Posted on 06/01/2002 2:47:14 PM PDT by Clive
A recent editorial in USA Today supports an NAACP campaign to end what it calls "racial disparities in U.S. public schools and universities."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is America's oldest and largest civil rights organization, and despite the affirmative action and equity programs it's helped implement, it can't understand why black students in schools mostly lag behind their white counterparts.
"Black students are over-represented in special education classes and under-represented in gifted classes," notes USA Today. To them, the answer seems to be to ensure that every level of education - like the workplace - is proportionately represented by race.
Common sense tells you this is loony. While it's true that schools in poor areas are likely to have the worst teachers and fewest amenities, the problem is greater than that. Learning gaps persist in schools where students come from the same neighbourhoods and social class, be they affluent or poor.
The NAACP and civil rights groups want to ensure that more black students are included in "gifted" classes and exposed to the best teaching, even if students aren't up to snuff. The NAACP wants teachers to "infuse African-American culture and history in all subjects." To some, this is more folly, and almost the reverse of Rev. Martin Luther
King's historic (and irrefutable) dictum, spoken on the steps of Washington's Lincoln Memorial on Aug 28, 1963: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character."
That's not quite the NAACP's dream.
Walter Williams, a black writer, commentator and head of economics at George Mason University, deplores the NAACP's "racial disparity" campaign and thinks enrolment rates of black students interest the organization more than the graduation rates.
Williams points to Texas, California and Florida as encouraging examples, where the top percentage of students in each high school class, based on a grade point average, are guaranteed admission to top universities regardless of their SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) score. As a result, Texas leads the nation as far as black students graduating.
Williams and Thomas Sowell are anathema to the NAACP types because they advocate self-sufficiency over welfare. Former NAACP President Benjamin Hooks called them "a new breed of Uncle Tom" because they both stress merit over race - echoing Dr. King.
Another black writer, Larry Elder, says both Williams and Sowell recognize "the welfare state has done more to destabilize the black family than Jim Crow laws ever have." Williams wryly quips that in his lifetime he's gone from being "coloured" to "Negro" to "African-American" when, in fact: "I am black and a full American, not a hyphenated one."
Thomas Sowell (his column runs Mondays in the Sun) has long argued that racism cannot be blamed "on poverty, crime, illegitimacy and under-performing in school." To Sowell, "Race has become a political racket ... scavenging for grievance."
Sowell has travelled the world examining cultures and their effect on people. He says the growing black middle class is not the result of affirmative action programs, but the result of self-help over welfare and adherence to moral values, reverence for education and family.
During former president Lyndon Johnson's celebrated "war on poverty," aimed at helping black people, the black illegitimacy rate grew from 25% to today's 70%, and black leaders favoured by the liberal elite (Jesse Jackson?) espoused the creed of black victimology: "If you're black and don't think of yourself as a victim, you must be a self-loathing Uncle Tom."
The likes of Sowell, Williams and Elder are despised by NAACP president and CEO Kweisi Mfume, who is threatening 22 U.S. states with civil rights suits for failing to answer the NAACP call for strategies to cut the racial achievement gap in half over the next five years.
Maybe, instead of blaming others for failures in education, the NAACP and others might look at why other minority groups excel. Maybe the fault is partly attributable to affirmative action which Sowell argues is immoral, divisive and unconstitutional as well as ineffective and may actually foster prejudice, resentment and inequality. It is in everyone's interest to have an educated, responsible citizenry. While schools are important, maybe family ethics, the workplace and cultural values are even more important.
If it was in EVERYONE'S interest to have an educated, responsible citizenry, then we would HAVE such a citizenry.
The wonderful success of home schooling demonstrates that education is not rocket science. Kids -- by their nature -- love to learn.
The reality is that the government -- and many, many others -- invests HUGE amount of money into maintaining a system that CREATES stupid kids.
If this writer can't even grasp the basic reality that MANY people & groups PROFIT from having a population that is uneducated and incapable of fending for themselves, why should anyone look to him for solutions?
-- KotS
The schools were your typical city public schools and as a result smaller private schools were doing well in the outlying county.
I attended a private high school with a total student body of some 350 kids, my graduating class was 37.
The last year I was there was the first year we saw a minority enroll; he was a nice kid, intelligent and an awesome athlete.
This school like most private schools required the prospective student to take and pass an entrance exam that was applicable to the grade they would be entering.
This was a major sticking point with the community in the years following my graduation and the school stuck by its guns and held the line on the exam until early last year when they allowed certain kids to enroll under a gifted program. But the kicker was that the board of education not the high school decided who fit this gifted program and as a result the first year saw an enrollment jump of 25 to 50 kids per year to 400 and most were minority.
When I was there a fist fight was a show stopper, it brought out all the kids, all the coaches and usually half the janitorial staff… a big deal.
Two months ago, a teacher how was there went I was attending was killed by a minority student in an argument over detention.
Sad.
TMMT
”a teacher how was there went I was attending was killed”
a teacher who was there when I was attending was killed”
Geeesh….
I’ll go away now.
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
How can NAACP support policies that are so obviously against the interest of the people they purport to advance.
Our neighborhood association helps with the neighborhood public school around the corner, and provides tutors to fourth graders who are preparing to take the LEAP test. IF the kid can read, it's usually at a first grade level. It's pitiful. To top it off, many of their parents don't give a hoot about them, and are never home. It's really sad.
Pure Barbra Streisand!
It [NAACP] fully understands "why," and is doing all that it can to keep the system as is.
The NAACP and fellow travelers don't want black students to excel in the classroom, for if they did, the NAACP's very existence would be threatened.
In all seriousness, help me out here. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I see this repeatedly and it's wrong.
The NAACP web site states it was founded Feb 12, 1909. The National Rifle Association "NRA" was incorporated in 1871. That's 38 years before the NAACP.
I couldn't find membership numbers at the NAACP, I sent a note asking for these numbers. The NRA has 4.2 million dues paying members, I really doubt that the NAACP membership tops that, we'll see,
It drives the liberals crazy when one calls the NRA a civil rights organization, but what else could you call it? It works to protect American citizen’s civil right to keep and bear arms.
I concur with your sentiment, yet I disagree with your point at the same time.
When I speak with other blacks with respect to "leaders," I say that if you want a good one, start by looking in the mirror. You know what you want and need more than anyone else does regardless of their skin color.
Or, in short, I feel that blacks don't need "leaders." This is not what you're saying (don't take it the wrong way), but even referring to the leadership of an entire people infantlizes that group of people that the "leader(s)" claim to represent.
I'm 30, not an infant! ;-)
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