Milwaukee's Soft Bigotry

By Charles J. Sykes

Reacting to school test scores released this week by the state, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board waxed Panglossian[1].

The results were so encouraging, the paper suggested, that at the headquarters of the Milwaukee Public Schools  “you can almost hear the pop of champagne bottles uncorking."  The reason?   "Most schools showed gains. Of seven grades tested, reading scores climbed in five and math scores in six. Overall, black students shared in the progress.”

Amid the gaiety, the paper did note one “troubling exception,” the shrinking number of high school sophomores who scored proficient in math and reading. But this was not a time to cavil, it was a time to break out the sparkling wine.

How else to celebrate this triumph of the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Is that too harsh? 

The state test scores trumpeted by the state’s largest newspaper, showed that 72 percent of the city’s 10^th graders were not proficient in math; and that 62% couldn’t read. If this was cause for popping champagne corks, what exactly would failure look like?

One critic called the faux celebration “enabling failure.” In fact, it was redefining “success,” or at least the expectations for the city’s minority students.

Wisconsin had already taken dramatic strides toward that redefinition, by setting a notoriously low standards for “proficiency.” Independent groups have complained that Wisconsin educrats had dumbed down the standards far below the more rigorous definition of proficiency in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

But the Journal Sentinel’s “champagne moment,” was bar-lowering with a vengeance.

As the paper’s own news department reported the next day, the same test results celebrated by the editorial showed that the racial achievement gap for reading among Milwaukee’s 10^th graders  had widened from 33 points to 35 points. In math, the racial gap ballooned from a grim 36 points three years ago to a numbing 42 points this year.

Specifically: according to the state’s Department of Public Instruction, only 31 percent of black sophomores can read (down six points in two years); only 18 percent of black sophomores can do math (down two points.) 

Noted one insider: “How much lower could they go? We’re almost reaching dead cat bounce range with some of these scores.”

In a suburban district or in an urban area with an aroused citizenry and vigilant media, these results might have sparked outrage and indignant calls for dramatic action. In Milwaukee, they are brushed aside in the champagne toasts of the triumph of mediocrity and indifference that increasingly characterize the city’s civic life.

After all, it’s not as if one of the editorial writers’ own children brought home the dismal report card.

This is the failure of other people’s children.

Other people who were not invited to share the bubbly.