Giving Compass' Take:

• Stephanie Wang reports that Indiana is lowering requirements for black students in order to close the racial equity gap. 

• How can states support students of color to help them achieve more?

• Learn how low expectations hurt students of color.

Some education advocates are decrying Indiana’s strategy for closing gaps in test scores and graduation rates among students of color, criticizing the state for setting lower expectations for black and Hispanic students.

The state’s five-year goal is to cut in half the number of students who aren’t passing tests or aren’t graduating from high school. But because officials have set targets for each racial group based on how they’re performing now, the state’s goals won’t completely close gaps between students of color and their white peers.

“Oftentimes in the African-American community, we talk about the fact that systems are set up for our children to fail, and this looks a lot like that,” said IUPUI lecturer and civil rights advocate Marshawn Wolley. “You’re essentially saying with these goals that you’re going to have a segregated educational system. You’re going to have segregated outcomes.”

The state’s target for black students, for example, is for about three out of four students to pass language arts and two out of three students to pass math in the elementary and middle school state tests by 2023.

Because black students are the farthest behind on test scores, hitting their targets would require bigger jump than for every other racial group. But the target would still put black students behind white students, who are working toward a goal of having more than 80 percent pass the tests. And it would put black students behind the state’s target for overall student performance.

Read the full article about Indiana's standards for Black children by Stephanie Wang at Chalkbeat.