A report released in New Zealand recently shows that Maori and African American children perform just as poorly as each other in school, with prejudice of the teachers to blame. The Unconscious Bias and Education report cites systemic level bias as a major contributor to the increasingly poor learning outcomes of Maori students. This is despite New Zealand’s education system for many years having special Maori achievement strategies written in to it’s charter to try and boost the learning outcomes of ‘disadvantaged’ students. Researcher Anton Blank told reporters: “[There are] definitely socio-economic factors – and I mean that’s patently obvious that children who live in poorer areas do less well in the education system. But even controlling for that there is still a very, very significant…
