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If ignorance is slavery, then knowledge is a railroad to freedom. Industrial research verifies that one of the most accurate predictors of career success is a strong English vocabulary and the ability to communicate well in writing and speech. According to research published in In Motion Magazine (September 8, 2002), The Civil Rights Project at Howard University (March, 2001), and Education Week (Oct 30, 2002), Black students are at risk in most inner-city schools. Research shows that more than 480,000 school age minority children have a working vocabulary of less than 50 words. Graduation and meaningful employment for those children is probably unattainable. In fact, some inner cities show more Black youth bailing out of public schools than students who are graduating. In some cities, 60 to 69% of Black males never earn diplomas! The regular public school system is struggling to address the domestic and academic circumstances of African-American youth. Fault probably rests with homes, churches and schools, but the fact is that too many Black males are relocating from classrooms to jails because literacy, graduation and employment are elusive. By the 2002 congressional elections, 25% of all eligible Black voters were disenfranchised from voting because of felony convictions!
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Most public school districts report annual
dropout rates at about 1.5%, leaving communities with the false belief
that few Black students are really dropouts. Concurrently, juvenile incarceration
for Blacks is higher than Whites from the same school districts. Another
statistic relevant to dropouts is geographical location of residences
of at-risk minority children. The average Black inner city teenager experiences
his entire school years within an 18-mile radius, where he may live in
as many as five different residences and attend as many as three different
schools. Within that 18-mile radius, more than half of all minority at-risk
students never graduate. In Detroit, 69% never experience graduation.
Pastors, educators, legislators and parents must ask the question, “How
can all of those schools report only a 1.5% annual dropout rate, yet lose
over 50% of their students after grade seven?” That is a significant
question, because most public school systems claim that the high rate
of non-graduates (now labeled as “leavers”) is caused by transfers
to other school districts rather than dropouts within the district. Demographic
statistics, however, reflect that transfers are within the 18-mile radius
in which all schools are losing over half their minority students. Public
schools are obviously a major factor impacting the opportunity for African-American
youth to attain adulthood in an employable condition. Negative school
experiences give way to temptations to commit crimes in order to obtain
prestige among peers. The shortest route between home and
jail could be an aborted trip through local public schools.
The obvious conclusion is that African-American juvenile dropouts are
basically unemployable because they are illiterate in reading, writing,
and math, and are anemic in core values attributed to inadequate male
leadership at school and home. Unemployability causes career and social
frustrations directly related to the lack of money which most African-American
males perceive to be the basis of social status and success. |
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This scenario is exacerbated by the single parent status
of many African American urban homes. A single parent mom simply cannot
contribute the kind of financial support demanded by the teenager’s
appetite for peer prestige. Moreover, the absence of a biological father
means that no resident male role model goes to work each day to generate
income. Absence of the father every evening leaves the teen with another
empty spot: inadequate moral training and discipline to control social
appetites, and insufficient spending money. Black teens are often left
to themselves to find money and purpose in life by whatever means are
available on the street. The normal recourse for unemployable youth is
criminal behavior: robbery, theft, burglary, drug dealing, or prostitution.
These are horrible consequences of a culture that has sidestepped its
responsibility to address the moral and academic needs of Black children.
The public school system is usually the only social institution through
which most youth are prepared for adulthood. The average African-American
urban male does not get prepared for life through church or a dad’s
leadership. Consequently, local public schools become the only real opportunity
for Black youth to get character training and academics. Were Harriet
Tubman alive today, she would be compelled to help Black youth escape
America’s 21st Century slave masters over Black children—low-performing
public schools which shackle students with moral anemia and academic illiteracy. |
Were Harriet Tubman alive today,
she would be compelled to help Black youth escape America’s 21st
Century slave masters over Black children—
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Black youth need a new underground railway to freedom from inadequate public school programs. The system of institutionalized slavery was broken by people like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and H.B. Stowe. These courageous people and others like them stared at the Goliath of slavery and determined that Blacks would not remain victims of status quo plantation slavery. They, like William Wallace in Scottish history, bellowed “freedom” and emancipated themselves. Like Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses, they cried, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Like Martin Luther King, they proclaimed “I have a dream.”
The means of erasing illiteracy and disproportionate rates of incarceration for African-Americans is that they demand, and actively work toward, educational choice that will provide quality options to low performing public schools. Voucher programs like those established in Ohio, Florida, and Colorado are pushing open doors of opportunity for Blacks trapped in underperforming public schools. Quality charter schools are available to African-Americans in 39 states and the District of Columbia.
The hour is too late for African-Americans to wait passively for educational opportunities to be created by Anglo-dominated legislatures. Remedy must be initiated from grass roots activists equipped with knowledge and persistence to create educational choices rather than remain in bondage to academic slavery.
Ronald E. Johnson, Ph.D. author, seminar leader, entrepreneur, certified school administrator and founder, president, and CEO of Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum (PAC).
