Culture Challenge

My topic for our senior projects is Cultural Dynamics, in other words i'm researching the impact cultural diversity has on schools and if a cultural bias has formed in curriculum and standardized testing. Coming from a small school I didn't feel that culture could have much of an impact on learning. That was until I came across the Oakland Ebonic's controversy. In 1996 the Oakland school board approved the use of Ebonics(otherwise known as "ghetto talk") to help their students learn standard english. The school board approved the use of Ebonics since 52% of their students were african american, and african american students accounted for 80% of the school suspensions and 71% of them were classified as having special needs. Also the average GPA for these students was a D+. I was shocked when i found this out. This has open eyes, I see now that culture plays a crucial part of learning, and our school system does not do enough to assist culturally different people. And with our nation becoming more diverse every day this is a problem that has to be dealt with quickly.