Representative Image / Troy School District/Facebook

Imagine taking out a loan that you can barely afford, to move to a school district praised for its academic rigor, in a liberal city that touts its diversity, only to have both suddenly taken away from you and left feeling abandoned.

Troy, MI is an affluent suburb, with a highly ranked school district, where real estate purchases come with a bidding war.  The residential population is 39% Asian and the school district’s enrolled student body is 45% Asian.  In Feb. and May 2023, the school district removed Honors options for English and Math, for High School and Middle School, respectively.

This created an immense uproar, leading to many media articles, as hundreds protested prior to a vote in a school board meeting.  Additionally, many letters were sent to the board members as well as a Change.org petition, garnering 3000 signatures.  The community was mostly ignored, as the vote on the math removal was 6-1, with only the 1 Asian member on the board, voting against the removal.  (She did previously vote with the rest of board, all Caucasian, on removal of Honors English.)

On the day of the vote, 33 people offered public comment against the removal, with only one saying, the district should be given a chance to try this.  The people who spoke were of various races/ethnicities, including professors, doctors, college admissions experts, and others very well researched, citing the best practices recommended by gold standard studies from top tier institutions.  The board did not have a convincing argument or any research to suggest their decision would improve outcomes, moreover there was no proper pilot or even a methodology to measure success or failure of the change.

Parents pooled together and initiated a petition to recall four of the school members who championed the decision.  Approximately 4000 registered voters signed petitions to put these members on a ballot, as they felt they did not do their job.  The board members insisted that they did have support from the community to remove honors, but they did not feel comfortable saying it publicly, as they feared “being hung”, so they expressed it privately via email.

A GoFundMe was established to raise money for a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request of all emails, to check the veracity of this claim.  The leadership at this point had a significant history of lying to the public, including stating in a district wide email, that there was no intention of removing any honors classes.  This email came after the removal of English, with the vote on Math pending.

Exhibit A /

There was back and forth with the district on fulfilling the FOIA, but finally it was delivered in Feb. 2024.  Several parents reviewed the emails, tallying the inbound responses, finding only 1 supporter of the removal.  Months later, parents decided to peek at some of the outbound emails, in the 700 received.  This provided some insight to their decision making, and a shocking revelation.

There was disturbing racism, harboured by the President of the school board.  In May of 2023, Karl Schmidt, President, Troy Board of Education, wrote to several universities across the country that he had faced “resistance” from Chinese and Southern Asian parents.  He generalized them as shallow and status seeking, suggesting that only want Honors classes for “bragging rights”.  He further denigrated the community and students, by saying they only want to learn fast and not learn deep.  This comes from a racist trope that Asians are good at memorizing, but not critical thinking or problem solving.  

Such disparaging remarks were not only internal to other members of the board, but to universities across the country, such as Stanford, Harvard, UMich, Purdue, Notre Dame, MSU, and others.  Many students apply to these universities and have board president suggest to them the Asian applicants from his area, puts at risk their application.

This is a verbatim of what he wrote about the Asian communities: 

“So, if you’re still reading this, thank you! And here’s where we’re running into huge resistance from our Chinese and Southern Asian parents: 1) they don’t want to lose the tracking in grades 6 and 7 because they feel general ed students will slow down their advanced kids; 2)they don’t believe we will prepare their kids adequately for higher math without the speed and computational drill of our current curriculum—particularly Algebra I in eighth grade; 3) they don’t believe that deeper is better than faster as a focus on advanced learning; 4) we have not piloted mixed classrooms to date because of scheduling conflicts so we don’t know the new classrooms will work (our piloting teachers have been executing the pilot curriculum in both types of classrooms and are not concerned about moving to a broader student spectrum in the same class); and 4) although not stated explicitly—these parents often derive social status from the academic status of their children, so losing a middle school “honors” option is unacceptable because it reduces bragging rights. Ironically, IM does not recommend tracking middle school students until eighth grade, even though they offer an accelerated curriculum (developed out of pressure from parents)—and provide pages of research summaries to support their position.”  

Such a derogatory email is simply unacceptable in 2024, especially in a district where the Asian population is nearly half.  As parents have become aware of this email, they are outraged and many gathered to show solidarity in calling out the vile racism.

Unfortunately, some of the usual voices against racism and touting diversity, have been silent.  Karl Schmidt has been endorsed by the local Democrat club.  As such, not only are those affiliated with the club silent, some are actually trying to defend him.  None of the other members of the board has condemned the racism or stereotypes propagated in that email; neither did any of the local elected Democrats.  Ignoring many Indian American leaders, the Troy Democrat Club recently brought in canvassers from distant cities, which passed out recommendation flyers with Schmidt’s name on it, even though the school board position is officially nonpartisan

Exhibit C /

Dr. Anil Kumar, an elected member of the Board of Governors of Wayne State  (by statewide contest), a Democrat, did speak out.  He noted that this was “Perverse systemic racism, that he might see glimpses of in certain police departments, but not in K-12 education, in such a city.”  

The Asian community feels increasingly ignored, as the story of the discrimination does not get any attention.  It’s perhaps politically inconvenient or not advantageous for many to stand with Asians against hate.  Or perhaps the story just needs to be told more, so that we don’t normalize racism toward any community.

Troy particularly is home to many H1B holders.  They are scared to speak up, for fear of retaliation against their children by the district, and they also feel that commenting would be seen as political and violation of their visa status.  This is a misunderstanding and we should all feel comfortable speaking against mistreatment.  Every student deserves the opportunity to get quality education, that meets their individual needs.  Indian Americans are reporting increases in dyslexia and other ailments, and like every community, have learners at all levels of the ability spectrum.  It’s shameful when educational resources are denied on the basis of race, with our community disparaged, denigrated, and targeted, even in primary education.

Schmidt in another meeting said “those kids can teach themselves”, referring to Asian students.  The truth is that many Asian students are struggling and do need additional help and tutoring.  To provide different educational resources based on race, or have race driving decision making, in a public school, must be a violation.  The co-executive director of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion issued a statement and has provided referrals to leading civil rights organization.  We must stand united to combat this hateful targeting of our community.

 

The author is an Indian American Business owner. He and his wife are a Troy Schools family.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of  New India Abroad.)