Opinion> Walter Williams> Black Education 2009 12 23

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Black Education

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.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Comments

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It's reassuring to see that some one has started to talk, rationally, about black kids and their lack of education. I taught school for many years, four at Patrick Henry HS in Roanoke, VA. My first year was not very pleasant because of a bunch of "Thugs" , mostly, if not entirely black, that came to school to raise hell. Even if they were expelled, they still came on campus to be with their friends. My second year, the start-up and the rest of the year was considerably different. The administration removed the known trouble makers from the normal school population before school started, and placed them in alternate ed. school. Oddly enough, both schools were better than previously. Local businesses provided guest instructors to show how math could help you get a good job in the produce section of the local grocery store chain after school and after graduation -- education with a purpose perceived to be of value to the student. I estimated that 80% of my time was spent "helping" the 20% of the kids that didn't want to be in school, and not uncommonly, 80% of my after-school conferences were spent with parents of these kids who were defending their kid's unruly and disrespectful behavior. I know it's old-fashioned, but when I saw my HS football coach throw a fore-arm in to a nasty, disrespectful, foul-mouthed kid, and knock him to the floor, the boy stopped behaving like that, at least in the coach's class, and I can tell you for a fact, that I knew what the rules were in that class, and so did most others. Maybe we don't want to allow that sort of faculty behavior to be back in the classroom, probably, at least in part, because the students today, would very likely get a gun and shoot the teacher, but we need to find some way to make school a place where those who want to learn and those who don't do not interfere. I was a flight instructor in the US Air Force, and I can tell you that it is a real thrill to teach students who are eager to learn, and then see them succeed at something that is very important to them.

Comment: #1
Posted by: Jim KARR
Fri Dec 25, 2009 6:32 AM