The federal Department of Education plans to intensify its civil-rights enforcement efforts in schools across the country, including a deeper look at issues ranging from programs for immigrant students learning English to equal access to college preparatory courses.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to outline the department’s plans in a speech today in Alabama to commemorate the 45th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” in which several hundred civil-rights protesters were beaten by state troopers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge during a voting rights march in 1965.
“For us, this is very much about working to meet the president’s goal, that by 2020, we will regain our status in the world as the number one producer of college graduates,” Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, told The Associated Press.
The department is expecting to conduct 38 compliance reviews around 40 issues this year, she said.
Though the investigations have been conducted before, the department’s Office of Civil Rights is looking to do more complicated and broad reviews that will look not just at whether procedures are in place, but at the impact district practices have on students of one race or another, and whether student needs are being met.
“We are about helping kids get a good education, and the education they deserve,” Ali said.
In his prepared remarks, Duncan highlights several jarring inequities: At the end of high school, white students are about six times more likely to be college-ready in biology than black students, and more than four times as likely to be prepared for college algebra.
The department will also be sending guidance letters to all districts and post-secondary institutions receiving federal funding. Ali said the topics cover a breadth of areas, from food allergies to law enforcement procedures for victims of sexual violence and equitable education spending.
