Black Education
*period*
December 23, 2009
Detroit's (predominantly black) public schools are the worst in the
nation and it takes some doing to be worse than Washington, D.C. Only
3 percent of Detroit's fourth-graders scored proficient on the most
recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test,
sometimes called "The Nation's Report Card." Twenty-eight percent
scored basic and 69 percent below basic. "Below basic" is the NAEP
category when students are unable to demonstrate even partial mastery
of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at their grade
level. It's the same story for Detroit's eighth-graders. Four percent
scored proficient, 18 percent basic and 77 percent below basic.
Michael Casserly, executive director of the D.C.-based Council on
Great City Schools, in an article appearing in Crain's Detroit
Business, (12/8/09) titled, "Detroit's Public Schools Post Worst
Scores on Record in National Assessment," said, "There is no
jurisdiction of any kind, at any level, at any time in the 30-year
history of NAEP that has ever registered such low numbers." The
academic performance of black students in other large cities such as
Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles is not much better
than Detroit and Washington.
What's to be done about this tragic state of black education? The
education establishment and politicians tell us that we need to spend
more for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. The fact of
business is higher teacher salaries and smaller class sizes mean
little or nothing in terms of academic achievement. Washington, D.C.,
for example spends over $15,000 per student, has class sizes smaller
than the nation's average, and with an average annual salary of
$61,195, its teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.
What about role models? Standard psychobabble asserts a positive
relationship between the race of teachers and administrators and
student performance. That's nonsense. Black academic performance is
the worst in the very cities where large percentages of teachers and
administrators are black, and often the school superintendent is
black, the mayor is black, most of the city council is black and very
often the chief of police is black.
Black people have accepted hare-brained ideas that have made large
percentages of black youngsters virtually useless in an increasingly
technological economy. This destruction will continue until the day
comes when black people are willing to turn their backs on liberals
and the education establishment's agenda and confront issues that are
both embarrassing and uncomfortable. To a lesser extent, this also
applies to whites because the educational performance of many white
kids is nothing to write home about; it's just not the disaster that
black education is.
Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process.
They have parents with little interest in their education. These
students not only sabotage the education process, but make schools
unsafe as well. These students should not be permitted to destroy the
education chances of others. They should be removed or those students
who want to learn should be provided with a mechanism to go to another
school.
Another issue deemed too delicate to discuss is the overall quality of
people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as
their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students
who have an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on
graduate school admission tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools
of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic
slums of most any university. They are home to the least able students
and professors. Schools of education should be shut down.
Yet another issue is the academic fraud committed by teachers and
administrators. After all, what is it when a student is granted a
diploma certifying a 12th grade level of achievement when in fact he
can't perform at the sixth- or seventh-grade level?
Prospects for improvement in black education are not likely given the
cozy relationship between black politicians, civil rights
organizations and teacher unions.
Knifefight Afterdance
According to liberals, there is nothing wrong with today's schools that
another 20 billion dollars won't cure.
Bill Steele
wrote:
Well, in the third from the last paragraph you finally came upo with
something true.