Background
President Clinton envisioned an America based on opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and a unified community of all Americans. He was convinced that, even as America rapidly was becoming the world's first truly multi-racial democracy, race relations remained an issue that too often divided the nation and kept the American dream from being real for everyone who worked for it.
Among models of diversity in schools, One America Initiative on Race focused on Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the most culturally, linguistically diverse school districts in the country. The President's Advisory Board on Race commissioned a Case Study on a local Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia and their Report "America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Future Report" quotes Linda Chavez-Thompson, about her visit to Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in December 1997 in her capacity as member of the Advisory Board on Race
- "t is absolutely delightful that the children at the elementary level don’t know what color is. . .They understand diversity...they celebrate their differences. One young student said, 'And that makes us one. We all are the same inside.' And I got that very distinctly from the curriculum, from the expression of the parents, from the expression of the teachers...I was absolutely blown away by how intense these young fourth and fifth graders were in expressing why to them there is absolutely no difference between all of them, no matter what their name is and no matter what the color of their skin.
Read more about this topic: One America Initiative
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