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.

Comments

[PWM]

Achievement gap and academic progress by youth of color continues to challenge us all. At bottom, individuals and school systems must continue to find the solutions - of which there are many - that will unlease and nurture the true potential of both educators to teach and youth of color to learn. There is a role for all of us to play in the solution to the challenge.

[Jiva]

Can we start all over again and treat students equal regardless of race? We'll probably have a good outcome.