On this week’s episode of Fully Charged, Kendall and Sheila Qualls discuss the pushback they received from parents after airing a violent altercation in a girls’ bathroom at Hopkins High School.
“The events your cowardly anonymous sources shared with you, and that you proceeded to print in graphic detail are not unique to Hopkins — not unique to any public school across the country still struggling with the Social Emotional fallout exacerbated by the loss of time and content at school, and compounded by the loss of family, friends, and neighbors at home,” a reader wrote in an email in response to the accompanying article in Alpha News.
“I guess we opened up a hornets’ nest last week with our story about Hopkins High School. We got a lot of feedback both publicly and privately,” Mrs. Qualls said.
Many of the comments stressed that Hopkins does not have a homogeneous student body, which therefore justifies lower test scores.
“The assumption is because you have a diverse population — economically and racially — those black and brown kids from lower income households can’t perform at the same level as other kids,” Mr. Qualls said. “That’s absurd, and that’s why we need school choice.”
“Perhaps lower tests scores in the wake of COVID are not unique, but that level of violence among a student body is unique and hardly commonplace in schools across the country,” Mrs. Qualls said.
Mr. Qualls pointed out that lower income, minority students who go to private schools score at or above average on standardized tests.
“When these same kids go to private schools, those schools have expectations of student behavior. If they are violated, the kids are removed. They also have high expectations of academic performance. And these kids from the same community of poverty as other public school kids perform at or above national averages on standardized test scores,” he said. “Expectations shouldn’t be lowered.”
TakeCharge is a nonprofit organization that educates black and minority communities on their full rights and privileges as Americans granted to them by the Constitution.
