Posted on 04/28/2003 1:32:16 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The great disappointment of my ongoing crusade to foment a revolution in black education has been the lack of a response, and even hostility, from black leaders in this community. Naturally, I expected everyone to drop what they were doing and hop onto my education movement bandwagon.
To be sure, black readers in general have responded positively and in droves to the call for a black education movement along the lines of our historic civil rights movement. They have said they agree that this movement must demand rigorous academic standards and a high level of parental responsibility and community involvement to ensure black children's success.
In a comment typical of many I've received, a reader wrote, "We as black people must begin to create a culture of valuing education ... if we are to ever pull our children out of the river of underachievement in which they find themselves. I believe that this can be done, but it will require a new and different determination on the part of the black community, and every black parent in particular, before it will be achieved."
Another reader wrote, "I am just frustrated at our community's complacency towards education and the willingness of so many parents to allow their children to waste their young years on activities that do not help them become competitive in academia. ... I'm making the effort to convert as many [people] as I can. I think I successfully turned my husband around. He was wiling to buy his children-to-be their first car but would not fund their college education. Now THAT had to change."
But I've heard little from Houston's black leadership.
Of course, many people are doing interesting and important work to promote high standards in black education.
Helen M. Berger runs Houston Preparatory Academy's U-Prep model in which academically promising students from poor northeast neighborhoods are provided four weeks of intensive instruction in reading, writing and math. Afterward, a select few students who meet the high admission and academic standards of some of Houston's best private schools enter those schools with scholarships and the social and academic support of U-Prep to ensure their success.
Sylvia Brooks, president & CEO of the Houston Area Urban League, after reading my columns calling for new black leadership to head a black education movement, called to point out all the work the local Urban League is doing in that field. In fact, the promotion of equal access to education is one of the main goals of the Urban League's advocacy mission, and I applaud that.
Kevin Hoffman, the president of the Houston school board, posed a couple of questions when I complained to him about black leadership on education. "Do you go off and have a public tantrum, or do you work inside the system in which you were elected?," he asked. "Do you want to represent as an insider getting things done or as an outsider making a fuss on the front page?"
Without patting himself on the back too hard, Hoffman noted the significant number of new schools that will be built in black neighborhoods and of old ones that will be renovated under the district's new bond issue. Point well-taken.
My thinking has been that a natural place for the new black education movement to grow could be black churches. I have imagined church leaders organizing tutoring sessions for young members, recognizing and rewarding good grades and bringing in experts to teach test-taking skills and to help parents support their children's educational endeavors.
So, not long ago, I spoke with Rev. Michael Williams, pastor of Joy Tabernacle church. In writing a column afterward, I focused on those issues which he and I held in common, such as parents' major role in early education.
Williams chastised me later for not playing up his other points, such as that "serious and significant inequities" in funding and facilities exist in white and black communities, and that "American institutional life is designed to support white supremacy and public education is no different."
I had chosen to ignore some of his more outrageous statements, such as that "college is overrated for black people" and that many good jobs exist for people without college degrees.
Even if that were true, why would Williams, who also happens to be a trustee of the Houston Community College board, preach that to young people?
People who believe, as Williams apparently does, that black people are powerless to achieve excellence in their lives because they are oppressed victims ought to take a note from all the people who are out there working hard to show black children how bright the future can be. That's real leadership.
Georgsson, an editorial writer, is a member of the Chronicle Editorial Board andrea.georgsson@chron.com
We have many reasons to be afraid, but two that should cause the most alarm are the low number of black men in college and the low number of black men who are graduating from college.
Nationally, a mere quarter of the 1.9-million black men between 18 and 24 attended college in 2000, the last year the American Council on Education reported such statistics. By contrast, 35 percent of black women in the same age group and 36 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds were attending college.
A grimmer statistic, according to the American Council on Education, is that the graduation rate of black men is the lowest of any population. Only 35 percent of the black men who enrolled in NCAA Division I schools in 1996 graduated within six years. White men, on the other hand, graduated at a rate of 59 percent; Hispanic men, 46 percent; American Indian men, 41 percent; and black women, 45 percent.
Where are the black men, why are so few on our college campuses and why are so few graduating?
"In 1999 there were 757,000 black men in federal, state and local prisons," according to the Autumn 2003 issue of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. "In 1999 . . . there were 604,200 African-American men enrolled in higher education in the United States. Therefore, there were 25 percent more black men in prison in the United States than were enrolled in institutions of higher education. Today, black men make up 41 percent of the inmates in federal state, and local prison, but black men are only 4 percent of all students in American institutions of higher education."***
*** ……… I'm just so tired of being black in that way, that way which can only understand itself as the people who are oppressed by white people. The people who condone murder as long as it annoys whites. The people whose morality is situation specific if there's a way to get back at whites by forgetting our home training.
……….So, combining old fashioned virtue for its own sake with Post-Movement opportunity was my recipe for success. So many poor blacks are missing the first component, they can't make use of the second.
………. Why keep reliving your worst nightmare over and over again? They're still focused on the obstacles, not the opportunities because they 're still focused on making white people 'fess up and apologize. They act as if its still 1954 instead of 2004. They're old dogs who can't learn new tricks, even the young ones who hew to old school racial discontent.
…… Also, we have to learn to believe in our own efforts again. We have to act as though we truly believe we don't need anyone to ride to our rescue.
………. Reading the newspapers while trying to move beyond the tropes of a stultified racial discourse, was maddening. Even as I was trying to abandon my post in black America's war with white America, I was constantly being brought up short by thinly veiled racism and just plain bs all around me. ***
We'd build one around choice, like-minded parents and educators who agree on what children need and how they are to be taught, one school at a time.
We'd allow parents to buy education services just as they do medical services, from any able provider they choose. That's part of the fix.
The other is marriage and the family. Only three of 10 black children are born to intact families. New research data reported by University of Chicago economics professor James J. Heckman and University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy L. Wax on racial disparities in education make the connection.
"Young black children lag significantly in school readiness before traditional school programs and expectations of discrimination could have much effect. Black underachievement, especially among males, is present even in the best schools and is only weakly correlated with indicators of school quality, such as per-student expenditures, class size or racial composition."
The explanation is probably not poor schools, poverty, low teacher expectations, excessive school discipline, nor anticipated discrimination, they write.
What, then, explains the gap? "The most important influences on young children's development are family, home and immediate social circle." Young black children watch more TV, read fewer books and converse and go on educational outings with families less often. And "they are more likely to be raised in homes without fathers, family mealtimes or fixed routines."***
I admit that last week I, too, ratcheted up the debate with a very poor word choice to describe the leadership of the nation's largest teachers union. I chose my words carelessly, and I am truly sorry for the hurt and confusion they caused.
I especially want to be clear on one point. As ill-considered as my words were, my disappointment was directed only -- and I mean only -- at the union heads in Washington who have been opposing any and all educational reforms, no matter what the consequences to our children. I have the utmost respect for our nation's teachers: They work hard and have dedicated their lives to children.
My comment was born out of frustration at the depth of the problem in our schools. Let's look at the facts: The Nation's Report Card (the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP) shows that only one in six African-Americans and one in five Hispanics are proficient in reading by the time they are seniors. NAEP math scores are even worse: Only 3 percent of blacks and 4 percent of Hispanics are testing at the "proficient" level. No wonder a recent study claimed a high school diploma has become nothing more than a "certificate of attendance."
Is our system as a whole preparing the next generation of workers for the global economy? As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted recently, "We need to be forward-looking in order to adapt our educational system to the evolving needs of the economy and the realities of our changing society ... It is an effort that should not be postponed." That's why I am so passionate about making these historic reforms and drawing attention to the issue.
The old system -- the status quo -- is one we must fight to change. President Bush and Congress understood the urgency of the situation and set in motion a process to fix the problem: the No Child Left Behind Act. The law requires schools to give all students a quality education, provides accountability and choice for parents and insists that teachers be highly qualified to teach -- in other words, that they be knowledgeable in the subjects they are teaching -- which is just plain common sense. ***
Anti-intellecutal?! Hardly, what I saw was the practice of Intellectual Apartheid amongst these thinkers. There was not one notable black conservative on the panel. For all the talk about equality there was no chance for equality of thought no intellectual diversity. All of these successful people have gotten to where they are by espousing conservative princples of hard work, education and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. This is what Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglas espoused for the race. All I was looking for was some truth which came out at times. Perhaps the island of hope in that entire morass was Dr Ben Carson the noted Pediatric Neurosurgeon. He said that the Jews both conservative and liberal can argue an issue be diametricly opposed but they will come together in areas that have a direct impact upon their communities.***
There are other causes for the sorry state of today's primary and secondary education. There's been the politicizing of education. Teachers have recruited students to write letters to the president protesting the war and participate in demonstrations against school budget cuts. Very often, good teachers and principal are faced with the impossible task of having to deal with administrators and school boards who are intellectual inferiors and motivated by political considerations rather than what's best for children.***
In the past five years Florida has delivered real school choice to more American schoolchildren than anywhere else in the country. Which is no doubt why Jesse Jackson was down in Tallahassee earlier this month calling Governor Jeb Bush's policies "racist." He and his allies understand all too well that when poor African-American and Latino children start getting the same shot at a decent education that the children of our politicians do, the bankrupt public education empire starts looking like the Berlin Wall.
This is the backdrop to this week's wrangling in the Florida senate over a bill ostensibly aimed at bringing "accountability" to the state's vouchers programs but which is really aimed at regulating them to death. Yes, there have been embarrassments, notably a "scholarship" operator now being criminally investigated for siphoning off $268,000. As bad as this is, it is small beer compared to the glaring scandal of a public school system in which more than half the state's African-American and Latino teens will never see a high school diploma.
Ironically those fighting vouchers may have a keener appreciation of Florida's significance to the voucher wars than those defending them. With national attention having focused largely on Milwaukee, Cleveland and the District of Columbia, it's easy to forget that Florida now has three key programs. The first are called Opportunity Scholarships, which allow children to opt out of failing public schools. Second are McKay Scholarships, which provide full school choice to special-ed students. But perhaps the most innovative is a corporate tax credit that allows businesses to take a dollar-for-dollar deduction for every contribution to a designated scholarship fund. Certainly in terms of sheer numbers this is the most far-reaching, with 13,000 low-income students now benefiting and 20,000 on a waiting list. Because these corporately funded scholarships are capped at $3,500 per child in a state where the average per pupil expenditure runs around $7,500, each scholarship represents not only a lifeline for the recipient but significant savings for the taxpayer.
A just-released study from the Indianapolis-based Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation highlights Florida's achievements. When the various state programs across America were measured against Mr. Friedman's original conception for vouchers, Florida's programs took three of the top eight slots. And another study, this one by the Manhattan Institute, finds that even kids without vouchers benefit because the competition is pushing Florida public schools to improve.
In response, the teachers unions, pols and bureaucrats opposing any reform have opted for a dual strategy of sue and regulate. On the litigation front, they're banking on the 19th-century, anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment language in their state constitution, on which basis they hope the Opportunity Scholarships will be deemed unconstitutional. If successful, the McKay Scholarships would go out the same legal window--but they're not being directly challenged because the empire understands the bad public relations of targeting special-ed kids.
Meanwhile, they regulate. The accountability bill includes some reasonable provisions (especially in the financial reporting and auditing realms). But its real attraction, as this week's debate demonstrated, was as a vehicle to be loaded up with the kind of voucher-strangling amendments pushed by Democrats Ron Klein and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The good news is that despite this all-out effort to frog-march poor kids back into miserable public schools, the genie seems to be out of the bottle. Even the liberal newspapers that oppose school choice had to concede that a pro-voucher rally in Tallahassee attracted more marchers (if not more favorable media attention) than the Reverend Jackson's protest that preceded it. And that's precisely what has them so worried. [End]
The real issue is that black people are becoming more "American" by the hour, moving from a defined group identity to a more individualized sense of being. If anything, Sept. 11 prompted questions of national identity, and African Americans passed with flying colors. Blacks, in many ways, have become mainstream.
The mainstream seldom gets attention; its presence is assumed. The new African American mainstream must accept the fact that though membership has its privileges, one cannot be both marginal and mainstream at the same time.***
How inspiring. She would have succeeded in life because she has the ability and drive but good people intervened and she will be where she can change a lot of lives. Life isn't fair period but when people in the business of teaching lose sight of their mission, they need to go.
A group of retired black city firefighters, many of whom became pioneers when they integrated the Fire Department in the 1950s and 1960s, are accusing Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. of stamping on racial progress and violating the tenets of the Civil Rights Act.
"The chief has set this department back 50 years with this group," said retired firefighter Alfred Boyd, referring to the 30 men and women in this year's recruiting class.
A fire official called the class an anomaly, saying the department had followed its normal hiring procedures. But the agency is reacting with a couple of quick fixes - including allowing six blacks to skirt the hiring process and join the academy on a conditional basis, and requesting that the entrance test be changed.***
Never have I been around so many irrational, immature, irresponsible, do-nothing black adults - clergy and secular - who pawn themselves off as "leaders." NAACP president Darryl Rouson is an exception.
Never have I seen such a high percentage of black parents who fail to parent adequately, who seem incapable of creating a culture of learning in their homes, who, quite frankly, let their children roam the streets and cut the fool in school. Never have I seen so many blacks who refuse to invest in their own community, who will not pool their resources for the greater good, who blame their problems on white people who live in communities many miles away.
Never have I seen such a high percentage of blacks who tolerate the presence of active criminals in their neighborhoods, who remain silent about black-on-black crime.
Never have I been in a town where a small, fringe group of malcontents has been given the power to distort reality to such a degree, to turn the city into something that it is not.
As a black man who was reared by sober, industrious and selfless adults who cared about the future of the children in their lives, I am ashamed of what we have done to ourselves. Despite the fact that racism, unofficial and institutional, still limits opportunities for blacks, we continue to squander opportunities by failing to "do for self," as the late Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam was fond of saying.
When we burn our own communities and abandon our children's futures, we are not doing for self. We are, in fact, self-destructing.***
It's true, and it's part of what is wrong with public schools today. When the children "cut the fool" in school and are punished for it, often the children and parents put the blame on the "racist white teacher" who was "picking on them".
And, this type of behavior in schools isn't limited to the black students.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.