Michael Gove: Black children marked down by teachers

In a speech given yesterday, The Secretary of State for education Michael Gove has reignited the fear that many Black parents suspect, namely:

‘Children from ethnic minorities are being marked down by teachers who expect them to do worse than others in tests.’

He called it the, ‘soft bigotry of low expectation’. Gove went on to claim that evidence shows that Black students do better in external assessments that are marked without bias or knowledge of the pupil.

This debate was fiercely debated back in 2010 after research findings clearly demonstrated that,

Black children are being systematically marked down by their teachers who are unconsciously stereotyping them.

The study by Simon Burgess, professor of economics at the University of Bristol, also claimed that.

The opposite is true for many Indian and Chinese children, who tend to be "over-assessed" by teachers. It also finds that white children from very poor neighborhoods were under-assessed when compared with their better-off peers.

In response to the debate back in 2010, the National Union of Teachers responded by saying:

that if there was stereotyping it should be tackled by improving teacher training so teachers could better assess children themselves – not by retaining Sats.

The fact remains that Black children’s future are being jeopardized by racial prejudice. Too often, poor marks lead to low achievement and can lead to unemployment and problems within the criminal justice system.

Black families should not be too surprised but we should demand an array of solutions to deal with these problems.

Simon Woolley