It’s been four years since any of the Sprague grandchildren walked the halls of Marietta City Schools and even longer since Ken Sprague taught a math lesson there.
But Sprague, who retired from the district in 2010 after more than a decade, is no less concerned about the unequal education he’s witnessed the majority of African-American and Latino students receive over the years.
His concerns date back to at least 2002, when the 71-year-old grandfather first confronted district officials about discriminatory policies and practices at Marietta High School.
“We largely had two separate tracks,” Sprague said. “One was for white kids and the other was for everybody else. One environment was exclusive and the other was a dumping ground with low expectations.”
“You can walk through the halls even today and see many segregated classrooms,” Sprague said. “Over the years, they have allowed a small percentage of black students into International Baccalaureate programs, but it still isn’t nearly representative of the district’s demographics.”
And so on August 22, Sprague, who is white, along with members of the Cobb County Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the NAACP, filed a formal complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights in hopes the district will give minority students a fair shake at a quality education once and for all.
Marietta City Schools district officials said they are unaware of the complaint and would not comment.
Sprague said he would like the school’s power structure to be more reflective of the student body.
Less than 20 percent of the district’s students are white, but six of the board’s seven members are white. The district’s superintendents have all been white and its teaching staff is disproportionately white. The head coaches of the football, basketball and track teams, which are between 75 percent and 100 percent black, are white.
Sprague and Ben Williams, president of the Cobb SCLC, maintain that disparity reinforces the stereotype that blacks are not leaders.
“If you don’t see anyone like you, you get a stereotypical view of the world,” Sprague said.
And that can have far-reaching consequences. A Johns Hopkins University study released in March concluded that when evaluating black students, white teachers expect significantly less academic success, especially for black boys, than do black teachers. What's more, black students across the United States are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled.
You don’t have to be an expert to know that children develop an awareness about racial stereotypes early and that those biases can be damaging. A study by Rush University and Yale University found that awareness of bias can affect how children respond to everyday situations, ranging from interacting with others to taking tests.
That’s why this complaint is so important.
For years, Williams said, his office has been fielding complaints from parents concerned about the lack of black teachers and administrators and the tracking and treatment of black students in the Marietta City School system.
But the removal in May of Forrestella Taylor, the first black principal in the history of Marietta High School, for what some believe were racial reasons, lit a fire under them.
“That was the match,” said Williams. “When you have the district-wide Teacher of the Year and the school’s Teacher of the Year, both of whom are white, say in an open meeting to the board that Taylor’s removal was the result of a small group of white teachers who didn’t approve of her leadership because she is black, it provides tremendous credibility to our effort to move forward and take this action.”
Under Taylor’s leadership, Williams said, the number of black students receiving out of school suspensions went down and efforts were underway to bring on more black teachers and coaches.
More than 1,000 Marietta city residents have signed a petition — #rethinkmarietta — asking the board to reinstate Taylor and address the racial imbalances in the district.
Williams, Sprague and others will hold a press conference at 10 a.m. Sept. 19 at the Marietta City School’s district headquarters, to lay out their complaint and drum up community support.
They want the Office for Civil Rights to help the district develop new policies and practices aimed at reversing the widening academic gap between white and black students, among other things.
Specifically, the complaint asks the district to desegregate its classrooms and programs from kindergarten through 12th grade and eliminate bias in hiring, staffing and promotions, especially at its lone high school, Marietta High.
Had the district focused on the education of all students over the years and not just a select group, things might have been far different today, complainants say. But as things stand, black and Latino children are leaving Marietta City Schools in droves underserved, undereducated and unprepared for the next chapter of their lives.
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