Poor and minority students used as "guinea pigs" in NYC schools
17th Nov 2006, 08:03 GMT
Filed under: Teachers, Elementary school, Middle school, High school, Public school, Private school According to some critics and pissed-off parents, the New York City Department of Education has been raking in money hand over fist by allowing researchers to use schoolkids in lucrative and racially explosive studies. Public school students in the city were the subjects of more than 200 research projects last year, many of which were related to health, psychology, race, ethnicity, gender and religion. Most of the kids studied lived in the city's poorest neighborhoods, probably because school officials felt their parents would be the least likely to object. Many of the students were also immigrants or children of immigrants. Parental consent was obtained, and many parents were paid for their children's participation. The studies are coming under fire because of who was targeted by the studies, and the fact that some were financed by multimillion-dollar grants with money going to parents, teachers, and the schools themselves. City education officials andthe researchers themselves defend the studies as advancing students' academic interests and health, as well as providing services in the name of research that many such students could not ordinarily afford. "Our children are not guinea pigs. The research is carefully vetted," said Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, the Department of Education's director of assessment and accountability. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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