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Dignity, Justice and Real

Achievement

Jeanne Ingle

Derrick Darby and John L. Rury, The Color of

Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap
Matter for Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2018).

he Color of Mind is a gift to educators and
future educators who seek to understand
T inequality in our schools and the persistence

of institutional racism. Teachers work hard. Teachers
in inner city schools work exceptionally hard, 50-
60 hours per week on average. To work so hard and

to see your students not achieve on standardized create extensive illustrations of what-
tests is extremely frustrat ing, but the day-to-day ever book we were reading in class; he
made a series of drawings depicting
achievements are amazing, invigorating, and what what the Titanic might look like if built
makes it all worthwhile. I know this because I was an today, including a gaming room, bas-
inner-city teacher and I have had experiences just like ketball court, and a minutely detailed
food court. How does this creativity
those highlighted in Darby and Rury’s book. and life experience get measured in our
current system of achievement testing?
Sebastian came to my fourth grade Sebastian had only been in his room Short answer: it doesn’t.
classroom in the second half of the for three months – Sebastian’s fam-
school year. He was bright, creative, ily was in crisis. In Sebastian’s second As a former inner-city teacher, I found
and extremely impulsive. On his first week in my class we began four days of The Color of Mind neither easy to read
day of school we were prepping for the standardized testing that would have nor shocking in its revelations. Racism
high stakes state testing that my stu- multiple implications for Sebastian, our is old and deeply entrenched in Western
dents would begin the following week. school, our school district, and me. culture. “The Color of Mind” is a
He had a rocky first week, and I spent a Fast forward to the following sum- term Darby and Rury use to describe
lot of time on the phone with his mom mer when I received Sebastian’s scores the “construction of racial differences
discussing his needs, his past perfor- (that’s right, teachers don’t often get in intellect, character and conduct,
mance, and anything else I might need their students’ standardized scores for … and its role in establishing racial
to know. I found out that Sebastian and months following the actual testing). inequality of educational opportunities
his family had recently been evicted, Unsurprisingly, Sebastian did poorly and other opportunity gaps, has had a
that they had moved across the state to in almost every area. Not because of profound impact in shaping the racial
live with an aunt, and that his mom was Sebastian, but because we had so many achievement gap” (142). The Color
trying to leave an abusive relationship children like Sebastian, our test scores of Mind is a systematic racist view of
behind. I also found out that Sebastian as a school and as a district were also black people’s intelligence, perfor-
was a wonderful artist, a significantly poor. Five years after Sebastian left my mance and abilities. It is not a new
below-grade-level reader, and a pretty classroom, the school district continues view invented by white supremacists,
strong student in math. He was also to fail. the KKK, or even Southern slavehold-
funny, sweet, and harbored an explosive ers. The Color of Mind is as old as the
temper. You might be wondering if I Sebastian was complicated, but also a first European/African encounters
spoke with Sebastian’s former teacher. I delight to work with. He loved draw- and is well articulated in the work of
did, but he couldn’t help me much since ing, especially cartooning. He would Kant, Hume, and Thomas Jefferson.

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