I think people have become numb to the issue of race in our schools. And to bring it up, I think people just roll their eyes and feel a bit exhausted by it all. It’s like we’ve all heard about the Achievement Gap and we are all familiar with Kozol and we are all aware of the fact that the black and brown kids are, in many ways, getting less — and performing in an lower capacity — than white and Asian kids.

Has our national conversation petered out? Has the conversation about teacher quality, tenure, budget cuts and national standards bludgeoned the race issue to the point of it being like a punch drunk boxer who still wants to fight, still feels they need to fight but yet, can’t really keep up with the current fight going on?

On one hand we can take credit for having come far. It’s admirable the progress we, as a nation, have made. But have we come far enough?

Have we lost the mojo behind this “cause”?

As America becomes more and more and more racially diverse, has the issue of race become a tired talking point? Or worse, are we simply coming to accept that inequality is simply going to be the order of the day?

I mean there are like almost no white kids at my school… and we are in deep NCLB probation territory.

Are their any all-white schools, I wonder, that have absolutely no minorities which are in deep NCLB probation territory?

I know… sssshhhh! Go talk about teacher quality, tenure, budget cuts and national standards. Social justice, we did that already. Moving on…

It’s SAT season and if there is one thing about working in a Title 1 school, it’s that you get to witness a HUGE disparity when it comes to college test prep.

The fact is, those who can afford to take SAT test prep classes are wise to do so. And the parents of kids in upper-socio-economic communities understand the value of this which is why these test prep programs absolutely thrive. As for the parents in communities such as mine, well… they’d love to be able to offer their kids the best (I never doubt their desires to do so) but quite frankly, it’s exceedingly rare that they have the $1,000 (or even more; these classes cost big bucks) needed to spend on stuff like Kaplan, Princeton Review and what not.

I mean, check it out. Kaplan offers “Premier Tutoring for $3,999″. You think a kid with parents who can afford this kind of test prep for their child isn’t at a distinct and very real advantage over a kid who can’t even afford to sign up for the faceless, online test prep Kaplan offers for around $300 bucks?

If you know anything about the SAT, you know that before it’s a test of brains, it’s a test of strategy. Knowing when to guess. Knowing when to move on. Knowing how the test will be scored, knowing the “tricks” and “tips” and so on. To walk in cold without this knowledge is to set yourself up for having your clock cleaned. Parents with money can buy this “How to crack the test” knowledge for their kids (cracking the test is a big slogan in the test prep industry) while parents without cash are often left scrambling to even pay for the SAT registration fees.

It absolutely feeds into the conversation about social justice, iniquity in education and the Achievement Gap. Kids at my school simply cannot afford top quality test preparation and that puts them at a tremendous disadvantage when it comes to test time.

Like I said, and this is no secret, before the SAT is a test of one’s intellectual aptitude, it’s a test of one’s ability to know how to navigate the test in order to manipulate the scoring methodology to the test-taker’s best advantage.

This is also why I offer over 50 FREE pages of SAT prep on my website. Because I don’t believe money should be the reason that a kid can’t fare well on the SAT if they are willing to put in the elbow grease. Now, do I compete with a $4,000.00 price tag? Of course not. But I do empower people to have the ability to use some good ol’ fashioned “roll up their shirt sleeves and get to work” self-empowerment to even the playing field… and I do it at absolutely no charge.

That’s right…

• No fee.
• No sign up with your email and I’ll spam you to death for the next 1,000 years. (Trust me, I don’t have time.)
• Just free as in free. All I am trying to do is level the playing field a bit.

Again, here’s the resource — click on the link on the left under Free Resources and pass it on.

Below are some tips for all test takers. (You can owe me the 4,000 smackers… LOL! But it is amazing how folks are just being absolutely FLEECED isn’t it? I mean why don’t our public schools, if the SAT is so important — and it certainly is for college bound kids — offer free SAT courses instead of allowing the corporate behemoths to drink from the wallets of the rich parents while the poor kids get shortchanged? Geesh!)

Tips ALL Students Must Know for Success on the SAT

• Do NOT answer every question.
  • There is a PENALTY for guessing – if a question is too difficult, the best strategy is to move on and use your time to solve questions that are more within your reach.
  • NOTE: The #1 biggest pitfall of ALL students on the SAT is that they attempt to answer too many questions. Skipping super difficult problems is a very critical strategy for success.
• Use the process of elimination.
  • Get rid of wrong answers. 80% of the answers are wrong on the test – wrong answers are much easier to identify because they are much more abundant.
• Read the questions carefully.
• Do not make assumptions. Answer what is being asked of you.
• Identify “key” words.
  • Key words clue you in to correct answers. Context is critical to unlocking answers on the SAT.
  • Underline “key” information in the reading passages.
  • Studies show that one common theme of students who score well on the SAT is that they mark up their test with notes.
• Refer back to the reading passages as needed.
  • Flipping back and forth on the critical reading section is a strategy.
• Read each answer choice completely.
  • Don’t be afraid to re-read information (and test questions) to aid comprehension.
• Do not be afraid of unfamiliar words.
  • Strive to get a feeling for unknown words and see if they have a sense of being positive, negative or neutral in tone. Use this knowledge to help “crack” the answer.
• Know your grammar!

“Honestly, California has lost its way.”

This quote doesn’t come from me. It doesn’t come from my compadres in the Golden State. It doesn’t even come from a person who is known for making blustery, large, sweeping statements like this.

It comes from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaking to dozens of mayors, superintendents and school board trustees at San Francisco City Hall this past week.

Ouch!

And then he put some spank on it.

“California used to lead the nation in education.”

That’s right… used to. But now, as we all know, California looks like some sort of mushy-brained prize fighter from an era gone by who still thinks it has the chops to be in the ring with a ferocious opponent — yet its face is being turned into hamburger meat by the opposing educational forces it now faces.

Used to… Damn if that don’t slice to the core.

He also said that, “Our dysfunctional adult relationships have hurt children in far too many places.”

Gee, I might find that grossly offensive it it wasn’t so grossly true.

Duncan also slammed Schwarzenegger’s proposal to lop seven days off the school year, saying students need to be spending significantly more time in class to close the achievement gap. I’ve been saying the same thing for months. I mean by Arnold’s logic, if cutting 7 days of school is going to be fiscally prudent, why don’t we just cancel the entire 2009/2010 school year — that might be downright profitable!!

Thing is, as my state and my peeps out West get body-slammed by Duncan, there’s one thing we all know to be true. If you were to take a look at the top of the mountain, the tip of the iceberg which is above water and not the whole glacier, there’s no one who wouldn’t agree that the state of California has some of the most wicked, most phenomenal, most cutting edge, leading thinkers and educators on the planet. In a definite amount of places, California rocks like no other.

Heck, if we were Rhode Island, we’d be slam-dunking on fools like Kobe Bryant at a Laker game!

But we can’t seem to find a way to spread the love we have at the top all around. The upper tiers have it — and they have it good — but the rest of the state is getting pummeled.

“It’s often at times of crisis we get the reforms we need,” Duncan also mentioned. Well, we certainly need reform. And we certainly are in a crisis. And being that he was pretty much right about everything else he said, I certainly hope our Secretary of Education is right about this one, too.