The Marginalization of Multicultural Education

Because they feel that public schools are low-stakes they students and their students are not having the proper education. Now public are inforcing it because tests results may be used to trigger penalties for them, including negative public ratings, the replacement of staff members, or even closure. Also some federal and state policy said consequnces such as firing or transferring some or all of a school's administrators and faculty.
             All Students Left Behind .
             NCLB was passed with a goal of closing the achievement gap between white students and their low-income and minority peers. However research over the past ten years has found that the high-stakes testing policies have not improved reading and math achievement across states, and have not significantly narrowed national and state level achievement gaps (Au, 2009). In fact, the high stakes testing and standardization of classrooms has hurt the very students it set out to help. According to Haretos (2005), "the volatility in test scores makes it difficult for racially diverse schools to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) since every racial and ethnic subgroup must do so. Thus, when AYP is based on academic achievement levels, the subgroup rules create unintended negative consequences for the students they were designed to help, by disproportionately subjecting racially diverse schools to sanctions under NCLB." This consequence also threatens to increase the growing dropout and push-out rates for students in these sub-groups (Darling-Hammond, 2007). .
             This paradox is not just affecting low-income and minority students, but also students in non-minority groups as well. When there is no time for focus on skills that students need to participate in social change, these students will not learn to question practices within society or to work with other students from all different groups and backgrounds to effect change. Classes in schools that may contribute to multicultural education, such as social studies and foreign language, are being cut completely to spend more time on reading and math (Au, 2009).