush. He said it in a 1999 speech about his No Child Left Behind education plan.
The soft bigotry of low expectations also belongs to the current disastrous debate over the Denver school board’s decision to close Manual High School for a year, then re-open it, one grade at a time.
The group Students 4 Justice has protested to try to keep Manual open.
The NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union have talked of suing over Manual’s closure.
Some members of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, a group of black preachers, have threatened “war.” They have called closing Manual racist because Manual’s students are predominantly Latino and African- American.
Manual has failed minority children. The school lost half its enrollment in recent years. Half of the half that stayed dropped out before graduating. Test scores stink. These are reasons the school must be radically altered. Otherwise, what’s left is the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Van Schoales, interim director of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, watched a recent attack on school board members and school superintendent Michael Bennet by Manual supporters. The raucous meeting included the civil-rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.”
Overcome what? A hard-core attempt to make a mostly brown and black high school prepare more than a handful of students for decent lives?
In an interview last week, Schoales mustered the moral courage to be honest, if not popular, about Manual.
“I found it disheartening and incredibly depressing hearing ‘We Shall Overcome’ sung in defense of an institution relegating kids to a life of poverty,” he said. “If kids go through schools like Manual, they have a very small chance of making it in the real world.”
The truth hurts. But it is not as mean, self-destructive or racist as the lie that Manual can be fixed without complete reinvention or that what’s going on is the best folks can hope for.
Alumni, Schoales said, “mythologize the school,” which has had some fabulous graduates, including three-term Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.
Manual does have a rich history. But what’s there now is unacceptable, unless you’re ready to snuggle up to the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Of course none of the students want to transfer. It will be difficult for all.
The school may be failing generally, said 17-year-old Manual junior Amber Falls. But “I’m succeeding. That’s all that matters. It’s my education.”
Personal accountability is most important in educational success. Success, however, depends on how you measure.
The Colorado Children’s Campaign “did a study a few years ago at low-performing high schools,” Schoales said. “Eighty to 90 percent of the junior class expected to go to college. When we surveyed teachers, we got the opposite result. I don’t know if that was because the adults had low expectations or because the kids couldn’t read and write.”
Probably somewhere in between.
Manual graduate Nataly Martell took responsibility for studying college prep courses. She worked with a school adviser to get a scholarship. Now 21, she’s a sophomore at Metro State College of Denver, hoping to study computer science.
“It was a dramatic change” going from Manual to Metro, Martell said. “At Manual, we didn’t do a lot of homework.”
The normal study load of a middling state college threatened to overwhelm her, not because she is Latina but because she was not properly prepared.
Martell is not happy that Manual is closing. Neither is her brother, 17-year- old Josimar Martell, a junior at the school. But at least they understand.
“It will close because a lot of students are not getting what they need,” Nataly Martell said simply.
Manual is “not really a success academically,” added Josimar Martell, who expects to study harder at South, East or George Washington, the three schools he picked as transfer choices. Manual “students just don’t make (academics) a priority. In class, they do stuff instead of doing their work. You don’t see that in other schools.”
Certainly not in schools that believe students can compete with anyone, anywhere.
People who want to help Manual should volunteer as mentors for students forced to transfer. Call 303-623- 9140 for information.
Meanwhile, those who insist on fighting should declare war on academic double standards based on race, ethnicity and poverty.
“Minorities can do it,” said Nataly Martell. “That’s what makes me mad.”
It ought to tick off everyone.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
