Bad test score: Is Governor Bush fighting racism with racism?
Multiracial children have no box to check on the PSAT
Executive Director of Project RACE, Inc.
November/December 1999
When I watched our governor at his press conference announcing his One Florida Initiative I was stunned. Not because I’m for affirmative action based on race or sex, and not because I am against it. I was stunned by who I saw.
Standing right behind the Governor, smiling, was a man named Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board. Why was this man smiling? Because the Governor of Florida had just guaranteed that his organization would grow and prosper well into the new millennium in the name of fighting racism.
Our tax dollars are going to fund $1.6 million to ensure all 10th grade children take the Preliminary Scholastic Achievement Test (PSAT). A formal partnership will allow the College Board to “assist in identifying, motivating and better preparing students in low performing schools.” They will provide training to teachers in Florida’s D and F high schools. They will provide software for tracking performance. They have the blessing of our Governor.
I agree with all of it.
What I strongly object to is the College Board, which has recently shown its racist colors in our state. My son and other 10th grade high school students all over the country took the PSAT several weeks ago. My son faced the question on the test that asked for his race. He is multiracial and he had no options. He could not choose two boxes. Although the administrators of the test advised him to check “other,” he says he doesn’t care for a term that means “different from my peers.” He asked if he could leave it blank. He was told that leaving it blank might invalidate his test. No one was sure. So he wrote in his own bubble and called it “multiracial.” Multiracial children should not have to choose between the races of their parents when filling out a form that asks for their race and/or ethnicity.
A flurry of correspondence began between the school, the district office of the College Board their main office and myself. They finally assured us that my son’s test would not be invalidated for not specifying a race, yet it is not stated as an optional question—students are led to believe they must answer. School personnel who administer the test are not schooled in the procedure.
The correspondence that followed was like a boxing match with everyone punching and ducking. I have never been as insulted in my life as I was in those e-mails, as the College Board told me they were correct in acting just like the Clinton administration. They said they have to do what the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) does. That just isn’t true. They are not a government agency.
Before my own child ever got to high school, other parents shared with me that their teens were upset about the lack of a multiracial category on the PSAT, SAT and ACT tests. We contacted the ACT management and they added a category called “multiracial” with no problem; they did the right thing for multiracial kids. The College Board, which administers the PSAT and SAT flatly refused. No discussion. Meanwhile, nine states enabled children to classify themselves as multiracial. Most school districts in Florida have the option. Therefore, my children were born in a state with a multiracial classification (Michigan), spent most of their childhood in a state with a multiracial classification (Georgia), and then moved to Florida where they are multiracial on their school records and state tests. But not on tests given by the College Board.
The College Board told me they are going to do what OMB told them to do, which is to allow children to check more than one racial category. They will not label the question as “optional.” They have until the year 2003, just like government agencies. They would not tell me how they are going to tabulate the responses for the children who check more than one box. Our children could be retrofitted back into one category for reporting purposes based on various configurations that the federal government has come up with thus far. Most likely they will be collapsed back in to the five main categories based on someone’s idea of what one race a biracial person should be. They miss the point completely. A separate multiracial category would improve the accuracy of their data.
The College Board is in the business of counting race and ethnicity but they shouldn’t be in the business of determining race. It even has “The College Board’s National Task Force on Minority High Achievement,” which found that black, Hispanic and Native American students don’t perform as well academically as white and Asian students, even if the socioeconomic data are the same. That’s the basis for Governor Bush’s contract with them.
I don’t know what led Jeb Bush to choose a partnership with the College Board. How can he promote diversity without recognizing multiracial students? Does he truly want to lead us into a world where race doesn’t matter if children are taught that they must always declare their race? I only hope he truly thought through the ramifications of such an alliance. I hope so for the sake of his own children, who had to choose the race of their white father or the ethnicity of their Hispanic mother on scholastic achievement tests.
Susan Graham is the mother of two multiracial children in Tallahassee and the president of Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally), a national organization advocating for the rights of multiracial and multiethnic children.
Copyright © 1999 Susan Graham and The Multiracial Activist. All rights reserved.