OUTRAGEOUS – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  The Obama administration is making another intrusion into our educational system.  This cannot be good.  From Investor's Business Daily: 

Just as school boards across the country scramble to meet new federal limits for punishing black students, Obama's educrats now want them to hit racial quotas for academic performance, too.

Last month, slipping almost everybody's notice, the Education Department's office for civil rights issued a guidance letter to 14,000 local school districts that expands "racial equity" beyond school discipline into virtually every aspect of public education.

Breathtaking in its scope, the 37-page edict warns school boards that they have to reach the same equity, based on "disparate impact" statistics, in:

1) advanced placement courses;
2) gifted and talented programs;
3) distribution of funds;
4) school facilities;
5) technology; and,
6) teacher talent, experience and diversity.

Those who don't get their numbers right risk forfeiting federal funding and being investigated for discrimination. It doesn't matter if school policies provide black students equal access to fast-track programs and resources. Or if standards are color-blind.

If disproportionate numbers of African-Americans don't avail themselves of those policies, schools can expect a visit from Obama's diversity cops.

"School districts that receive federal funds must not implement facially neutral policies that have the unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race," warned Catherine E. Lhamon, assistant education secretary for civil rights.

"In assessing the allocation of educational resources, OCR (Office of Civil Rights) will investigate and analyze the evidence found under both theories of discrimination — intentional discrimination and disparate impact — to ensure that students are not subjected to unlawful discrimination."

From now on, racial imbalances in "advanced placement and international baccalaureate courses, gifted and talent programs" and other honors programs will be flagged by Obama's racial bean counters. If your school has "too many" whites and Asians and "too few" blacks in those programs, you might want to lawyer up.

"Students of color are less likely than their white peers to be enrolled in those courses and programs," Lhamon says, adding that "such disparities may be indicative of broader discriminatory policies or practices that, even if facially neutral, disadvantage students of color.

COMMENT:  In other words, parents, community leaders, and students themselves, have no responsibility here.  That, of course, is the very source of the problem.  Groups are not the same.  Cultures are not the same.  They are not "equal."  Schools are now ordered to ignore real differences and take responsibility for outcomes that are impossible to achieve, given the cultural gaps that exist in society.

This is left-wing madness, but I doubt if you'll see too much about it in the mainstream media.  The mainstreamers are too busy waiting around for their honorary degrees and commencement-address invitations. 

The civil rights office of the Department of Education is one of the most reckless offices of the government.  Run by extreme leftists, it is set up essentially to serve only certain favored groups.  No one else need apply.

Only a change in administrations will force reform.

November 18, 2014