Nate Rouse, the first director of equity, race and culture diversity initiatives for Barrington Area Unit District 220, recently discussed the district’s efforts to close “achievement gaps.” (John Starks | Staff Photographer, January 2021)
Barrington Area Unit School District 220 encourages all students to be successful, but the achievements haven’t always been equal among its diverse student body, the district’s new director of equity, race and cultural diversity initiatives told school board members this month.
“We have well-documented history of (success) and should be extremely proud of our accomplishments,” said Nate Rouse, who began in the newly created administrative post last fall. “At the same time, we have also been aware of the fact that we have not been as successful over the years with our students of color.”
The district has been working on methods to deal with those disparities, or “achievement gaps,” he said.
As he took up the initiative during the pandemic, Rouse was focused on equal relationships and more equitable outcomes for the students.
The work involves creating a more inclusive environment, Rouse said, with teachers using “culturally responsive teaching” to focus on individual students and what makes each unique.
In one class, the teacher chooses books from diverse authors that lead to discussions about cultures and historical topics that include immigration, Native Americans, the civil rights movement and Japanese internment camps.
Lessons focus on kindness and acceptance, while students learn ways to deal with situations in which something negative has been said or done, Rouse said.
Read more here.
Related: “District 220 expands equity initiatives”
So…here we go again. Educrats and bureaucrats attempting to justify their low risk-high reward jobs by attacking meritocracy and capitalist competitiveness with their latest socialist code word “equity”…which in their delusional world means equal outcomes. They all refuse to acknowledge that simply following the basic tenets of Western Civilization will produce life achievement and that their horrible policies over the past 50+ years have produced horrible results.
No need for wasting time and taxpayer money on racially divisive consultants, think tanks, white papers, blue ribbon panels, more bureaucracy, etc. Just by taking a moment to review the most successful racial group will show the path to success in America. Asians socioeconomically outperform every other racial group in America. They do this by:
– keeping their families together,
– not having children out of wedlock,
– pursuing academic excellence in at every opportunity,
– focusing on high market value STEM subjects,
– working hard and not wasting time in victim culture,
– not committing crimes and by all measures behaving like model citizens.
In other words, Asians – many of whom arrived in America without money and unable to speak, read or write English – somehow embraced meritocracy and the tenets of Western Civilization and have wildly succeeded. Asians don’t lay their problems on other skin colors, they just keep working hard and succeeding. Asians don’t bother with nonsensical proportional racial representation, they just keep working hard and succeeding. In fact, Asians are being systemically discriminated against by elite university admissions. What do Asians do about that grotesque injustice? They just work harder. With varying immutable physical characteristics somehow Asians are able to thrive.
It’s well past time to acknowledge that 50+ years of Great Society (i.e. the welfare state) is an utter failure. $22+ trillion in the largest wealth transfer in history and creating unconstitutional policies for the advancement of one race over the others has done nothing but serious financial and cultural damage to America. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and others have written extensively on this subject.
In our never ending quest for a therapeutic explanation to substandard performance, our ruling elite educrats and bureaucrats will never admit the truth.
Only by following the Constitution and the individual responsibility tenets of Western Civilization will a strong and self-reliant populace be free to pursue further American exceptionalism.
How about providing students something more akin to what is really happening before our very eyes as a result of these overpaid, undereducated and unnecessary bureaucratic social engineers. You know, “Mao’s Cultural Revolution”, where egalitarianism replaced meritocracy; where all of Chinese society (except the bureaucrats) became equal under government authoritarianism; equally less free, equally miserable and equally poor.
Until “we the Barrington area taxpayers” stop paying real estate taxes, this progressive mindless clap trap will continue to infect the minds of society until traditional values which made this country are lost,. Values like individual responsibility and achievement, including inalienable rights endowed by our creator. Of course, that was Mao’s plan, erase history and re-educate society through schools and camps.
Query: Is this egalitarianism approach in lieu of longstanding meritocracy limited to academic achievement or will it also apply to high school athletics? Will everyone get a trophy just for showing up? Will the 5 foot 2 transgender who runs a 7.2 sec. 40 yard dash be the starting tail back? Will we no longer keep the score of the game?
Time to stop this insanity and seriously consider starving the beast. Stop paying real estate taxes and demand Barrington children be educated rather than indoctrinated. Time for taxpayers to control school curriculum. Ask your children what is the school reading list requirements.
Be Asian, but don’t be Chinese about it. Got it. Very helpful.
To Educratic Bureaucrat. More aptly put, be a “free” Asian, not an oppressed one. This applies to all people. This is why we the people must hold on to concept of Federalism, that is enumerated rights and limitations of Federal government under Constitution, and resist continued social centralization of government at all costs. Unfortunately, the people having been losing ground for decades.
The point is, regardless of skin color if a racial group wishes to succeed in America they can do so by following the core tenets of Christianity and Western Civilization. This idea that white supremacy is so baked into America that blacks have no chance of succeeding when other darker skin colors (including Nigerians) wildly succeed is absolute nonsense. This racial equity (read more unconstitutional socialist thievery) concept is nothing more than a group of enterprising people capitalizing on the corporate media and left-wing politician narrative that is attempting to racially divide and demonize white America. An old communist trick.
Abandoning all critical analysis, the educrats and government bureaucrats go along with more and more socialism because…well…they are socialists living quite well off the taxypayer’s sweat and what can be stolen from future generations by reckless Federal Reserve printing and borrowing. They scheme to keep this narrative alive to the determent of the people they purport to want to help. I mean no offense to this new gentleman – Mr. Rouse – but he’s just another highly paid socialist taking advantage of the collectivist system called government schools that are unable to form an independent or original thought. If he really wishes to close the achievement gap for black students – which is indeed widening – he would organize a social justice movement within the black race to – keep their families together with fathers in the homes taking moral and financial responsibility for their offspring and promoting respect for education along with the pursuit of excellence in the classroom. This would be an excellent starting point and would ultimately yield the best results for blacks attempting to lift themselves to the middle or upper class. Just ask the Nigerians. But, of course, Mr. Rouse will not do what’s right and truthful because he will be labeled an Uncle Tom or some other racial slur and horribly attacked/ruined by the Left for deviating from their evil lying narrative. Mr. Rouse will continue the victim culture and blame game that is so overwhelming profitable for a relatively small number of “plugged in” people that it will never end.