Whitewashed
A blunder on a statewide achievement test turns African-Americans into Caucasians
Staff -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2000
On the last day of January, as students in Nedra Durham's third-grade class, in Chicago, were plowing through the reading portion of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, a small hand shot urgently into the air. Durham, who has taught at the Jesse Owens Community Academy for the past 17 years, knew immediately what was coming. Just moments before, she herself had spotted an egregious error in the statewide test: an excerpt from a popular children's book called More Stories Julian Tells (Knopf, 1986), by writer Ann Cameron, had been accompanied by illustrations of Caucasian characters. And as every third grader in the room knew, the title character, Julian, and his family are African-Americans, not white folks. "As I walked around the room," recalls Durham, "I glanced at the test. And I saw Ann Cameron's name, that's what caught my eye. And I thought, 'Oh, this is wonderful,' because I'm familiar with her books. She writes great stories. My students are also familiar with her books, because they're in my library, which means they can take them out any time they want. And the librarian in our school reads her stories to the children."Well, then I looked and saw the illustrations and, to be honest, I was appalled. I could not believe that [the test's illustrator] had drawn pictures of white people instead of African-Americans." How did a test that was scrutinized by up to 100 adults--including several committees of teachers; the test makers from MetriTech, the Champaign, IL, company that was contracted by the state to design the exam; and the Illinois State Board of Education itself--happen to include such a serious blunder? Nobody is quite sure. But here's what happened. After Cameron's publisher, Knopf, granted permission to use excerpts from the book, MetriTech hired an illustrator to draw pictures to accompany the text, which offers no clues to the characters' racial identities. The illustrator, who was not familiar with Cameron's books--which prominently display illustrations of African-Americans--rendered the characters as Caucasians. Cameron says that she was horrified when she first discovered--via an e-mail message from Durham--that her characters had been misportrayed. She is also concerned that the children's test scores may have been compromised by the incident and their perceptions distorted. "A lot of children still to this day who are African-American have trouble believing that they're any good, because of the residual, and more than residual, racism in this society," says Cameron. "They have read [my] stories and they have started to believe in themselves... [Then] they get to the test and the characters are shown in white. [The students] are only in third grade, and the test comes from the state. I think they would be inclined to think that the books are mistaken and the test is right... It would be terribly confusing and damaging, I think, for some children." Although Cameron has received an apology from the State Board of Education, she would like the board to issue an apology to the students as well. But so far, says Durham, only Cameron, who is clearly not at fault, has apologized to the class. Cameron says she plans to visit Durham's class and others in early May. Although some educators question whether the reading test results are valid, Lee Milner, a spokesman for the state board, says, "At this point, we're using them." But that shouldn't be interpreted as a sign of complacency. Glenn W. McGee, the state's superintendent of schools, says he is "angry" and "embarrassed"--and determined to make sure a similar incident never happens again.--Rick Margolis
