Meanwhile, Over in Bellevue

I sometimes get asked, "Do you cover all of Puget Sound in your blog?" It makes me smile.

I have, on occasion, looked into other regional districts and what they are doing.  For example, it's interesting how much more it costs SPS to build a school than anyone else in the region (and they already own the land).  Another recent example - I had one reader saying Bellevue didn't have separate HCC classes so I went and looked it up (they do but they also have many other fine options.)

But the main reason I don't cover other districts is that SPS has way too much going on for me to ever look in another direction.   But again, I am (slowly) turning away from SPS coverage.

So I read with interest a story over at Crosscut about Asian-American parents who rose up against Bellevue SD's new equity initiative.  And, this group is fighting against I-1000 that that uses affirmative action for minority groups.

I'll note that there is a group of Asian students who are currently suing Harvard over their admission policies that are directly related to race. 

Three key, if sensitive, takeaways:

-  one Bellevue parent says: “Nowadays all children have equal access to the public education in this country, regardless of their skin color,”

Well, that's true that all kids have access to public education but you can't overlook institutional racism even over in Bellevue.  Equal access? Also another topic.

-  I think it is a zero-sum way to look at things: that if somebody is gaining something, then somebody else is losing something,” Thai said. “In my opinion, that is a misunderstanding of what 1-1000 is about.” State Representative My-Linh Thai. 

Equity is NOT about taking something from someone else.  It's about making sure the supports are there for those who need them.  If it means resources directed from one school to another, that's what needs to happen.

- Lastly, this brings up a two-pronged issue.

First, who speaks for whom? In this article you read about two different Asian-American groups who do not disagree on this issue.  Is anyone truly wrong? No. They are just thinking about it differently.

 I recently read an account of being at a conference by a POC guy,who was African-American.  He said another African-American guy was giving a talk and criticizing how the conference dealt with issues of race in their presentations.  He said he sat there, getting madder and madder.  Because he didn't agree with (most) of what this guy was saying and felt really annoyed that the speaker was assuming he spoke for every Black person in the room.

The assumption that any one POC person or group speaks for an entire community is one that the Board and the Superintendent might want to consider that in their equity work.  They might consider that some voices are quieter on race and equity issues but that doesn't mean they don't care.

The other prong is the data that shows many Asian students tend to do well in school. (And again, "Asian" is an umbrella word for people from many differing cultures so there is nothing uniform about who does well.)

And it's not that any given community doesn't care about public education. I've rarely met any parent who didn't truly care.

But what is it in Asian communities that drives their children to work hard in school?  Is it the Tiger Mom effect or something else?

I have no answers but clearly, this issue exists.

The Story from Crosscut's Melissa Santos:

Last year, Kan Qiu stood before members of the Bellevue School Board and made a bold demand: Get rid of the school district’s Department of Equity.

“I call for the disbandment of the Equity Department and make the district accountable to the taxpayers,” Qiu told the board members in April 2018.

Qiu and other members of his group, Washington Asians for Equality, frequently attended Bellevue School Board meetings last year to oppose the district’s development of a new racial-equity policy. Qiu and other members of the group said such a policy would focus inappropriately on students’ race, resulting in racial divisions and unfair treatment.

A year and a half later, Qiu is making a similar argument to voters throughout Washington state. He is the primary sponsor of the effort to overturn Initiative 1000, an affirmative-action measure the state Legislature approved in April.

In both settings, the parents — many of whom said they were Chinese immigrants — claimed it would put Asian Americans at a disadvantage if government officials began looking at racial identity when making decisions.

On Bellevue's Equity Initiative

But Tim Mills, former superintendent of the Bellevue School District, said that over time, the district found students of certain racial and ethnic groups were not experiencing the same academic outcomes as their peers of white or Asian descent. Like it or not, those racial disparities were part of the district’s story, he said, and something district officials wanted to change. 

“Bellevue was very definitely changing in terms of student population,” Mills said in a recent interview, referencing how the district has become more demographically diverse. “There were some subgroups of students where it was obvious that we needed to do a better job in terms of the educational process.” 

District officials created the Department of Equity in 2013 to try to narrow those performance gaps, which were particularly acute when it came to standardized test scores. 

In Bellevue, meanwhile, members of the group had criticized the district’s equity work as trying to force identity politics into schools. At times, Qiu and other members of Washington Asians for Equality questioned why the school district offered mentoring programs specifically designed for Black, Latino, Native American and Southeast Asian students, instead of geared more broadly toward students of all races and ethnicities.

Jie Xie, a Bellevue parent who said she came to the United States from China about 10 years ago, called the district’s proposed racial equity policy “divisive.” She later testified against I-1000, and has donated to the campaign to reject R-88. 

“Nowadays all children have equal access to the public education in this country, regardless of their skin color,” Xie told Bellevue School Board members in 2018.

She said she didn’t understand why district officials wanted to bring race back into the conversation.

“Do not just subscribe to a single story: race,” Xie said, adding, “Would you judge your kid’s school performance by their skin color?”

But Tim Mills, former superintendent of the Bellevue School District, said that over time, the district found students of certain racial and ethnic groups were not experiencing the same academic outcomes as their peers of white or Asian descent. Like it or not, those racial disparities were part of the district’s story, he said, and something district officials wanted to change. 

Bringing in a former Bellevue School Member, Now a State Legislator

State Rep. My-Linh Thai, D-Bellevue, served on the Bellevue School Board through November 2018, when she left the board after winning election to the Legislature.

While on the school board, she said she had numerous meetings with members of Washington Asians for Equality to discuss their concerns about the district’s work on racial equity. 

In particular, Thai said members of Washington Asians for Equality worried the district’s equity focus could lead to fewer spots for Asian students in the district’s highly capable program. Members of the group had previously raised similar concerns when state lawmakers considered a policy to increase access to highly capable classes, as well as when the Northshore School District took steps to diversify its gifted program.

In response, Thai said she told members of Washington Asians for Equality that the district has an obligation to meet the needs of all of its gifted students. That means if more students are identified as gifted, she said, the district is supposed to serve them all, not cut anyone out.

At the same time, Thai said she told the parents that the district had an equal obligation to help the other students being left behind. To her, that meant making sure students of all races and ethnicities have their needs met, she said.

She said she doesn’t see those kinds of targeted efforts as disadvantaging anyone else.

That was where she and members of Washington Asians for Equality seemed to disagree, Thai said.

“A question being asked to me at a personal level was, ‘My-Linh, why are you doing this? You are Asian, you are supposed to fight for us Asians,’ ” Thai recalled in a recent interview. “And my response was, why wouldn’t I? Why would you not see this work is about all of us? And there’s that gap between how we perceive things.”

“I think it is a zero-sum way to look at things: that if somebody is gaining something, then somebody else is losing something,” Thai said. “In my opinion, that is a misunderstanding of what 1-1000 is about.”

Another group, Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment (APACE), drafted a letter to Washington lawmakers in February expressing the group’s support for I-1000, while disputing Washington Asians for Equality’s claim that the initiative would hurt Asian Americans.

“This group does not represent the views of most Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” the letter read.