APS' minority students victims of institutional prejudice.

The simple truth is that college is not for everyone.

While there are obvious advantages to college educations, college is not the answer for every high school graduate. Some, regardless of their ethnicity, are simply far better off with technical training that enables them to take good paying jobs in technical careers; auto mechanics, welding, carpentry, plumbing; the list is endless.

But there are those who see only a "disproportionate" number of minority students following those career paths and conclude that prejudice is afoot, and that the best and only answer to that manifestation of an unidentified and ill-defined problem, is to deny them that opportunity altogether.

In a Journal article, link,

Moises Venegas,, founder of the Quinto Sol research group, said those expectations lead Hispanic students to take career paths toward lower-paying jobs than the professions Anglo students might seek.
"I think it's not as hard-nosed as they used to do it, and it's more subtle," Venegas said. "They no longer say, 'You are not fit for college so you will take these types of courses.' But there are lower expectations for Hispanic students."

Albuquerque Public Schools Chief Academic Officer Linda Sink, says APS "... does not offer separate tracks for its students. Everyone is expected to have a certain set of skills when they graduate." (whether they want them or not, whether they need them or not)

"It's old-fashioned to take a kid and prepare them not to go to college and take another and prepare them to go to college," she said. "We don't do that anymore."

APS Supt Winston Brooks, previously conceded, link; he sees the need to offer vocational training to kids who are not college bound, but, right now the focus and the money needs to go to beefing up the curriculum for the college bound.

What it boils down to is, non-college bound students of all ethnicities are being denied the education they need and deserve, in deference to a supposed prejudice,
a practice which is itself, manifest prejudice.