ORELA ORELA Diversity, Equity & Cultural Responsiveness 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which federal law prohibits discrimination in schools based on race, color, and national origin?
- IDEA
- Section 504
- Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Correct answer)
- Title IX
Correct answer: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance, including public schools.
Question 2: A culturally responsive educator engaging with English Language Learner families would best:
- Communicate only in English to encourage assimilation
- Provide translated materials and use interpreters to ensure meaningful family participation (Correct answer)
- Limit family contact to formal report card conferences
- Ask students to translate for their parents
Correct answer: Provide translated materials and use interpreters to ensure meaningful family participation
Using professional interpreters and translated materials ensures families can meaningfully participate in their child's education without placing the translation burden on students.
Question 3: What is the purpose of Oregon's Statewide Report Card equity indicators for school districts?
- To rank schools by property values
- To identify and address opportunity gaps by disaggregating performance data by student subgroups (Correct answer)
- To compare Oregon schools to schools in other countries
- To determine teacher salary schedules
Correct answer: To identify and address opportunity gaps by disaggregating performance data by student subgroups
Oregon's Report Card disaggregates data by race, income, disability status, and other factors to make opportunity gaps visible and hold districts accountable for equity.
Question 4: Which instructional practice best supports the linguistic assets of multilingual learners in a mainstream classroom?
- Prohibiting use of home languages during instruction
- Translanguaging — allowing flexible use of all languages as cognitive tools for learning (Correct answer)
- Grouping all ELLs together for all instruction
- Delaying academic content until English is mastered
Correct answer: Translanguaging — allowing flexible use of all languages as cognitive tools for learning
Translanguaging views students' full linguistic repertoire as a resource and allows them to draw on all languages to access content and demonstrate understanding.
Question 5: What does 'stereotype threat' mean in the context of student performance?
- A teacher making explicit negative predictions about a student
- The risk that a student will confirm a negative stereotype about their group, causing anxiety that impairs performance (Correct answer)
- A school policy that tracks students by perceived ability
- Bullying based on a student's identity
Correct answer: The risk that a student will confirm a negative stereotype about their group, causing anxiety that impairs performance
Stereotype threat, identified by Claude Steele, occurs when students are aware of a negative stereotype about their group and fear confirming it, which consumes cognitive resources and can reduce performance.
Question 6: An Oregon teacher notices that students from one racial group are significantly overrepresented in special education referrals. The best first step is to:
- Ignore the pattern as coincidental
- Examine whether referral processes, assessment tools, or instructional practices may reflect bias (Correct answer)
- Increase referrals from other groups to balance the numbers
- Report the data only to the principal and take no action
Correct answer: Examine whether referral processes, assessment tools, or instructional practices may reflect bias
Disproportionate representation in special education often reflects systemic bias in identification processes; examining practices is the first step toward equitable outcomes.
ORELA ORELA Diversity, Equity & Cultural Responsiveness 2
Which federal law prohibits discrimination in schools based on race, color, and national origin?