LearnmoreMN Blog

Final comments on the achievement gap

By Josie Johnson, March Guest Blogger

I have received many comments regarding the articles on issues relating to the achievement gap question. They have been thoughtful and encouraging. The bottom line supports the need for all of us interested in the education of ALL children, to get involved.

In his book Achievement Matters, Hugh B. Price, former president of the National Urban League, states in the introduction: “Education is the great equalizer in American society. It unlocks the doors to children’s futures.” All the comments I have received made that statement in many different ways.

Our challenge is to apply the skills of research and analysis. We need to take time, and review all the educational reforms strategies we have initiated in the last 54 years.

Marvin Cetron and Margaret Gayle in their book Educational Renaissance, reported on hundreds of reform efforts they studied in the 1980s. They identified several school districts that showed some progress. We in education often refer to “best practices” however I am not sure we truly follow models of “best practices.” We too often introduce a new reform before we determine what worked and what did not work in the last reform methods to educate all children.

I believe our American education system is in trouble. We are losing a once-held prestigious position in science and technology and we have again, relinquished our interest in educating all the children to outsourcing and recruiting from abroad.

Until America places value on all her children we will continue to be "A Nation at Risk" and widen the achievement gap.

The Role of the Black Community in Educating Black Children

By Josie Johnson, March Guest Blogger

In her March 12, 2008 column, “Evidence shows classmates’ color is not a key factor in achievement” Katherine Kersten stated in her charge of “social engineering” that the various academic plans to offer parents and students choice and to close the achievement gap were based on a belief  “that Black children can’t learn adequately unless they are sitting next to white children.”

That premise has confused many educators, parents and ordinary citizens for nearly 54 years —  the belief that busing is a means of placing Black children next to white children so they can learn. Educators, parents, and policy makers offer many theories about learning and learning environments. However, none of the theories or plans is based on an osmosis theory.

In my judgment, what Black children need is an equal opportunity to be educated. Black parents and other community people must find the energy, strength, unity and commitment to remind Black children of their education history. Black children need an environment of safety and teachers who respect them and support their learning process and progress. This process must include spiritual leaders, community partners and the children’s homes.

The learning process includes Black adults being involved in all that affects Black children. That includes the emotional health of Black children.

Evidence suggest that educators, parents and others must agree that the time has come, again, to address the following issues more directly:

• The quality of education Black children are receiving;
• The experiences of Black children at the end of their school day;
• The extents to which Black children are prepared to compete for the benefits of society others enjoy and,
• The extent to which Black children, today, feel inferior while attending majority white or majority Black school.

As we continue to develop and promote plans to educate our children we must develop a sense of “peoplehood” that embraces the entire Black community. In other words, we need a consciousness that requires all Black adults to be concerned about all Black children, and all Black adults acting responsively for the safety and welfare of the Black community.

This attitude will benefit all people and the whole community.

Issues Before the Achievement Gap

By Josie Johnson, March 2008 Guest Blogger

On May 17 we will celebrate the 54th year since the Supreme Court settled the question in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunity? “We believe that it does,” the Court said.

Thurgood Marshall, the chief NAACP Legal Defense lawyer at the time of the decision, believed that the American Dream could be made to work for Black people as well as whites. He did not believe that the system was flawed and deeply etched with the effects of segregation and the laws of segregation which had denied Black children equal education opportunities.

Some historians have written that Marshall, the NAACP lawyers and the Black community were convinced that the Supreme Court decision guaranteed Black children the education their parents and communities had suffered and died for since 1865.

The dream of true emancipation through education continues to elude our Black community. It has become clear that the issues facing Black parents and Black communities are larger than simply the condition of the schools or transportation. They are more subtle and insidious.

In many schools, Black children are taught by teachers who believe them to be inferior and, therefore, treat them that way. The same teachers teach white children that they are superior. Curiously, the degree to which Black children are experiencing this from teachers has increased since the enforcement of Brown. Many Black children are forced to fight their way rather than learn their way through school in an effort to gain some sense of self-respect.

In many communities, experienced Black teachers have been removed from classrooms with large numbers of Black students where they served as models and have either been “promoted” to an administrative position or reassigned to a white majority school.

Furthermore, teachers are offered pay incentives classified as combat pay, to accept teaching assignments in schools in Black majority neighborhoods. All of these behaviors and policies perpetuate institutionalized racism which is etched deeply into the American social fabric.

One year after the historic May 1954 decision, renowned scholar and historian, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, predicted that it would force Black people to face:

…a cruel dilemma…with successfully mixed schools they know what their children must suffer for years from southern white teachers, from white students who sit beside them and under school authorities from janitors to superintendents, who hate and despise them….They must eventually surrender race ‘solidarity’ and the idea of American Negro culture to the concept of world humanity, above race and nation. This is the price of liberty. This is the cost of oppression.

Unfortunately, Dr. Du Bois was accurate in predicting the experiences Black children would have in desegregated schools.

In today’s system our children are not being taught to function successfully in society. Their learning has been replaced by emphasis on the achievement gap. The U.S. Department of Education describes this gap as “the difference in academic performance between different ethnic groups.” The Department also states that the achievement gap is a multifaceted problem that requires examination from multiple perspectives. Some educators suggest it is the difference between a child’s potential and his/her actual achievement.

In my judgment, the challenge to help Black students reach that potential is, in part, the lack of knowledge about and respect for the Black student’s community’s relationship/history with education.  Neither the teachers nor our children know their history. They don’t know who they are, their relationship to education or, from whence they have come.

The gap is caused by disparities in information, resources, instruction, belief, commitment, quality and care. Our children are given medication, assigned to special classes for emotional or academic deficiencies, allowed to fall short of their potential rather than reach their potential.

We must pull together as a nation, if we are to survive. We must save all of our children and help them become the best they can be.

The society needs all its children to become successful, productive, happy citizens.