DiversityInc - January/February 2009

Is Black Culture the Problem

With Education?

QWhy should public schools receive equal funding? If some communities choose to pay higher property taxes, why shouldn’t they be entitled to a more well-funded education if they so choose? Why must the state ENFORCE a faux equality? We all know the D.C. public schools and the California public schools receive some of the highest funding in the country, yet they perform miserably. Yet when you look at the states that succeed the most academically, you’ll note that while Wisconsin and Minnesota pour money into their public schools, Wyoming and Montana don’t. But all four states perform in the top 10 in the country. The one common denominator? They all have predominantly white populations.

Let’s be honest: This is a cultural thing if we’re going to throw the genetic component out (and I think for sanity’s sake, we should). Name for me a single Black community that outscores the state average for white students. I’ll be waiting awhile.

The problem isn’t an uneven playing field. The problem is that Blacks are simply not even playing the same game as Asians and whites. Until a cultural emphasis is placed on success in the Black community (and it’s decidedly not), things simply will not change.

AIt’s not intellectually honest to discuss Black educational underperformance as if it is something that arrived on the current scene fully formed. The state isn’t trying to force “faux equality.” It’s (ineffectively) dealing with centuries of oppression. Equality in opportunity has never been part of the American experience. We can’t run away from that reality because it is responsible for the disparities in outcome by race in the facts you cite.

The good news is that getting to a solution for the disparities in education is not difficult when you accept that we are genetically all one human race. This doesn’t mean everyone is of equal talent, but it does mean that every group of people has an equal percentage of talented people. Therefore, if education is managed correctly, every town—Black or white— SHOULD have the same outcome if the process assumes equal outcome as the only acceptable result.

So let’s not worry about the past; let’s worry about the future. If our country is going to be sustainable in this global economy, we need to develop ALL of our talent. It doesn’t make economic sense to under-educate talented people.

If we believe that all people are created equally (and that’s a genetic fact), then the only sensible thing for us to do is make sure that all students graduate from public schools with the same qualifications (within the statistical spread that accounts for all individual performance, measured not by group but by the entire United States).

If we accept equity in outcome, then we will be forced to reverse our thinking about education. Instead of applying the same failed solutions to the same problems and hoping for the best (or in your case, blaming the victim), we would have to impose conditions on the end result (percent graduating with the same skills, verified by testing).

What I think we’ll quickly find is that we IMMEDIATELY have to keep schools in low-income areas open 24/7/365 and serve hot meals three times a day—for the parents, too, if they’re hungry. And while they’re there, let’s give skill assessments to the parents and give them education if they need it.