An Indiana school is giving third graders an inspiring early look at higher education with a series of field trips to local colleges — but the excursions are for black students only, which has angered some district parents.



“I just think it breeds intolerance and creates misunderstandings,” said parent Kelley Garing, speaking to KTRK regarding the field trips at the South Bend Community School Corporation. “It creates a divide.”

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The series of trips — for black third graders in seven district primary schools — began Thursday with a visit to Ivy Tech, a community college. They’re the brainchild of David Moss, director for African-American student-parent services with the district, who tells KTRK that the trips aim to set a much-needed good example for the students.

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Neither Moss nor a district spokesperson returned a phone call seeking comment from Yahoo Parenting. But, Moss told the local TV station, “I want these third graders to have the opportunity to think of themselves as college students. Our black kids are struggling academically.” The idea here, he said, is to “take them to a college campus, and have them meet with African-American college students, once again modeling the idea that, as a black person, college is a great place.”

Moss added, “It was not meant to be exclusionary, it was only meant to support and give these kids what they need to be positive about themselves and about their future. I was hired to look at the issues that are facing African-American kids in the South Bend Community School Corporation.”

In the U.S., blacks are catching up to whites when it comes to going to college, but there’s still a wide racial gap. “By definition, race-based admissions are only an issue at selective schools, which account for about a quarter of undergraduate enrollment,” notes a recent FiveThirtyEight blog. “But the racial gap in higher education goes far beyond those elite schools. Indeed, blacks and Latinos lose ground at every step of the educational process. They are less likely to finish high school, less likely to attend college and less likely to graduate when they get there. All of that adds up to a big gap in the number that ultimately matters most: ‘educational attainment,’ or the amount of school a person completes.” In 2013, it notes, about 40 percent of whites between the ages of 25 and 29 had a bachelor’s degree or more, compared to about 20 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Hispanics and 58 percent of Asians.

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The South Bend Community School Corporation’s student population of 20,000 is 34.5 percent African-American, 37.1 percent white, and 17.7 percent Hispanic. And according to KTRK, parents of various racial backgrounds objected to Moss’s field trip plans this week.

“We should be able to do everything together and not separate,” noted parent Charles Yost. “We’re all supposed to have equal opportunity, right? We’re all supposed to have equal rights.” Deirdra Mullings, who has a son going on one of the field trips, said, “I feel like all kids should be going.”

But mom Erika Herron told the TV station that she understood Moss’s point. “I don’t think it’s a race issue, I think it’s giving black students a chance, letting them know that there’s something else out there besides being out here in these streets,” she said.

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