Return to the News page


Posted August 11, 2006

Contact:
Alfredo Padilla, MAVIN Foundation Education Manager


MAVIN FOUNDATION'S INITIAL STATEMENT ON THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION'S PROPOSED GUIDANCE ON COLLECTING AND REPORTING DATA ON RACE AND ETHNICITY

(Seattle) MAVIN Foundation is a national nonprofit organization committed to building healthy communities that celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families. Mixed heritage students have faced significant challenges as a result of educational policies that have rendered them statistically invisible and ignore their unique needs. MAVIN Foundation works to ensure that educational institutions support multiracial, multiethnic and transracially adopted students.

“We are encouraged by the Department of Education's (DOE) efforts to adopt federal standards that allow individuals to 'mark one or more' racial categories," said Anne Katahira-Sims, MAVIN Foundation's Executive Director. "The 'mark one or more' standard provides educational institutions and the public with an opportunity to obtain clear and accurate information about diversity in U.S. schools."

"However, MAVIN Foundation has significant concerns about the DOE's proposed reporting guidelines that would aggregate all individuals who identify with more than one race into a single 'two or more races' category," Katahira-Sims continued. "This policy would eliminate many benefits of the 'mark one or more' standard by obscuring detailed data about students' racial heritage. Many multiracial students identify with both mixed heritage and specific racial or ethnic communities. Similarly, racial data for Hispanic/Latino students would not be reported. The DOE's proposed guidelines suggest that Hispanic/Latino and multiracial populations are homogeneous, which severely limits the accuracy and usefulness of the data.”

MAVIN Foundation has additional concerns regarding the Department of Education's perpetuation of "observer identification" in primary and secondary educational institutions. MAVIN Foundation strongly believes that providing individuals the opportunity to self-identify, including the option to refuse to identify their racial heritage, should be required at all levels of education.

"We will be working with constituents and partners over the next six weeks to provide the Department of Education with a complete and clear response to their proposed guidance," said Katahira-Sims.

Read the Department of Education's Proposed Guidelines Here

MAVIN Foundation builds healthy communities that celebrate and empower mixed heritage people and families. Since 1998, MAVIN has created innovative and award-winning projects focused on mixed heritage people, transracial adoptees and multiracial families. For more information, visit www.mavinfoundation.org.