Urban Students Failing Because of Racial Oppression?

How much tax money is Arne Duncan going to waste on his Civil Rights adventure? The money that he is about to waste would be better spent creating jobs.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy Duncan's latest PR push to show that he is working to improve education in urban schools. He recently announced that he would launch dozens of Civil Rights investigations, targeting schools across the Country, suggesting that urban students aren't succeeding because their civil rights are being violated. Oh Please!!! I can't drink that Koolaid. Am I the only one who smells bullshit whenever Arne Duncan's name is mentioned? I have been skeptical about this guy ever since Obama appointed him to the post of Education Secretary. He's a Chicago crony. There were certainly better candidates for the job in my opinion. And Chicago's public schools aren't in the best of shape in case anyone hasn't noticed.

It just seems to me that Duncan is playing to the Black urban political elite with this move. He wants to go along with the same old narrative from 20 years ago. But that narrative is out of date. Sure, there are likely some cases of civil rights violations in urban schools that may be uncovered. I don't want to diminish that problem at all. There is probably an even bigger danger of civil rights violations in predominantly white suburban schools against minority students. Hispanics and others may face issues because they speak English as a second language. There may also be cases of students being steered away from certain programs. I can recall guidance counselors refusing to let me into some of the classes I wanted to get into when I first moved to rural/suburban Texas 20 years ago. To this day I don't quite understand what the rationale was. But I still received a decent education because it was a good public school system. However, I believe that these kinds of cases are probably few and far between. Certainly this is not the driving force behind failing students and failing urban schools, particularly those in Black communities. I believe that most students aren't getting into more challenging courses because they don't have the grades...they haven't shown that they can handle the work... not because they are Black. It's interesting how this point is avoided.

Duncan is using the convenient issue of race as a scapegoat, while ignoring the elephant in the room - Urban Culture/Black Culture/Hip Hop Culture and the failure of parents. Urban social norms have a much bigger impact on educational outcomes. Yes, some urban schools have mediocre teachers... that's because good teachers don't want to work in warzones or in environments where their careers are threatened in systems that tie job security to student performance. If I were a teacher in that situation I would probably choose to leave as well...for a better school in the burbs. So let's talk about the elephant in the room. Some students just don't want to learn. Is that the fault of the teacher? Some students don't have parents that are engaged and involved in their educations. Is that the teachers fault? Some students come from broken, dysfunctional families where they don't get the support that they need. Is that the fault of the teacher? Some students follow a Black Hip Hop culture that does not embrace or value education. Is that the fault of the teacher? Of course not.

Now I don't want to suggest that there are no good teachers in struggling urban public schools. You will find some of the most dedicated teachers in troubled schools (another reason not to fire them or threaten careers based merely on student test scores). The fact is, in many of these schools, certain groups of students aren't there to learn. They are there to pass time. Culture and other social factors are the biggest variables in the mix, yet they are the variables that schools have the least influence over.

Who wants to work in an environment where there is always a question about personal safety? I wouldn't do it...especially when there is no hazardous duty pay. I wouldn't teach in these schools even if the job paid more money than wealthier white suburban public or private schools. I would rather have peace of mind. You get the occasional Columbine situation in the white burbs, but most violence still takes place in urban schools. Teachers in urban schools have to deal with fights on a weekly basis. Some...on an almost daily basis. Some of these schools function more like penal institutions...with magnetometers at the doors and movements severely restricted in the hallways. And teachers are dealing with a level of disruptive, belligerent, disrespectful, and violent behavior that has never really been seen before....not like it is today. Urban youth today have almost no respect for any kind of authority. So just as a matter of course, many of these schools are out of control. I can post the youtube videos of Black "students" wreaking havoc, fighting in classrooms and teachers either being assaulted or having no way to control them.

And to aggravate the problems, you have school systems, court systems, and States that don't back up teachers who have to deal with belligerent and violent students (many of them are urban terrorists...period). Instead of supporting teachers who are trying to deal with this kind of madness everyday by giving them all of the tools and authority they need, school systems often punish them. School boards are also of no use. And the teachers not only have to deal with out of control prison inmates in training...and the possible violence from them, they also have to deal with the ignorant parents & relatives who often threaten violence. And who does the school board, the courts, and the State side with? Often with the ignorant parents....not because the parent is right...but because they see it as easier to throw teachers under the bus to avoid having to deal with parents and students who are out of control or who might cause problems for board members or administrators. It's a completely crazy system. I am constantly running across crazy stories in St. Louis regarding belligerent & violent students and their out of control parents....and most of the problems are in schools that are predominantly Black. It's the same nonsense in every big city urban school district across the Country... Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, L.A., Atlanta, D.C., Philadelphia, Cleveland...you name it.

You could fill many of these urban schools with the best computers, the best teachers in the World, the best books, the best technology, and the healthiest food and I would argue that there wouldn't be much improvement academically a year later. Not as long as the other variables remain unchanged. In order for students to achieve in these schools, there would need to be a cultural paradigm shift among Blacks in this Country (and to some extent with Hispanics). Remember Steve Perry from CNN's Black In America Series? He was the Principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford Connecticut. Remember what he said about minority parents and their support of the students at his school? He admitted that parental support was almost non-existent.

This isn't about students not having access to education....that's a bunch of bull. And this PR move is really a slap in the face to all those who fought in the 1950's for desegregation of public schools.... those were the real battles regarding civil rights. Students today have all sorts of opportunities.

Please take a look at the Rap on Culture report that I posted a couple of years ago. (be sure to click on the pdf). The report, by PolicyBridge, looked at the impact of culture on educational outcomes. Others, like Dr. John U. Ogbu, a professor at UC Berkley, also looked at the issue of how cultural/social differences impact educational outcomes for Black students.

It's not about whether these students are capable of learning or not. We know that with the proper tools and the proper support, minority students can learn. The Harlem Children's Zone, Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Connecticut, Urban Prep Academy for Young Men in Chicago, and stories from students like Steven Stafford all tell us that urban students have the ability to learn no matter what their circumstances are. It all comes down to the will to learn... the willingness to study and work hard, support from parents and teachers, and ultimately the degree to which Blacks value education.

Why are we wasting money on investigations when we know what the major issues are regarding minorities in urban schools? This issue has been studied backwards, forwards and sideways for the last 30 years. If Duncan wants to help urban students, he could start by telling Black/minority parents to turn off the damn television. But I guess that wouldn't be politically correct. He knows that the Black urban political elite - the constituency that he feels he has to keep happy- wouldn't like that very much at all.

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Additional Report from NPR

Will Jonathan Graduate?

An eye-opening, maddening and thought-provoking account of a Washington, D.C. high school student and whether or not he will be able to graduate. I was surprised at how bad the culture of high school for teenagers has become since my own high school days in the 1980s in Philadelphia.

Kathryne Lewis sees the boy her son used to be. The boy who made B's, helped kids with their class work and won first place at his sixth-grade science fair. That boy is gone, and if Jonathan doesn't graduate, she fears, all anyone will see is a big, young, uneducated black man -- the exact same as not seeing anything at all. He'll spend his days doing nothing much with friends who dropped out. He'll become a statistic, and, good Lord, she does not want that to happen.

Jonathan's mother attended George Washington University for two years and is a corporate project coordinator. His father attended Howard University for three years and is a Metro technician. The two never married, but Allen Putman lived nearby and saw his son nearly every day, watched him play baseball, took him for haircuts. His parents have pushed him.

Jonathan, 18, says he can see where he wants to go: graduation, college, then owning a business, maybe doing graphic design or creating video games. This is what education is supposed to prepare you for, academically, socially and emotionally: to join the real world, to become a productive citizen. But in Washington, the social contract between students and schools has been broken in all kinds of ways.

Full article here from the Washington Post.

Here is the link to the Washington Post series “Fixing D.C.’s Schools.”

The subject of education reform at urban schools is one of the most highly-charged and inflammatory subjects in American social discourse. Mayor Adrian Fenty is the latest of a long list of reformers who aim to tackle the inadequacies and problems of D.C. public schools and his efforts are being closely watched.

We had our share of problems in the Philadelphia magnet school that I attended in the 1980s. But for the most part, we as students, were fairly well-behaved, treated teachers with respect, and went on to graduate and then go on to college and skilled trades. My high school had a very high rate of students who went on to college and we could count among our alumni some students who graduated from the Ivy Leagues.

Which is why the description of Coolidge High in D.C. through the story of Jonathan surprised and saddened me. Disrespectful students, out of control classes, rampant truancy, a culture of mediocrity, and teachers who were often absent and subject to physical assaults—these things were fairly routine in the day-to-day operation of this public school. I thought to myself—even if a student were motivated to rise above these circumstances and want to learn and to apply him or herself to studies, the resources and consistent support needed from the school, their families, and other students are largely absent.

Speaking in hindsight as someone who graduated from high school, college and graduate school, these students are already far behind in the game of Life in terms of being able to compete with well-educated students from private schools and well-funded, suburban public high schools, qualify for white-collar and professional jobs, and to go on to college or skilled trades. And that’s a crying shame because the article points out many of these students are talented, intelligent and if were in different circumstances would really shine and succeed.

I have often witnessed discussions of solutions degenerate to finger-pointing and partisan blame-gaming. There are some who would advocate funneling the funding from these struggling public schools to charter schools and vouchers for private schools. There are those who blame the teacher unions for making it difficult to hire and fire effective teachers and who oppose initiatives like President Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy.

There are those who would advocate for a fairer way to fund these schools because the current system which relies on property taxes has a lopsided effect of excellent, well-funded suburban schools in affluent areas and crumbling facilities and understaffed schools in urban and poor rural areas. Then there are those who would advocate an individualistic approach where the student and his or her family take full responsibility for their destiny in the educational system and focus on values, achievement, discipline, and family ties as a bulwark against the negative surroundings and environment.

Often lost are voices of teachers and school administrators in the front lines and the students themselves who are being done a disservice by the educational institutions that are supposed to mold them to educated, productive citizens.

I don’t consider myself a partisan and happen to find a grain of truth in the arguments of all sides of the issue. As a citizen in a supposed democracy I find it hard enough to navigate the professional world and to seriously perform my duties as a citizen. Much more so if I did not have the middle-class advantages and education that I do now. As a white-collar, working professional I wonder if there is a role for people like me to play in lending a helping hand to these young people who are probably oblivious to the fact that they are rapidly being left behind.

I applied for and was rejected for Teach for America at one point in my life and a teaching fellowship program in D.C. does exist to recruit working professionals to the profession of teaching. I was a volunteer in an afterschool tutoring program at one point. But as one of my articles points out, trying to be a professional do-gooder is not always what it is cracked out to be. A career in public service is often low-paying, emotionally draining, and makes you subject to derision and insults from jerks who would rather mock and insult people who try to balance having a career with idealism. Student loans, after all, still have to be paid even by idealists with do-gooder degrees and graduate credentials.

This is a huge problem and I don't have any ready answers. I do applaud the Washington Post for focusing a considerable amount of attention to this issue.