JC
Here is another story about a school in Staten Island, NY that is struggling with how to classify its students — actually, the school isn’t struggling in this case. They feel absolutely fine with forcing one of their biracial students to pick one — black OR white. Well, her mom won’t do it, and this might mean that 5 year-old Ada’s racial classification will be chosen by the principal and will not receive her performance report for this year.

The purpose of the racial assignments, city, state and federal education officials say, is to determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress — guidelines set by states in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act — for specific categories of children. But what’s less clear is the level of flexibility each government agency has in selecting the parameters used to identify city public school students. A city Education Department spokeswoman said the city already had asked the state for a sixth category of “biracial” to be added to the identification system, but was told that federal guidelines don’t allow it.

“The feds say use five (categories). They may say, ‘And if you want to, use more.’ That may be the case,” said Dunn. “Our understanding is the feds say use five.” Dunn anticipated that two racial/ethnic categories would be added to the state list soon, including one for biracial students. He also addressed assertions made in the letter to the Carr family that they would not get detailed report cards if they failed to make a racial determination, calling the notion “absolutely wrong.” “A child that is not identified still gets a report,” said Dunn. Principal Mark Gray did not return a call seeking comment.

While it isn’t clear how many students have been forced to choose a category they’re uncomfortable with or have had one chosen for them by school administrators, the 2000 census counted nearly 8,000 Staten Islanders who identified themselves as being of two or more races, and an additional 853 who identified themselves as being of an “other race.” “You cannot be forced to pick, that’s ridiculous,” said Aurelia Mack, a children’s advocate who has dealt with mixed-race identities within her own family. “It leads to a false type or incorrect statistics.”

The classification mess continues!