Black Education
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Walter Williams, Creators Syndicate, July 23, 2008
“Hard Times at Douglass High,” is an HBO documentary that aired last June. It captured much of the 2004-2005 school year at Baltimore’s predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School. The tragedy is that what is seen in the documentary is typical of most predominantly black urban schools.
Douglass’ students are four to five years below grade level. Most of its ninth-graders read at the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade levels. In 2006, only 24 percent of its students tested proficient in reading, in math just 11 percent, and that’s an improvement over previous years. Only one student managed to score above 1,000 on the SAT and another student scored 440 out of 1,600. You get 400 points for just writing in your name. Out of its 1,100 students, 200 to 300 are absent each day. Many of those who do show up don’t do so on time; they roam the hallways and leave the school during the day. Only one-half of the school’s 500 incoming freshmen ninth-graders return for their sophomore year and far fewer remain for graduation
Sixty-six percent of the teachers are uncertified. {snip} English teacher Mr. McDermott resigned in the middle of the school year saying, “Teaching becomes secondary, and discipline is the main thing that goes on. I don’t feel like I’m making a difference anymore.”
Cameras followed then-principal Isabelle Grant on her visit to the home of a chronically absent student. The student who reads at the fifth- or sixth-grade level is promised that if she attends school regularly she’ll be promoted to the 11th grade. {snip} The documentary showed that within a few days of graduation time the school went from having 138 eligible graduates to 200. Promoting and graduating students who haven’t made the grade is nothing short of academic fraud.
Douglass High School teachers and staff appeared to be concerned and caring people, but the poor quality educational outcomes demonstrate that concern and caring is not enough. The virtually empty classrooms, filmed on back-to-school night, suggested little parental interest in their children’s education. School day behavior demonstrated little student interest. Some students spent class time laughing, joking and tussling with one another. Others had their heads lying on their desks or appeared uninterested in the teacher’s discussion. Many of those engaged in student-teacher exchange on academic topics showed very limited reasoning ability.
{snip}
{snip} Whether we want to own up to it or not, the welfare state has done what Jim Crow, gross discrimination and poverty could not have done. It has contributed to the breakdown of the black family structure and has helped establish a set of values alien to traditional values of high moral standards, hard work and achievement.
(Posted on July 23, 2008)
Comments
The article says that it wasn’t always this bad at this school. However, my bet is that when the school was relatively good, whites were running it.
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:14 PM on July 23
“The virtually empty classrooms, filmed on back-to-school night, suggested little parental interest in their children’s education.”
It is not hard to figure out what the response of those apologists for the failed “Black” race will be: “Its the parent’s fault”.
Lets keep in mind, though, that today’s “Black” parents are yesterday’s “Black” “students”, just as tomorrow’s “Black” parents are today’s “Black” “scholars”
Ronald
Posted by at 6:49 PM on July 23
Aside from IQ differences between the races I wonder about something else that may be even more relevant to the academic disparity that exists and that is the emotion of curiosity. Are blacks as a group less curious? To me, it seems that curiosity is what drives the desire to learn. Even if a person has a high IQ, if they lack curiosity and a desire to learn they probably won’t do so well in school unless strictly monitored and forced to do so by the parents. In my experience you can’t keep those with a strong curiosity level away from learning. I wonder if any research ever been done on curiosity and how it may differ between groups.
Posted by Robert at 6:49 PM on July 23
Yes, things will equal out, Whites will drop to that level as to make all equal.
Posted by Bandmo at 7:17 PM on July 23
“Aside from IQ differences between the races I wonder about something else that may be even more relevant to the academic disparity that exists and that is the emotion of curiosity.”
You’re absolutely right. Curiosity is the key. Plain old intellectual curiosity. It’s a rare commodity these days, but it’s the driving factor behind all education. You can talk about school budgets and classroom sizes and parental involvement all you want, but the real reason these “students” don’t learn anything is because they don’t want to learn anything. They could care less. A friend of mine teaches remedial reading at a mostly black community college. He says his students know how to read—sort of. They’re just not interested. They’ve switched off their brains. It’s like they’ve been anesthetized. A low IQ probably goes hand-in-hand with this intellectual apathy, but IQ doesn’t tell the whole story. Putting aside true developmental disabilities at the lower end of the bell curve, most people are capable of learning and making a success of themselves in modern America. After all, how much intelligence does it really take to be a typical office worker, corporate executive, bureaucrat or politician? Not much. If you want to learn, you’ll learn, but that requires curiosity, an innate desire to grow, evolve, figure things out. If you don’t have that basic curiosity, nothing else matters.
Posted by at 8:11 PM on July 23
“Yes, things will equal out, Whites will drop to that level as to make all equal.”
Well, when all the students go looking for a job things will ‘equal out’. You have to equal things out in order to make up for the never ending evil influence of white america.
Posted by last white person here at 8:31 PM on July 23
Perhaps Frederick Douglass High School should be renamed Simon Legree High or David Duke High…then the kiddies could blame their less than stellar performance on the racist name and the angst it causes.
…then again going to a high school named after a rabble rouser anti-White demagogue, adulterer, who preference for White Women and plagiarism, may be the real cause of angst and poor performance.
Perhaps Al Sharpton High School would be the name and role model the kiddies need, just read today’s article at AR on “Reverend Al” and his successful hustling, making $millions.
Then again, White teachers have described inner city schools as halfway houses and holding tanks for the future criminals of America…to give some relief to the populace before being unleashed at 18 (or maybe 18-28) on the public.
Posted by Sissy White at 8:53 PM on July 23
“In my experience you can’t keep those with a strong curiosity level away from learning. I wonder if any research has ever been done on curiosity and how it may differ between groups.”
Posted by Robert at 6:49 PM on July 23
Yes, you’re right on about that. I’ve noticed the lack among blacks for a long time now.
They don’t seem to have an interest in anything that doesn’t give them instant gratification and certainly nothing that is of an intellectual challenge. Everything is about themselves, right now. In the present.
I’ve always said that it just isn’t black I.Q. that holds blacks back, it is their attitudes, and their lack of intellectual interest in various pursuits, and their overall lack of ability in many things. Low I.Q.’s are just part of the problem.
Posted by ice at 9:37 PM on July 23
These very students become the pool of people who in future years become the teachers, civil servants, and other workers. It truly is the dumbing down of America.
Posted by mf at 9:44 PM on July 23
Are blacks as a group less curious? To me, it seems that curiosity is what drives the desire to learn.
All you have to do is look at how curious blacks are about other types of music.
Posted by HideouslyWhite at 9:51 PM on July 23
I can’t believe that documentary was allowed to be on TV!
I read a book by a black professor at UCBerkely who said that he cannot remember ever having a black student as a question during class.
I told a joke to some black ladies at work about Freudian slips. They didn’t know what they were:)
Posted by at 9:53 PM on July 23
I actually caught part of the HBO documentary about this school. It featured a student named “Audie” (if I am not mistaken) who was a 17 year old repeat freshman. There was one part where star student Audie is loitering in the hall, skipping class, brandishing his outlandish shiny grill (complete with fangs!) and stating that going to class was “for clowns.”
This is what they are sinking billions of our tax dollars into, folks.
Posted by ZKR at 10:10 PM on July 23
Does it really make any difference whatsoever if these kids get a high school diploma? I certainly don’t think so. You only need a diploma to get into college. Even then you could get into community college with a GED. And none of these kids are going to college.
Do the hiring managers at McDonalds actually ask to see your high school diploma? I sort of doubt it. So it really doesn’t even matter for low level jobs.
Even if they have the diploma, if they read at a fourth grade level, what difference does it make? The piece of paper isn’t going to change the fact that you’re functionally illiterate.
I just don’t get it. Why is this even a problem? Who cares how many of this kids graduate? Can someone explain it to me? Because from where I’m seating, the whole task of trying to get these kids through high school seems to be the biggest act of futility of so many ways.
Posted by at 11:18 PM on July 23
“…Do the hiring managers at McDonalds actually ask to see your high school diploma?…”
Posted by at 11:18 PM on July 23
Yes, according to the McDonald’s rep who visited our school during the last career day—he stated that at age 18, McDonald’s wants to see a high school diploma. Apparently they (state) they have some standards.
Also, according to the fast food (and other) managers who speak regularly at my school, employers want to look at a kid’s report card, believing strongly and correctly that the kid’s grades and deportment marks strongly reflect the character the kid will bring into a place of business.
As a Subway owner once told me: “Kids who are late to school will be late to my business!”
Businesses are 100 times more conservative than the schools, insisting on such things as manners, polite language, neat appearance, and an ability to accept direction and correction—something the black kids at Douglass are not capable of doing. Inner city ‘youfs’ call these types of jobs ‘beneath them’ and working for ‘chump change’ to cover up the fact that they are totally unemployable.
If the kid lives in California, he will have an especially difficult time finding a job in a fast food restaurant as the preferred employee here is an adult Hispanic. I wonder if the local McDonalds checks them for HS diplomas?
I saw the documentary on Douglass High School—I worked in such a school during my formative teaching years and I believe the documentary was vastly cleaned up from what actually goes on in these black hell-hole free-for-alls, they shouldn’t be called schools because there is no learning is going on.
I saw none of the vicious fighting and attacks, robberies, assaults, sexually explicit language and acts (in full view) and hurtled racial epithets that mark these schools as the pits they are.
A better depiction of one of these schools, written by a former member of ‘Teach for America’, can be found in the appropriately titled: “How I Joined Teach for America and Got Sued for 20 Million Dollars”
Many thanks to Stephanie for posting this wonderful article, I have passed it on to countless colleagues.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_how_i_joined.html
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 12:52 AM on July 24
“I just don’t get it. Why is this even a problem? Who cares how many of this kids graduate? Can someone explain it to me? Because from where I’m seating, the whole task of trying to get these kids through high school seems to be the biggest act of futility of so many ways.”
Posted by at 11:18 PM on July 23
To an outsider like most of us, your conclusions are perfectly logical, but there are many, many bureaucrats and other tax-sustained employees whose very livelihoods rely on, and even thrive, on the black underclass producing and putting these failures through these useless systems.
Another group of these “experts” are committed to finding new ways to blow tax payer cash on new ways to twist and hide consistently redundant results with new “solutions” and “approaches” such as the newest ethnocentric focus of “charter” schools.
Insanity to some, job security to others.
Posted by ZKR at 3:01 AM on July 24
I normally enjoy anything written by Williams, but he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that since intergration our schools have been in a downward spiral, the root cause, black students, we have attempted everything to accomodate them, and they continue to fail, I think we should give them their own schools and let Jeremiah Wright be in charge.
Posted by abc at 6:24 AM on July 24
Communist revolutionaries (peasant-class) always slaughter the educated (middle-class) on the orders of the ruling elites, because ignorant peasants are much easier to control.
However, because our middle-class is so large and well armed Washington’s communist revolutionaries are forced to use government (public) schools to dumb the middle-class students down to the level of the peasant-class students.
Government school bureaucrats are like all bureaucrats, they live off the largess of men and women better than themselves. Government school bureaucrats are among the worst, but fortunately they are local and thereby among the most accessible. They routinely raise taxes on the homeowners to finance the dumbing down of our children while they infect our children with communist doctrine. Do not forget this in the days to come…
Posted by at 11:21 AM on July 24
It is time to tell the truth and be pragmatic about this situation. You are dealing with a permanent underclass who neither have the intellectual capacity nor the cultural history of intellectual thought. Trying to educate these people is simply a waste of time. Society would be infinitely better off by making school attendance optional for blacks to prevent the dumbing down of the curriculum, and also using former education funds for law enforcement instead.
Posted by ODDL at 12:45 PM on July 24
Re: Curiosity.
I suppose it makes sense to talk about various types of curiosity. Intellectual curiosity is the key for bookish types (like myself): most academic high-achievers were probably profoundly fascinated learning about the world through books and documentaries from the very youngest. Not everybody shares that sort of curiosity, however. Many of my friends who were not nearly as intellectually gifted (IQ-wise) have managed to learn a wide array of skills, things I don’t have a clue about — like taking apart engines (and putting them back together), for example, or building their own bookshelf. They, too, were eager to get their hands on “stuff” as youngsters and try to figure it out. Blacks seem to lack both academic and hands-on curiosity. Whatever other curiosity they might have, it doesn’t seem to be of the type that lends itself to eventually earning a living.
Posted by Michael T at 2:26 PM on July 24
“I just don’t get it. Why is this even a problem? Who cares how many of this kids graduate? Can someone explain it to me? Because from where I’m sitting, the whole task of trying to get these kids through high school seems to be the biggest act of futility in so many ways.”
Posted by at 11:18 PM on July 23
Although it’s never (publicly) stated this bluntly, the ultimate purpose of getting these kids to graduate is to steer as many of them as possible toward lawful employment - and away from the typical sociopath’s default choice of minority gangs, drug use, drug peddling, and progressive criminality.
- i.e., the idea is to thin the ranks of future inner-city criminals.
Posted by Gary at 2:42 PM on July 24
Sounds like not much has changed in black education since I was a substitute teacher in St. Louis during the early seventies. I was substituting one day when the class got its achievement scores. In my sixth grade class, the two smartest students — they were twins, who took violin lessons — were working at a fourth grade ninth month level. No one else was even close to them and the two lowest were functioning on a first grade second month level. At that pace, the average student might have reached the sixth grade level by the time it came to “graduate” from high school.
Posted by William at 4:50 PM on July 24
i propose to re-instate segragation in all schools and colleges….the white stupid liberals who started all this way back in the last 50’s and early 60’s must have been high on LSD to pass the bill that introduced intergration in the first place…..we don’t want to live by them, around them, or the mex’s or muslims or the brown bombers from india….but then I know I am dreaming again!!
Posted by lydia at 5:18 PM on July 24
I’m beginning to think it’s cruel to force inner city blacks through high school. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be to sit through 11th grade physics if you’re functionally illiterate and have a IQ of 80?? It just makes them more resentful of white society.
Focus on the top 5% of inner city blacks who can possibly achieve true 12th grade status! After 8th grade, the school should give “Graduation Achievement Certifications” to the lower 95% and let them go on their merry way. Add a few public vocational programs and job counselors who specialize in placement of unskilled workers - that’s all they need or want.
Posted by Jill at 6:10 PM on July 24
dittoes to Jill 6;10 P.M.
The legacy of Brown v. Board of Education is still resonating. From a stance of “no legal segregation” we have gone to forced integration, quotas and, most insidious, to “diversity” which will be with us forever, I am afraid.
Middle class type children, including those minority youngsters who are actually capable of learning, are forced to go to dangerous schools where the predators are considered victims.
The death knell for a merit based society was sounded when the late (un)lamented Lyndon B. Johnson intoned that as national policy, we must have a society not just of “Equality of Opportunity” but one of “Equality of Results”.
Posted by at 11:11 PM on July 24
The article states: “Douglass’ students are four to five years below grade level. Most of its ninth-graders read at the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade levels.” This is incorrect. Douglass’ black students are performing exactly on level with their black peers. Once we are honest about what the average black student is - and, perhaps more importantly, what the average black student is not, and cannot ever be - we can stop the near-constant deluge of these stories, which (sadly) have become a staple for every news outlet.
Posted by at 8:49 AM on July 25
I suppose it makes sense to talk about various types of curiosity…Intellectual curiosity is the key for bookish types… Blacks seem to lack both academic and hands-on curiosity.
But when blacks hit it, they hit it big - Mayor Harold Washington has one of the world’s largest libraries named after him - because he liked to read books.
Posted by HideouslyWhite at 10:13 PM on July 25
Black behavior in schools and elsewhere in America makes perfect sense to me. I would probably act in an equally inappropriate manner if I were suddenly set down in an African village.
Posted by H. Dumpty at 5:11 AM on July 28