St. Paul Public Schools will start gathering detailed ethnicity data on students this week as it looks to paint a more complete picture of its academic achievement gaps.
The district is one of five early adopters under the state’s 2016 “All Kids Count Act.” Next year, schools statewide will ask parents for detailed information on their children’s race and ethnic origins.
“Our families for years have wanted it, particularly our Southeast Asian families and our Somali families,” said Stacey Gray Akyea, the St. Paul district’s director of research and evaluation.
The Minnesota Department of Education says the new data, which it will report alongside graduation rates and scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, will help to “identify and serve the educational needs of these specific student groups.”
However, some ethnic organizations are pushing back against the expanded data collection.
In Minnesota and a handful of other states doing something similar, Chinese Americans have raised concerns about identity, opportunity and public funding.
In a legislative hearing March 27, Chinese American Alliance president Chuck Li said his supporters worry about losing government support if their kids’ performance data are reported separately from lower-performing Asians.
Some wonder if data disaggregation will someday result in affirmative action policies in which Chinese Americans and Indian Americans lose seats at top colleges to members of other Asian ethnicities.
Andrew Peng, a Rosemount eighth-grader, dismissed concerns about the state’s wide gaps in school performance among racial and ethnic groups, saying he and his friends do well because they work hard.
“What this (law) means to me is the label of foreigner or non-American will be with me, even my children, forever,” he said.
Although the 2016 state law passed with bipartisan support, some Republican lawmakers now are looking to repeal it.
Sen. Roger Chamberlain, R-Lino Lakes, said the law has created “division in the community” and “will not address the pesky problem of the achievement gap.”
The Senate education finance and policy committee heard testimony but took no action on his bill to repeal the law.
St. Paul schools superintendent Joe Gothard criticized Chamberlain’s bill on Twitter.
“There is not a single argument for ‘closing our eyes’ to the persistence of racially predictable educational outcomes and attainment,” Gothard said.
Dear #mnleg, representing the second largest and most racially diverse district in the state of MN, I stand opposed to SF709. There is not a single argument for "closing our eyes" to the persistence of racially predictable educational outcomes and attainment. 1/2
— Joe Gothard, Ed.D. (@JoeGothard) March 28, 2019
25 SUBGROUPS
Under federal law, schools must sort students into one of seven categories: white; black or African-American; Hispanic or Latino; Asian; American Indian or Alaska Native; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; or multiple races.
Under the new state law, Minnesota has added 25 more specific designations, including Puerto Rican, Dakota/Lakota, Hmong and Liberian.
Unlike with the seven federal categories, the more detailed questions are optional, and school staff will not select an ethnicity for those who don’t answer.
Gray Akyea said the St. Paul district for years has used other data, such as race, home language and English learner status, to give ethnic groups a rough sense of how their children are doing in school.
The proxy reports have been “as close as we can get,” she said, “but it’s not exactly what they asked for.”
This week, she said, all parents will get a message from their school encouraging them to make updates on Infinite Campus, the district’s student information website. Once they sign in, parents will see a highlighted section that includes the race and ethnicity questions.
Gray Akyea said the district hasn’t decided whether, or how, to publicly report the data they collect this spring.
“It’s a sensitive topic so you need some time to do it responsibly and ethically,” she said.
However, the state will report its findings on the new subgroups.
In defense of the new law, Grace Lee, who founded the St. Paul Korean immersion charter school Sejong Academy, said there are huge differences between Korean Americans and Karen refugees — and the gulf in their academic achievement can’t be explained by effort.
She told lawmakers that detailed data collection can highlight these differences and help policymakers close gaps in achievement.
“The Asian model minority myth is not an accurate reflection of the diverse community of the Asians and Pacific Islanders from more than 40 nations now living in Minnesota,” she said.