True Colors at Montgomery Blair High

A policy at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD has caught the ire of parents and students and has made its way all the way to the Washington Post. In a "you-have-to-read-it-to-believe-it" story, Daniel deVise explains a policy that overtly labels kids. As if that doesn't happen enough. Students wear ID tags coded by one of ten colors that identify them in a variety of ways including by magnet program and in some cases by class year. One color, red, codes for two groups of people, a confounding decision that potentially reveals a lot about the decision makers. Red codes for freshman and ESOL students. So if you are learning English you are the spiritual equivalent of a freshman and vice-versa.

Montgomery Blair's parent association met last night to register an official opinion on the potential dangers and unintended consequences of the ID policy. A Blair website that features open discussion about the policy can be found here. I'm sorry, but the folks who came up with this draconian policy who claim they couldn't have imagined unintended consequences should be censured.