Posted on 05/20/2020 4:29:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
Black politicians, civil rights leaders and their white liberal advocates have little or no interest in doing anything effective to deal with what's no less than an education crisis among black students. In city after city with large black populations, such as Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., less than 10% of students test proficient in reading and math. For example, in 2016, in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Citywide, only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state's English test. Despite these academic deficiencies, about 70% of the students graduate and are conferred a high school diploma.
Ballou High School is in Washington, D.C. Five percent of its students test proficient in reading and 1% test proficient in math. In 2017, all 189 students in Ballou High School's senior class applied to college. All 189 members of the graduating class of 2017 were accepted to universities. In November 2017, an investigation showed that half of Ballou's 2017 graduates had more than three months of unexcused absences. One in five of the graduating class was absent more than present, therefore missing more than 90 days of school.
Examples of academic underachievement can be seen at predominantly black public schools across the nation, but that's only part of the story. The strangest part of this is that poor academic performance is accepted and tolerated by black politicians, civil rights organizations and white liberals. Poor performance is often blamed on finances; however, the poorest performing schools have the highest per pupil spending. New York, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore rank among the nation's highest in per pupil educational spending.
The underachievement story is compounded by the gross dishonesty of colleges that admit many of these students. I cannot imagine that students who are not proficient in reading and math can do real college work. In a futile attempt to make up for 12 years of rotten education, colleges put these students in remedial courses. They also design courses with little or no true academic content. Colleges have their own agendas. They want the money that comes from admitting these students. Also, they want to make their diversity and multiculturalism administrators happy.
Poor black education is not preordained. Dr. Thomas Sowell has examined schools in New York City and student performance on the NY State English Language Arts Test in 2016-17. Thirty percent of Brooklyn's William Floyd elementary school third graders scored well below proficient in English and language arts, but at Success Academy charter school in the same building, only one did. At William Floyd, 36% were below proficient, with 24% being proficient and none testing above proficient. By contrast, at Success Academy, only 17% of third graders were below proficient, with 70% being proficient and 11% being above proficient. Among Success Academy's fourth graders, 51% and 43%, respectively, scored proficient and above proficient, while their William Floyd counterparts scored 23% and 6%, respectively. Similar high performance can be found in some other Manhattan charter schools such as KIPP Infinity Middle School.
Liberals tell us that racial integration is a necessary condition for black academic excellence. Public charter schools such as those mentioned above belie that vision. Sowell points out that only 39% of students in all New York state schools who were recently tested scored at the "proficient" level in math, but 100% of the students at the Crown Heights Success Academy tested proficient where blacks and Hispanics constitute 90% of the student body.
There's little question that many charter schools provide superior educational opportunities for black youngsters. The New York Times wrote, "Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city's charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots." But here's New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's take on charter schools, expressing the interests of the education establishment: "Get away from high-stakes testing, get away from charter schools. No federal funding for charter schools."
Black people cannot afford to buy into any attack on education alternatives. Charter schools across the nation offer a way out of the educational abyss.
I see a lot of racial integration. This has been going on for decades. Where's the excellence? Maybe someone should check their premises.
It starts with the home. Black women having multiple unmarried biological fathers and no father at home is a societal scorn. This is nothing new and goes back to the Great Society created by LBJ. Throwing money ar the problem is not the solution.
I wonder if there is a correlation to this article: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3846735/posts
The left rarely checks their premises. If reality doesn’t conform to their premises, it must be due to other issues.
Normal people see an illiterate 18 year-old as a failure. The education establishment sees an illiterate 18 year-old as a cash cow — if it can be used to justify another 40 years of taxpayer spending to get that person reading at a third-grade level.
1.) Inner-city teachers. If you want students to command the American language, then you need teachers that have a command of the American language. The same is true with STEM. Listen to inner-city teachers and you will know what I mean. We have an uneducated class of people teaching uneducated classes.
2.) Teacher unions. Unions do not value individual achievement and protect underachievers. This drives the good teachers away and retains the failing teachers. Additionally, unions are a scheme to defraud tax payers of their money under the guise of what is best for children. We know the results of their work. It is evident in the product they produce.
3.) A culture of anti-intellectualism. Yes, that is a euphemism. It is pervasive in the majority of inner-city homes, and it applies to all facets of life. Education is not valued. Knowledge is not valued. Achievement outside sports and some so-called arts are not valued. Few examples of well educated people, such as engineers, scientists, doctors and businessmen, exist in these communities. Having a MA or PhD in fill-in-the-blank Studies does not count. And the number one problem is broken homes with an illiterate parent. This is the culture that exists.
All of these things can be transferred to charter schools, and they will if many students transfer from traditional government schools to charter schools. The last problem will exist regardless.
Keep ‘em poor, keep ‘em needy, keep ‘em voting Democrat!
Now we have the cult of the victimized. No matter how little effort a student puts in, the failure is put on the teacher. It doesn't matter that the students who actually engage with the teacher and the material succeed. Here is the harsh truth for current students: In the work place you will be expected to be proactive, learning what you need to get the job done. If you don't you will be replaced by someone who will. Welcome to the real world...
Black politicians, civil rights leaders and their white liberal advocates have little or no interest in doing anything effective to deal with what’s no less than an education crisis among black student
....neither do Republicans for that matter. Seize education back from the rats and teachers unions, and start teaching the curriculum with no sexual, social justice, or revisionist history permitted. Reading, writing and arithmetic, and screw computer training(. Leave programming for a vocational technical school....and bring those back as an alternative to collage!) They get enough of that crap at home!
I hope massive structural education reform is a priority in Trump’s first year of his 2nd term.
Something needs to be done and the remedy is to get the government out of education along with medicine and most other things I could name. Government is AT BEST a necessary EVIL. It should not be involved where it is not necessary for government to be involved.
[It starts with the home, but it is perpetuated in an “education industrial complex” that simply doesn’t measure success the way normal people would. Normal people think of student performance as the most important measure of success for individual schools and for an education system as a whole. To the people that work in this “industry,” nothing could be further from the truth. For them, the only measure of success is the amount of money pissed away by taxpayers — even to the point where the success of a student is seen as a FAILURE of the system. ]
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