WHOSE “SYSTEM” DID THE DAMAGE?
"Trapping children in failing government schooling institutions for 13 years without exit options creates systemic inequities.”
David Barnhizer
Many young minority students, as well as others who attend public school systems in America’s major cities and beyond, are being failed by urban public school systems and condemned to lives of ignorance, violence, and hopelessness. The fact that this is happening is not “new” news. I wrote about the failure, the inequity, and the potential consequences of dumbed down education in a 1992 Seton Hall University law review article relating to what should be the mission of American universities and our educational systems in the first twenty-five years of the Twenty-First century. Even then, there were numerous analysts concerned about the decline and lack of quality in our educational systems. Their concerns have proved valid and the situation has become much worse.
The challenge is one where our society has given birth to multiple generations of poorly educated people who face a dismal present and increasingly hopeless future. The psychology of widespread victimhood is part of the price our culture has paid. The painful truth is that millions of young people have been victimized and marginalized. The tragedy is that our political systems and activist leaders are looking in the wrong direction when they seek to hold others accountable for what has occurred, and announce unworkable “solutions”. The reality is that even though there are degrees of responsibility for what has developed, the loudest voices in the betrayal of our youth, the politicians and teachers union need only look in a mirror to see who is responsible. That is something they are unwilling to do.
When this illusion of progress and effective leadership started to crumble with the startling revelations of the recent Covid-19 pandemic’s exposure of what was going on in K-12 educational systems, we immediately witnessed a scapegoating effort by the teachers unions and other parts of the educational establishment to blame others for the educational system’s failures. Beyond the “blame game” the reality is that we face a crisis of immense scale, one impossible to rectify without an intensive plan and strategy. Even then, the solutions will be only partial. Too much damage has been done and much of it can’t be repaired, only mitigated. It will be impossible to fully reverse or fix what was done to many of America’s youth.
It is impossible to understand why so little honest attention has been paid to such fundamental concerns involving the abject failure of the public school K-12 school systems to effectively educate the children with whom they have been entrusted. A great deal of the “failure to communicate” relates to the inability and refusal of the educational establishment to do its job. To a significant degree, the challenge of remedying the crisis is so far beyond the capabilities of the teachers, administrators, and state and local educational boards who benefitted from control of the “money pots” large public schools represent, that they chose to pretend it didn’t exist or wasn’t their fault. Now that the betrayal is an undeniable fact, as all instruments used to measure the quality and effectiveness of their educational performance establish quite clearly, they have sought to create an illusion of progress even while ignoring the key causative factors. One of the most important of those factors is the disintegration of the Black family structure due in large part to unwise federal policies.
Other significant variables include lack of leadership, widespread absenteeism among students of all ethnicities, student’s addiction to Social Media, lack of interest in disciplined reading, over reliance on electronic applications for numerous activities, and rising financial costs of living. For those interested in the simplistic analysis offered by pseudo-intellectual concepts such as “Intersectionality” these factors all combine to undermine education.
We can add to this a divided and angry society in which groups are in conflict with other groups, coupled with a family structure disintegrating across the board as divorces rise rapidly, families are no longer fully committed to all members, parents are pursuing careers to the point that children are pretty much on their own, and romantic “partners” who are just “passing through” relationships create what very frequently turns out to be a temporary connection in which the lines are blurred and no one seems to actually be responsible for shortcomings. In such a context it is inevitable that there will be a great deal of inattention to children with parental influence attenuated.
Although there has been enormous progress over the past fifty years in the creation of opportunities for many Black Americans, the harsh reality is that America has defaulted on its obligations. We have allowed generations of young Black, Latino, and White individuals to be undereducated, under-supported, undertrained, and increasingly unemployed or unemployable. Because of this, we face a potentially intractable and growing challenge. How can we deal with the consequences of a tragically inadequate policy that segregated our cities on one hand, and “dumbed down” our educational systems and educators throughout the nation on the other?
This is America’s shame, and we still do not know how, or whether, it can be rectified. We have for far too long avoided the intelligent and tough policies and strategies required to remedy the effects of the failed system created by the Great Society and War on Poverty, along with the subsequent War on Drugs that incarcerated many young Blacks for drug offenses. This has imposed on our minority and urban communities ill-conceived policies that fractured the Black family structure and accelerated the decline of the urban culture.
This policy, and the educational and political establishment it produced, is still providing poor and inadequate education to a very large number of Black and Latino students, along with significant numbers of White children. Data suggest that in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas a majority of minority youth, predominantly Black and Latino males, do not even graduate from high school. That system is sending many—even a majority—of those students into the world for which they are totally unprepared to participate in productive ways.
Eli Steele Cites the Courage of Corey Brooks
and the Wisdom of Thomas Sowell
Eli Steele offers the words of Pastor Corey Brooks in Steele’s wonderful report on Brooks’ 100-day rooftop vigil to build a community center in his Chicago neighborhood. Steele writes that Brooks shared a lesson he learned from Thomas Sowell relating to school choice. Please forgive the length, but Brooks captures the situation with a searing honesty as well as an enriching and vital message of the need for hope and a goal to which people can aspire. Brooks explains:
“The reason why we need school choice on the South Side of Chicago is, in one word, aspiration. That word may not sound like a whole lot, but it is the key word. America is an aspirational nation. We aspire to be somebody. We aspire to create. We aspire to be better. The American dream at its core is aspirational. The problem is that many families here on the South Side are not given the tools to aspire. Make no mistake, there are those families that aspire, no matter what. They refuse to accept the failing school in their neighborhood, and they make great sacrifices to get their kids into a better school. Even if it means driving over an hour to get there, they do it. But, not every family is able to do that. And unfortunately, there are many of them. We want to change the culture and its values in this neighborhood by teaching them how to aspire to be better. ….
“I'm a student of Thomas Sowell. And one of my favorite stories of his is the one that he tells about Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. Today, it is one of the worst schools in America, but that was not always the case. From 1870 — that’s five years after the Civil War ended — to 1955, Dunbar was the best all-black public school in D.C. By 1899, the school had made so much progress despite slavery not being that long ago and despite segregation being the law of the land. The school made so much progress that since 1899, Dunbar students were coming in first in citywide test-giving in both black and white schools.
Sowell wrote that many of these Dunbar graduates could only afford to attend low-cost colleges, such as Howard University at that time and Miner Teachers College. However, there were Dunbar graduates who attended Harvard, Amherst, Oberlin and many other great colleges. These students ran up impressive records of academic success and honors. The first black general, the discoverer of blood plasma, the first black senator since Reconstruction, and many more – all graduates of Dunbar.
Then, the school fell apart. In 1954, [the US Supreme Court ruled in] Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal. In the South, there was no question that blacks were provided an inadequate education, but that was not the case of Dunbar. What made the school so successful was that all of the aspirational blacks from all over D.C. could apply. It didn't matter where you lived in that city. They had their own form of school choice and could apply to Dunbar where they could be with other like-minded aspirational people. The unintended consequences of Brown v. Board of Education was that it turned Dunbar into a neighborhood school, very much like what we see all across America today. All of a sudden, the many blacks in D.C. no longer had the choice to apply to Dunbar. And you know what happened? It collapsed.” “Pastor Brooks shares the lesson he learned from Thomas Sowell on school choice: 'Aspiration' is why South Side of Chicago needs school choice, Pastor Corey Brooks says”, Eli Steele, 1/25/22.
Since the Schools Can’t Raise Lack the Ability to Provide Quality Education, The “Educators” are “Dumbing Down” the Entire Educational System
Coping with what is needed to fix what exists is beyond the skills of the poseurs of the educational establishment. The Woke and Critical Race Theory activists are seeking to obscure what took place by shifting away from offering a strong form of real education with substance and utility. Rather than focusing on the reality from the perspective of culture, capability, and functional need, true education has been replaced with politically divisive excrement. It is a strategy aimed at preserving the control of Progressive radicals and so-called Critical Race Theorists who have attained very significant power and financial rewards while harming the children they profess to be helping.
Real solutions for the incredible and long-lived challenges we now face due to their ineptitude, desire for power and status, and negligence require a great deal of strategic intelligence, hard work and total commitment. This is beyond the abilities of the rabid activists, self-absorbed ideologues, and smug academics who continually trumpet “systemic racism” as a mask to cover their own failures.
Although various examples of educational inadequacy in public schools are presented below, a recent report on the New York City effort to upgrade students mathematical performance reflects a dismaying degree of futility. The New York Post’s Editorial Board offers an analysis of “New York Solves” and “Illustrative Math”.
“This summer, the city unveiled “NYC Solves,” a new public-school math curriculum aimed at improving math scores by helping kids overcome their supposed “fear of math” — which already had us doubting it. And now comes news that the Illustrative Math approach, a core part of “NYC Solves,” looks to have reduced scores in districts that used it last year. Last week, South Queens Superintendent Josephine Van Ess told parent leaders that the 28 high schools saw their average pass rate drop from 59% a year ago to 45% last year, while serving as “Illustrative Math” pilots. … [I]it’s notable that the same cohort of students improved their collective performance on nine other state Regents exams (thought those results may be skewed by the way the State Education Department is dumbing down all the Regents tests). And “Illustrative Math” has some truly questionable approaches, like requiring kids to work in groups so those that “get it” can explain to their peers — all with minimal instruction from the actual teacher.” https://nypost.com/2024/08/19/opinion/nycs-new-math-curriculum-doesnt-seem-to-add-up/. “NYC’s new math curriculum doesn’t seem to add up”, Post Editorial Board, 8/19/24.
The fact is that there IS systemic racism that takes varying forms in some specific subsystems rather than every type of system ever invented in Western Europe and America. But in many instances the accusers are themselves the racists. As they have gained significant power and control of educational institutions, they have created their own powerful systems that unsurprisingly behave like those they condemned. As Lord Acton explained, “all power corrupts” and no one is free from its influence.
Power has corrupted many in the nation’s educational establishment, including those in charge of the urban educational “systems” as well as other components of education and schools. This includes universities, teachers unions, consultants, accrediting boards, and publishing companies that reap immense profits from the massive markets represented by school systems. Such “systems” of power have now been in control for multiple decades and operated largely as a closed system pursuant to agendas about which parents were only slightly aware.
Asra Nomani of PDE Warns that Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is a “Trojan Horse” for divisive and negative indoctrination
“The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is encountering pushback for draft social and emotional learning standards that critics suggest are a "Trojan horse" for left-wing ideas about race. Released at the end of last month, the proposal includes statements that students could presumably make about themselves at certain grade levels. Many of them cover things like "bias" or identities in ways that reflect rhetoric in controversial diversi-ty trainings. One reads: "I can understand that all my group identities and the intersection of those identities create unique aspects of who I am and influence my decisions.” Another indicates students should be able to "recognize that all people (including myself) have certain advantages and disadvantages in society based on who they are and where they were born.”
Nomani, vice president of strategy and investigations at Parents Defending Education (PDE), worried the standards were yet another way to implement an ideology her organization has been fighting.
"Social and emotional learning is supposed to be a sacred and positive part of a student's development into adulthood," she [said]. "Instead, in school districts from California to Maine, critical race theory ideologues have hijacked social and emotional learning and turned it into a Trojan horse for their divisive and negative indoctrination. Self-proclaimed 'equity warriors' in Virginia are using social and emotional learning to push students to activism and indoctrinate them with the propaganda of critical race theory, including pushing their ideas about 'equity,' 'unconscious bias' and 'injustice' to promote critical race theory.” “Virginia DOE faces backlash for social-emotional learning proposal: 'Trojan horse' for ‘indoctrination’: Critics say it smacks of critical race theory”, Sam Dorman, 5/5/21.
SO WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
The answer to the question of “Who Is Responsible” for the system that has been created is simple. The policy makers, the educational “leaders”, and the parents who ignore their children and fail to provide the support and guidance that is needed. As you read the following pages, think about the implications of what is happening in America’s public schools in Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities where fewer than 50 percent of minority children even graduate, and most of those who receive degrees have received inferior educations that, as the data show remorselessly, leave millions of our young without proficiency in the classic fundamentals of “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic”. Then consider the extreme difficulty of fixing, or even mitigating, the challenges we face in fixing our educational systems.
Who Is Responsible for the Fact That America’s
Urban Public Schools Are Failing the Nation’s Children?
“In a new Pew Research Center report, only 29% of Americans rated their country’s K-12 education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (known as STEM) as above average or the best in the world. Scientists were even more critical: A companion survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that just 16% called U.S. K-12 STEM education the best or above average; 46%, in contrast, said K-12 STEM in the U.S. was below average. This could mean that even if there are new jobs available in a globalized and highly competitive economy, Americans will not to be the ones who fill most of them.” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/02/u-s-students-improving-slowly-in-math-and-science-but-still-lagging-internationally/.
School Choice, Charter Schools, and Home-Schooling Are Part of the Solution. But They won’t Work for Everyone and Politicians
and Teachers Unions Fight Against Them at Virtually Every Step
"Trapping children in failing government schooling institutions for 13 years without exit options creates systemic inequities," Corey DeAngelis said. "We should fund students directly and empower families to access alternatives instead of rewarding a system that continues to fail to meet their needs year after year.” He suggested school choice was an important part of possible solutions, but it is an option, like home schooling, that is simply unavailable for many children and families.
The situation is made much more difficult by the fact that there are multiple factors that are making reasonable strategies for fixing America’s K-12 schools extremely difficult to implement. These include the lack of family support or educational interest in making progress, a serious issue of student and teacher safety and security in large urban public school districts, the progressive failure and politicization of the National and state teacher’s unions to commit to the provision of a basic education for all students, school administrators and boards who are more interested in the power and profit over massive financial pools their positions afford them as well as having bought into Woke and Critical Race Theory mantras to the degree they make every effort to make sure they are seen as key supporters of those destructive movements.
To this we can add the system’s attack on all standards of measuring educational effectiveness and achievement, abandoning assessment criteria based on gauging a student’s merit and progress or lack thereof, and “watering down” the comprehensive curricular standards being provided students to the extent that every educational measurement still being produced indicates the students just aren’t “getting it” and are being cheated of a real and useful education. Those responsible for the debacle that has come to characterize America’s educational system have invented multiple justifications for their failure, all of which are designed to avoid accountability on their own part for their actions and inactions.
“Black children learn quite well in the right environment.”
Cortney O’Brien writes about the analysis of Wall Street Journal analyst Bill McGurn.
“Citing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, [Bill] McGurn noted that of the 27 U.S. urban school districts that reported their results for 2019, not one reported a majority of Black eighth-graders as being proficient in either math or reading. Progressives, he said, have missed the point by eliminating "objective measures of achievement" and by throwing more money at the source of the problem. "But instead of addressing achievement head on, the progressive answer is to funnel yet more money into the existing failed structure, eliminate tests that expose its failure, and impose race-based preferences to make up for it," McGurn wrote.
“Oregon Gov. Kate Brown [has] eliminated high school graduation proficiency requirements for reading, writing and math, arguing the omissions would benefit minority students. … "You lower the standards, you dumb down kids," [former teacher and civil rights lawyer Leo Terrell stated] "I think it's embarrassing, insulting and more importantly, it's racist because it implies that just because of skin color, you can't pass a test." "Instead, they focus on getting rid of the embarrassment by getting rid of the achievement tests that expose it, doubling down on race preferences and trying to hamstring the schools that show Black children can and do learn in the right environment," [WSJ columnist] McGurn stated. He suggested activists should instead make it easier for Black children to get into schools where they are achieving, such as charter or parochial schools.” “WSJ columnist calls out AOC, liberals for ignoring 'real structural racism' in schools: 2019 data showed proficiency rates for many Black eighth-graders in single digits”, Cortney O'Brien, 9/7/21.
Who Is Responsible for a Baltimore HS Student Who Failed All but 3 Classes, But Ranked Near the Top Half of His Class?
One obvious issue is that when a student misses 270 days of school in three years, there is not much learning going on, at least in terms of academics, discipline, and good work habits. Nor are the parents, or parent, along with teachers and the school system, paying much attention. It is a total systemic failure and those responsible are the people in direct control.
“Baltimore HS student fails all but 3 classes over 4 years, ranks near top half of class: Tiffany France's son still ranked at No. 62 in his class of 120 total students”, Audrey Conklin, 3/4/21.
“A Baltimore high school student failed all but three classes over four years and almost graduated near the top half of his class with a 0.13 GPA, according to a local report. … [The Mother] expressed frustration with the school, asking why her son would have to complete three more years of high school after "the school failed him." [Her] son failed 22 classes and was late or absent 272 days over his first three years of high school. … Despite this, her son still ranked 62nd in his class out of 120 total students. "The school failed at their job. They failed. They failed, that's the problem here. They failed. They failed. He didn't deserve that," she said. [H]undreds of students are flunking classes at the Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts in west Baltimore.”
Who Is Responsible for 41% of Baltimore High School Students
Earning Below a 1.0 GPA?
“Baltimore City Schools has reached an alarming low in student performance. Project Baltimore has learned, during the first three quarters of this year, nearly half of high school students in City Schools earned a grade point average below a D. … Project Baltimore obtained a chart assembled by Baltimore City Schools. The chart shows the average GPA for every high school grade in the city – freshman through senior. In the first three quarters of this past school year, according to the chart, 41% of all Baltimore City high school students, earned below a 1.0 grade point average. In other words, nearly half of the 20,500 public high school students in Baltimore earned less than a D average.” “Baltimore City Schools: 41% of high school students earn below 1.0 GPA”, Chris Papst, 7/12/2021.
It’s Not Money: “Of the top 100 largest school districts in the U.S., Baltimore City gets the fifth most funding per pupil, a 2020 U.S. Census report shows.”
There has been a response, although it is primarily the typical “blame game” of politicians and administrators seeking to avoid accountability. Some blame it on underfunding of the Baltimore schools and on “systemic racism”, even though of the top 100 large school districts in the entire US the Baltimore schools rank fifth. NYC ranks at the top of America’s public schools in terms of its budget. New York City’s public school system has a stunning $38 Billion annual budget, spends over $30,000 per student, yet still provides an abysmal education for a high percentage of its students.
The problem for such schools is not a lack of resources. It is the lack of accountability, bloated administrative staffs, and lack of a commitment to quality education by many of the students and their families. It is also the fact that as with many school systems, a substantial part of their enormous budgets are siphoned off by sweetheart deals for outside suppliers of goods and services. With all the claims about teachers being underpaid, it is stunning that in its current negotiations it turns out that the Chicago Teachers Union, whose members on average are paid $93,182 annually, are demanding yearly 9% pay increases through the 2027-2028 school year, at which point the average pay would be $144,620 per year, plus substantial added pay for each migrant they teach and other benefits. See, https://www.foxnews.com/media/chicago-teachers-union-under-fire-50b-demands-academics-plummet-radical-agenda. “Chicago Teachers Union under fire for $50B demands as academics plummet: 'Most radical agenda yet’, The CTU is seeking billions for salary increases and 'progressive activism' as students struggle”, Bailee Hill, 5/6/24.
What lessons do we take from the debacles in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and other major public school systems? One of the most important is that when parents have no idea their children aren’t attending class close to fifty percent of the time and do not check to see their kids’ progress reports, it is not a good sign for the quality of either the school systems responsible for supplying quality education or for parenting. It also indicates the parents, school administrators, teachers, and local political leaders have abdicated their responsibility, all the while looking elsewhere to assign blame and dodge their own accountability. For more insight on this see “It’s All In the Family” on my recent Substack post.
When teachers see frequent absences of large numbers of students, continual failure on assignments, and then still have the failing students promoted to what are even more advanced courses, the continual litany of excuses and blame shifting rings hollow for school administrators, teachers, students and parents. Given that the Baltimore school district ranked fifth nationally in funding, continual repetition of the mantra of “systemic racism” should be condemned as an attempt to avoid accountability. It dodges the hard questions about how to fix a system that is “canceling” very large numbers of students in our largest school systems by denying them critical education and fundamental skills. Substituting “touchy feely” Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) for solid and substantial learning that enhances key skills and the ability to think, imagine, and problem solve, is worse than no solution.
Forced from Her Job for Resisting Critical Race Theory in Schools, Maud Maron Describes the Tragic Conditions of
New York’s Schools
“[Maud] Maron highlighted that more than half of NYC schools kids struggle with basic math and English. According to the NYS Department of Education 2019 report on state test results, 45.6% of students in grades 3-8 were proficient in math and 47.4% of students in grades 3 to 8 scored at proficient levels in English. According to the New York Post, "the city’s overall English proficiency rate edged up by 0.7 percent from the prior year and math scores improved by 2.9 percent…” Considering the "upsetting" academic results in American students, Maron pressed for more of a focus on helping students become more competitive in the job market.
"Those numbers, as upsetting as they are, our long-standing numbers; New York City public schools haven’t been able to budge the state test proficiency numbers for years and years. We’re talking generations of failing kids to teach them how to read and how to write and how to graduate from New York City public schools able to be competitive in a job market," Maron said. "We need not just New York city kids but all American kids to be competitive in the global market. So, of course, we have to focus on reading and writing and math and, of course, we have to focus on teaching kids basic skills and not waste time and money in ideological training that doesn’t teach those basic skills and don’t help students with how to learn.” “NYC council candidate slams city for 'wasting time and money' on 'ideological training, critical race theory’: Maud Maron, forced out of job as public defender, denounces cancel culture”, Joshua Q. Nelson, 9/16/21.
Who Is Responsible for NYC’s “Maspeth Minimum”
Where Diplomas Might as Well be “Toilet Paper”?
In reading about Maspeth High School in New York City, anyone’s initial response has to be “This can’t be true! The New York City Department of Education would never allow this to happen.” Unfortunately, the “Maspeth Debacle” is true, and the NYC Department of Education allowed it to occur and took years to react even after it was brought to their attention. NYC’s Maspeth makes Baltimore and Chicago look like elite schools.
“Maspeth High School created fake classes, awarded bogus credits, and fixed grades to push students to graduate — “even if the diploma was not worth the paper on which it was printed,” an explosive investigative report charges. Principal Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir demanded that teachers pass students no matter how little they learned, says the 32-page report by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools, Anastasia Coleman. “I don’t care if a kid shows up at 7:44 and you dismiss at 7:45 — it’s your job to give that kid credit,” the principal is quoted as telling a teacher. Abdul-Mutakabbir told the teacher he would give the lagging student a diploma “not worth the paper on which it was printed” and let him “have fun working at Taco Bell,” the report says. The teacher “felt threatened and changed each student’s failing grade to a passing one.” The SCI report confirms a series of Post exposes in 2019 describing a culture of cheating in which students could skip classes and do little or no work, but still pass. Kids nicknamed the no-fail rule “the Maspeth Minimum.”
Thomas Creighton, who spoke to investigators, told The Post he spent 11th and 12th grades drunk or stoned, rarely attended classes and did no homework his senior year. But under Mayor de Blasio and ex-Chancellor Richard Carranza, the city Department of Education’s own investigation — a report it’s withholding — as well as SCI’s took two years while Abdul-Mutakabbir, Singh and Pachter continued to run the school. Holden is outraged by the official foot-dragging. “If somebody refuses to be interviewed by an investigative body, they should be suspended immediately,” he said.” “Maspeth HS diplomas ‘not worth the paper’ they’re printed on”, Susan Edelman, 9/18/21.
Who Is Responsible for the Lack of Quality in NYC’s Middle Schools?
“The class of ninth-graders that in September will enter the city’s eight “specialized high schools” — entry to which is determined solely by doing well on a standardized test — will be substantially less black and Latino than before. Per Department of Education data, black and Latino kids, who make up almost 70 percent of the school population of about 1.1 million, got only 9 percent of the total admission offers to the elite schools. That’s down substantially from the last two years. Asian students scored two-thirds of the places at prestigious Stuyvesant HS.
Predictably, [then] Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new education boss, Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter, pointed the finger of blame for this demographic imbalance squarely in the wrong direction: at the test itself. … But test prep, many experts contend, is a red herring for the real problem. Sure, it’s always good to practice, but it’s not like there are secret tricks to break the code on a standardized test. It’s not a video game. The real test prep, as serious people know, occurs in grades K through 8, when kids learn the fundamentals of math and reading comprehension, and develop the habits of mind that translate into discipline and success in school and life. A great deal of the responsibility for getting more black and Latino kids ready to do well on the SHSAT lies with none other than the DOE itself. As New York public-school parents know, there’s a vast “missing middle” in the school system — a gaping lack of quality middle schools. … [B]ut it’s easier to blame the test than her own failing system, dominated by unionized teachers.” “Don’t blame the test for the small number of minorities at elite NYC high schools”, Seth Barron, 4/30/21.
Who Is Responsible For a More Than 50% Dropout Rate for Young Black and Latino Males in America’s Largest Urban Areas! What Will They Do?
What is taking place in our urban schools is much worse than even the above analysis suggests. The implications for American society are dire. This involves not only the terribly inadequate quality of education being received by many of the schools’ graduates, but the fact is that a very significant percentage of those who enter the K-12 systems never graduate.
I’m certain that very large numbers of angry, uneducated, marginally skilled young men—many of whom have been shuffled in and out of foster care—who keep hearing that they are the victims of a “White Supremacist” society—would never become part of gangs, engage in drugs and other criminal activities, terrorize the neighborhoods in which they grew up, and be filled with resentment and rage against an unfair world will become model citizens.
The situations in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle offer examples of an unfolding out of control almost apocalyptic reality that will only get worse. The K-12 educational systems share a substantial part of the blame. Several reports explain how bad the situation is. Grace Chen explains.
“The high school graduation rate is a "barometer of the health of American society and the skill level of its future workforce," according to Heckman and LaFontaine, the authors of a 2007 study. From a different perspective, graduation from high school can mean the difference between an individual student's future success and a future marred by unemployment, poverty, and even crime. Whether the viewpoint is broad or narrow, the significance of a high school diploma is evident. In an age of information technology and a global economy, high school graduation is a minimum requirement for higher education and gainful employment.”
Chen adds: “It is surprising, therefore, that there is no national average graduation rate on which all experts can agree. That is because there are numerous methods for calculating graduation rates. Estimates have ranged from 66 to 88 percent as a national average graduation rate, with 70 percent accepted by many authorities as the best estimate. Moreover, an average graduation rate does not tell the whole story. Black and Hispanic students drop out at higher rates than Non-Hispanic white students and Asian/Pacific Islander students. Students in urban environments are much less likely to finish high school than students in suburban areas. In some years, boys drop out at a higher rate than girls.”
Chen cites a report, Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation was authored by Christopher B. Swanson, Ph. D., of the EPE Research Center. The report examined “graduation rates in the nation's 50 most populous school districts and the larger metropolitan areas in which they are located.” The findings are explosive. They include:
“Looking solely at the most populous school districts, here is some of the data that the study revealed:
52 percent of students in the 50 largest school districts on average fail to graduate with a high school diploma.
The Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Baltimore school districts all had graduation rates below 40 percent.
13 school districts had graduation rates between 40 and 50 percent, including
Minneapolis, Dallas, New York City, Denver, and Miami.”
Who Is Responsible for Putting Chicago’s Kids on a “Path to Nowhere”
A tragic message was voiced to film maker Eli Steele by a young man in Chicago while Steele was setting up a film shoot. The 20 year old individual admitted he could not read after years of being “educated” and socially promoted in Chicago’s public schools. This is stunning not only in its effect on the young man, but its implications for a generation of America’s youth cheated out of productive futures due to the inadequacy of their flawed education and the ongoing disintegration of their family cultures. This is not only about the inadequate education provided by Chicago’s schools, but the nation itself—for Baltimore, New York, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Columbus, Indianapolis, and elsewhere. It is about struggling to provide opportunity and employment for millions who are tragically ill-prepared for work, or to be positive and productive contributors to society. Steele’s experience is captured below.
“Eli Steele writes: “While I was shooting B-roll footage on the South Side of Chicago, a young man approached and asked what I was doing. I explained I was gathering footage for a short documentary on the new "Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards" that the Illinois Board of Education had approved and was on the verge of being ratified by the Illinois General Assembly. He boiled it down to, "A documentary on education?" He then told me that he had been kicked out of two high schools and never graduated. His mother worked two jobs to provide for him and his sister and he never learned how to read. As a parent of two children, I asked him how this was possible. Didn’t his teachers in the Chicago Public School system know that he couldn’t read? He shrugged and asked me if I had any work to give him. He was in his mid-20s, looking for work in the middle of an icy, sunny day. I told him I was sorry and that I was leaving for the airport in two hours. Used to these kinds of turn-downs, he grinned and said it was all right.
In 2019, only 37% of third-graders in Illinois demonstrated grade-level proficiency in English-language arts, and when it came to math only 41% could demonstrate grade-level proficiency. … The disconnect between the progressive ideology driving these new standards and the realities on the ground could not be starker. After I filmed the shot that the young man recommended, I asked him how he felt about the education system wanting to encourage students to become activists. He laughed and said that was easy. "Anyone can march but not everyone can get a job." See, “Chicago schools face nightmare as Illinois pushes progressive politics: Only 37% of Illinois' third-graders demonstrated grade-level proficiency in English-language arts in 2019”, Eli Steele, 2/18/21.
“The study also reveals a substantial disparity between graduation rates for urban and suburban high schools in the same metropolitan area.”
Grace Chen also found:
“The study found that on average 58 percent of students in urban districts graduated compared to 75 percent of students in the suburban communities. For example, the principal Baltimore school district had a graduation rate of less than 50 percent. Suburban areas within the Baltimore municipality located adjacent to the principal school district had graduation rates of 70 to 80 percent and 80 to 90 percent. An area even further out from the principal school district had graduation rates of 90 to 100 percent.” https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/what-parents-should-know-about-graduation-rates. “What Parents Should Know About Graduation Rates”, Grace Chen, 2/18/22.
Another study by researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago provided confirmation. Jonathan Guryan and Jens Ludwig explain.
“The average high school graduation rate in America’s biggest urban school districts, which serve large numbers of children from very disadvantaged backgrounds, is only about 50%. In most cities, the figure is even lower for African-American males. Unfortunately, remarkably few strategies have been shown to improve the schooling outcomes of disadvantaged children, particularly once they reach adolescence. This has led many people to conclude that the harmful effects of poverty are already so entrenched by adolescence that improving academic learning for low-income teens is not feasible. Many experts have called for focusing instead on vocational education for these youth or just doubling down on early childhood.” https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/opinion/ludwig-guryan-chicago-education/index.html. “Why half of urban kids drop out”, Jonathan Guryan and Jens Ludwig, 3/12/14.
The Chen and Northwestern researcher’s analyses, taken together, present a situation of far greater consequence than simply being concerned with whether the students in America’s K-12 school systems are being taught the “3R’s”, a STEM curriculum, or some variety of Critical Race Theory or Social and Emotional Learning. What is clearly indicated by the research reports is that considerably more than half of the disadvantaged Black and Latino male youth in the nation’s 50 or so larger urban school districts aren’t being taught much of anything positive by the teachers to whom they are subjected. The truth is that as they progress through the system they drop out of school and never graduate.
The findings also suggest that minority males drop out of school at a rate higher than females. This means that if 52 percent of the total number of drop outs include the lower drop out rates for females then the percentage of minority males dropping out is higher. With some large school districts even seeing graduation rates below 40 percent, it means that very significant numbers of minority youth—male and female—are not completing their education. Think about what it means when 50-60-70 percent of young Black and Latino males in metropolitan areas do not graduate and lack the basic fundamental skills, work habits, and discipline the educational systems are supposed to provide. Then consider what is likely to occur. Resentment, hate, rage, predatory behavior, and the formation of gang associations needed to survive in a dangerous and heartless environment.
This devolving social state contradicts our long-held belief in progressive evolution toward a utopian society, i.e., faith in the “American Dream” and the vision of progress. This has been a fundamental part of this society for more than two hundred years, at least for many but still not enough. Of course that generalized belief has been until the past sixty years our system’s ultimate discredit and “Big Lie” when its racism and other forms of discrimination are taken into account.
But the nation made great and rapid progress in confronting its past behavior in those last sixty years. Even with the progress which they largely deny as having occurred, the Critical Race, Woke and Radical Progressive movements pose a very significant internal threat to the well-being of the country—and by that I mean all of the nation regardless of ethnicity and skin pigmentation. As warned by Abe Lincoln when he voiced the fact that any threat to the healthy future of American society comes from within the nation itself, we are witnessing the death throes of the American Dream. It is the end of the belief in positive progress and we see a new kind of society emerging that is meaner, more selfish, and more dismal than the one in which most of us were raised.
The fact is that progress depends on the raw energy and vitality of youth. But a generation of young people is being relegated to lives of ignorance, pointlessness, violence, degradation and poverty. At the moment minorities, Black and Latino, are being hit the hardest. But as the “AI Contagion” dries up work opportunities throughout the nation, the effects will impact all and do so deeply. In America’s largest urban areas many young people are becoming a cancer not only to themselves, but to people living in their neighborhoods. Predators prey on whatever is at hand. We are harvesting the consequences of the deeply rooted, poverty and limited opportunity, racism, gender and class discrimination that long dominated America.
Many of the young people who are part of this generation will not only be a direct threat to the innocent Americans they endanger, but pose an immense and increasing drain on resources and political energy from the society that caused and allowed them to be created. It is not a zero-sum game. In a complex and sophisticated economic and social system, denial of opportunity and loss of the potential talent and energy of an individual does not produce a neutral effect, but operates as a destructive double negative.
We not only do not gain from an individual's or group’s potential contributions to the expansion of social goods that would have occurred if our institutions were just and fair in terms of access and nurturing, but one way or another we must also pay for the harms caused and the resulting costs of social programs. The payments take varied forms, including financial entitlements, medical care, rehabilitation and remedial programs, poor employment performance, lack of a positive work ethic, and the costs of law enforcement and incarceration.
“Lagging US kids need 3 Rs, not a false and divisive race theory”
Jason Riley writes: “A majority of American fourth-and eighth-graders can’t read or do math at grade level, according to the Education Department. Whenever someone asks me about critical race theory, that statistic comes to mind. What’s the priority, teaching math and reading, or turning elementary schools into social-justice boot camps? And that assessment is from 2019, before the learning losses from pandemic school closures. Given that black and Hispanic students are more likely to be lagging academically, it’s a question that anyone professing to care deeply about social inequality might consider. Learning gaps manifest themselves in all kinds of ways later in life, from unemployment rates and income levels to the likelihood of teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and involvement with the criminal-justice system. Our jails and prisons already have too many woke illiterates.”
The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) promised to fight back against: “white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.
Forgive me for the following slight bit of coarseness, but one thing I learned in my many years of teaching, writing, advocacy, consulting and working in a wide array of roles not only in America but Europe, is that people who really don’t understand what they are talking about, and those who are trying to impress others frequently use “bullshit” words that have limited “elastic” meaning or no real meaning in order to impress and/or control. That is what many European “Deconstructionist” pseudo-intellectuals have done and are doing and it is also what the paragons of America’s Woke and CRT are doing. It is not language to inform. It is language to intimidate, impress, and pose. As I said above, it is “bullshit”.
Perhaps the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers should have spent their time and problem-solving powers focusing on their internal politicization and amoral “sell out” of the millions of students they have assumed control of educating and failed at that task for so many of those whose futures, and that of this nation, depended on them. Jason Riley adds to his pointed criticism of their behavior.
[Jason Riley continues] Recently, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, announced that they had jumped on the [Critical Race Theory] bandwagon. At its annual meeting earlier this month, the NEA adopted a proposal stating that it is “reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.” More, the organization pledged to “fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric” and issue a study that “critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” There was no proposal vowing to improve math and reading test scores, alas.” “Foolish schools going for woke — lagging US kids need 3 Rs, not race theory”, Jason L. Riley, 7/13/21.
Douglas Murray: “Randi Weingarten is probably one of the people most responsible for the decline in education standards in this country.”
In writing about how the UK has sought to resist America’s push toward “Woke” education, Douglas Murray, author of The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, offers a scathing analysis of the way US teachers’ unions and their leadership have sought to cover up their own failures to educate America’s children by blaming all shortcomings on standardized testing and other “systemic” challenges. Murray cites Luke Rosniak’s book, “Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education,” for the proposition that “it isn’t just what is taught in American classrooms that is the problem. It is the whole crumbling structure now looming behind it.”
Murray adds that “even the most well-off school districts try to get around any disparities in racial testing among students”—not by actually offering better teaching and discipline—but by hiring “diversity” agents who tell them the problem is not “them” but “institutional” and “systemic” racism committed by “White privileged” actors. In such a context quality and ability disappear because any apparently empirical system of comparison is all the fault of discriminatory testing, not the quality of teaching or the content of the curriculum. Murray goes on to explain how the teachers’ unions use this strategy in an effort to retain their power and cover their inadequacies, excoriating the AFT’s Randi Weingarten in the process.
“[I]t is not as though it is some fringe movement that is trying this trick. Randi Weingarten is one of the most powerful people in American education. Perhaps one of the most important people in America. She is the president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers. And she is just one of those who in recent years has decided to proclaim that standardized testing is — guess what — racist. Weingarten is probably one of the people most responsible for the decline in education standards in this country. Not least as one of those most responsible for the shutting of American schools during the pandemic. … Weingarten is one of those who should take most blame for the years of lost learning in America.
[F]or people like Weingarten, there is always an explanation that sidesteps their own blame. … The blame? “Standardized tests.” Because obviously if you abolished tests, then the school would be more equitable, more socially just and have better results. There is absolutely no evidence for any of this, but Weingarten and a whole generation of American educators are wedded to it anyway. For them, it is the easier path, and the best way to cover over their own stupendous failings.
Since they have proved unable to raise standards, they have decided instead to change the purpose of education. Such as by creating a generation of young activists and blaming any and all failures on amorphous forces such as “social injustice” or “systemic racism.” In doing this, the bureaucrats imagine that they are saving themselves. And they may well be. But they are wrecking the chances of a generation of American students, including those from underprivileged backgrounds who need excellence the most.” https://nypost.com/2022/03/10/america-tried-exporting-woke-education-the-uk-fought-back/. “America tried exporting woke education — the UK fought back”, Douglas Murray, 3/10/22.
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice Challenges
the Extreme Divisiveness of Critical Race Theory
“Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denounced the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools, declaring that Black children could be completely empowered without making White children feel bad for their race. Rice, the first Black woman to head the State Department, cited her experience growing up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, as she argued that young children didn't need to be taught CRT and parents needed to have a say in their children's education. "I’m not certain seven-year-olds need to learn it," Rice said.
Rice noted while she was growing up in Birmingham, she experienced the pain of segregation. "My parents never thought I was going to grow up in a world without prejudice, but they also told me, ‘That’s somebody else's problem, not yours. You're going to overcome it and you are going to be anything you want to be,'" Rice said. "That’s the message that I think we ought to be sending to kids.”
"One of the worries that I have about the way that we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow White people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past – I don’t think that’s very productive – or Black people have to feel disempowered by race," she added. "I would like Black kids to be completely empowered, to know that they are beautiful in their blackness, but in order to do that I don’t have to make White kids feel bad for being White," she said.
"I have no problem with letting people know what happened, but let’s remember history is complex. Human beings aren’t angels now and they weren’t angels in the past," Rice said. "And so how we teach about our history is also important.” … "People are being taught the true history, but I just have to say one more thing: It goes back to how we teach the history. We teach the good and we teach the bad of history. But what we don’t do is make 7- and 10-year-olds feel that they are somehow bad people because of the color of their skin," she added. "We've been through that, and we don't need to do that again for anyone.” “Condoleezza Rice denounces critical race theory: 'I don't have to make White kids feel bad for being White’: 'What we don’t do is make ... 10-year-olds feel that they are somehow bad people because of the color of their skin’”, Brandon Gillespie, 10/20/21.
Columbia University’s John McWhorter Agrees Fully With Condoleeza Rice, Saying Her Analysis is “Dead Right”
“Columbia University professor and author John McWhorter said that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's criticism of critical race theory was correct. "She's dead, right," the author of "Woke Racism" [said].“ The former secretary of state, who served during the Bush administration, denounced the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools, declaring that Black children could be completely empowered without making White children feel bad for their race. … Rice, the first Black woman to head the State Department, cited her experience growing up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, as she argued that young children didn't need to be taught CRT and parents needed to have a say in their children's education.
McWhorter said that calling out the issue of teaching critical race theory is unfairly seen by some as "not battling racism.” "So you're supposed to pretend that it isn't happening. But it is, and I don't want my children affected by it, and I don't want this country's intellectual culture to be based on that one thing. It's not that the one thing isn't true. There was slavery. There was racism, and there's still some now. But for that to be the main thing that an education is about, instead of teaching people to think. I say no, I as a Black person do not need that transformation on the behalf of Black people who need help, and neither do they," McWhorter said.” “'Woke Racism' author McWhorter: Condoleezza Rice’s criticism of critical race theory is 'dead right’”, Joshua Q. Nelson, 11/5/21.