Minority Education Urged in Warning About Stratified Society

American schools need to improve education of a growing number of minority students or risk an increasingly stratified society, according to an official of the American Council on Education.

In a presentation at the 69th annual meeting of the council, Bob H. Suzuki of California State University, Northridge, referred last week to 1980 census statistics showing that 21% of residents of this country are minorities and that the rate of growth for minorities is twice that of whites. Minorities will constitute the majority in California by the year 2010, he said.

Suzuki, vice president for academic affairs, told an audience of about 90 educators that 25% of public school students are minorities and that minorities in California represent 43% of public school enrollment.

Noting a high dropout rates for minorities, he said there is danger of producing an increasingly stratified society, with poor minorities at the bottom.

“We must upgrade the education of minorities,” he said.

Suzuki criticized the lack of curriculum dealing with Asians, who constitute 55% of the world’s population.

‘Excessive Pessimism’

“I am concerned about his excessive pessimism,” said Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president at the University of Hartford, in reaction to Suzuki’s comments. Trachtenberg said students should learn more about American society before looking to other cultures.

“If we don’t include that population that you can step out on Market Street and see, we’re in for a grim future,” said panelist Joshua L. Smith, chancellor of California Community Colleges.

Roscoe Brown, president of Bronx Community College in New York, said the danger for administrators could be a “lack of passion” in taking action to reform and improve education.

“The real risk is to go home and do nothing,” Brown said.

Elza Nunez-Wormack, associate dean of faculty at the College of Staten Island, said special programs for minorities and others run the risk of isolating those students.

“Too often minorities talk to minorities in special programs,” she said, adding that such programs often are operated by professional staff rather than faculty.