What Studies Might Show

There are some new studies that have been released showing that black kids learn better in mixed settings. At this point in my life I am not even interested in reading them. Let me explain why.

Suppose someone offered to do a study to see whether or not it made sense for you to continue to raise your own children or turn them over to the state. They might justify the study by saying that scientific, data driven evidence was needed to see if the basic family was as efficient as larger institutions for child rearing given that the economies of scale and availability of trained experts might allow children's development to conform closer to the needs of industry, the military and the government. My guess is that you would look at anyone making such a proposal like they were crazy. You'd probably let them know, possibly in some colorful language, that you weren't very interested in the results of their study. Whatever they might come up with would not make a lot of difference in your insistence that your children are indeed your children, that you will accept the responsibility for their upbringing and you will not entertain the possibility of giving them up without a fight. Let the study be damned!

That is about how I feel when I hear about some new research that has been done on the academic or social desirability of public school balance and the importance of school diversity for the benefit of African American children. All the studies in the world, pretending to show that children need to be in mixed settings to learn, cannot convince me that powerful learning environments are impossible in schools with black majorities. I have seen it. I have experienced being in such environments. Studies that show that they cannot be built must be asking the wrong questions.

Now, I want to be clear. I am not claiming that black children can only learn in majority black settings. I am saying, rather, that there is nothing about such settings, per se, that prevents learning, and that when black majority settings are found and learning is not taking place there is some other problem that prevents it -- not the over-abundance of black children. While I don't seek to exclude whites or blame them for educational shortcomings of black students, I do want to affirm the black community's responsibility to be allowed to play a major role in the education of our children. When housing patterns, area demographics or the desires of black parents result in majority black schools I think we should assure that there is a good educational process in place there. I am arguing against those who are comfortable claiming that black institutions are "inherently inferior" because they read it in the "Brown" decision. I want to point out that predominately black schools (incorrectly called "resegregated" schools) would only be inherently inferiority if there were something inherently inferior about black people.

I have been told that I am arguing for a return to the "Plessy v. Fergusson" idea of "separate but equal." This, too, is a misrepresentation of my view and the result of historical confusion. "Plessy" has been repeatedly misconstrued. Rather than extolling the constitutional legitimacy of "separate but equal," that doctrine more accurately tells the black community that it must accept being "excluded and treated unequally." There was nothing ever equal under the Jim Crow segregation policies, and the separation was not simply separation, but rather black exclusion from spaces reserved for whites, while there was no reciprocal exclusion of whites from black spaces. The absence of whites from black spaces was the choice of whites and carried no stigma of oppression. My insistence that things that happen to be separate, by virtue of people's voluntary choices, can indeed be fundamentally equal should be evident on its face. Any study which shows otherwise would have to be asking the wrong questions. Yet there are those who persist in the belief that African American people are incapable of raising and advocating for their own children, providing for their education with the resources that should be fairly allocated for this purpose by the state, which taxes us all. What is it, presumably, about us black folks that would make this impossible?

I am regularly told that resources will follow white children. Are we to accept this as inevitable? Shall we accept it at all? There was a time when Woolworths lunch counters were only available to whites. Some young people thought that ridiculous enough and enough of an affront to their dignity that they fought to end such restrictions. If we need to, we can examine policies that allow for inequitable allocations of school resources and fight for their end as well. Even if we in the black community think that we have some intellectual deficit, then we should still be able to arrange for access to the intellectual resources that we would need to have available for our children, even if we have to hire from outside our community. Most of us drive cars that we don't make ourselves, but instead, buy from others. With our fair share of resources allocated for educating our children, we could similarly buy calculus and physics instruction if we were incapable of producing it ourselves, although I am not convinced that we have any such deficit.

The whole of this is to say that many of us are just as offended at the notion that the black community should put itself at the mercy of middle class white America for the education of its children as we would be at the idea of turning over our children to the state to be raised in an orphanage. The social movement that is needed to fight for the proper education of black children and all children is being diverted from its needed focus. Instead of finding ways to increase the involvement of all parents and communities in the education of children, tightening bonds between neighborhoods and schools as a way of enhancing the nurturing of our children, we are told that those relationships should be broken in order to assure that there is a balanced school population and enough middle class whites in each school, regardless of their relationship to the community and attitude toward black children. The cries that we need to stop letting children who don't want to learn interfere with the learning of those who do should be taken as a warning. What is being recommended is that we essentially throw away some of our children who are not conforming to the current educational processes. Where black communities have fought for neighborhood schools as a means of reclaiming our children and being more involved with their education, we are told that we are resegregating schools. Claims are made that the cause of black student underachievement is the imbalance of school populations. This doesn't make any sense to me, and no study could show otherwise.

Comments

[Nommo]

Ed Whitfield, we are not without resource or resources. Somehow we managed in the worse jim crow times to create institutions of learning and now and then there is an example somewhere of a great and productive institution of learning where Black children and young adults are experiencing superior learning.
Now we have more resources than perhaps at any time previous. Concomitantly, we have more distractions and have brought into more of the garbage that is available in this here and now.

I think that we can get past those things. It is useless to dwell on the things that are lacking without giving equal energy as to how to get past those things, to overcome (again!)those things that are noted as deficiencies. It is no secret that there are forces aimed at our destruction but they are not new, they are the same as always. I am not talking of those things outside, I am talking about how we wind up manifesting other's hatred and fear of us. In other words, how we screw ourselves. To acknowledge those things is to begin to heal our communities and bring the children to prosperity and health.
We used to, because we had to, have extended families and look out for one another. This may seem simplistic, but those who are successful had someone looking over them. Black folk need, simply, to learn to do that again. No one is going to do this for us.
A bit can be taken from all who came before and tried this or that or the other thing. We need not relive WEB v Booker T. but take the best they both had to offer. I could go on, but, it is simple enough. We have got to get busy.

[SRegnet]

In metropolitan Boston, black & some other
minority students are bused out to mostly
white suburban schools, in modest numbers.
At my local high school, about 10% of the
kids come from the city.

The suburban schools are able to spend over
$10K per student per year at the high school
level. The city is able to spend about half
that, with significant state aid beyond what
city taxpayers can afford. As you'd expect,
the suburban schools 'do' better, on all the
usual tests.

The point is that suburban schools, here at
least, are willing and able to spend a lot
more on education that the city is. Perhaps,
in that way, 'the system as it stands is broken',
but I don't see it changing soon.

[ORSunshine]

"I am saying, rather, that there is nothing about such settings, per se, that prevents learning, and that when black majority settings are found and learning is not taking place there is some other problem that prevents it -- not the over-abundance of black children."

I completely see where you're coming from.

However, if we look at racial statistics for poverty and education, the numbers (not the individual people, who are capable of extraordinary things) show that students were were at a school that is predominantly African American would be at a disadvantage from their middle-class white counterparts. This largely stems from the fact that there are more single-parent families in the African-American family, which means that there are fewer parent volunteer-hours available to help out in those schools. There are also higher poverty levels overall (more free and reduced lunch qualifying students) which means that there is less outside money to aid in fundraising activities that result in field trips, extracurricular programs, and equipment. The same problem, however, would be found in urban low-income areas in states such as Oregon, Idaho, and Washington where there are not as many minority students, so instead the impoverished families in those areas are predominantly white.

Really, this should be looked at not necessarily as a racial issue, but as a wealth issue. There should be equal distribution of "resources" to all schools.

However, even with that you still won't get as high levels of parental involvement in poorer areas as you will in middle-class neighborhood schools. This help in the classroom does a tremendous amount of good for students. Through their presence, parents send the message that their child's education is important. This encouragement enhances that child's committment to their education.

Blanket-statement policies that say ridiculous things like "all-black student schools won't work" are obviously flawed. Each school and situation needs to be evaluated separately. But, I think you would agree that the system as it stands, is broken.

[Kansas Evans]

Mr Whitfield, great post again! As I read, questions would come to mind, and a few lines later, those questions were answered.

The question isn't about "resegregation," but about equal resources. Do black parents feel as though the school is part of the community and/or neighborhood.

Preemptively, here's the difference between conservatives and liberals as it concerns the education of black children, at least as I've experienced: liberals actually think when blacks score lower than whites, there's a problem. Preemptively, most business owners involved in creating NCLB are essentially trying to undo what they've spent many years doing.

No, we don't need "integration," just give us the money. Thanx.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

"I am saying, rather, that there is nothing about such settings, per se, that prevents learning, and that when black majority settings are found and learning is not taking place there is some other problem that prevents it -- not the over-abundance of black children."

it's not a black/whit­e/brown/as­ian thing, but setting is extremely important, human beings are extremely sensitive to their environments. see "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell where he talks about the huge difference tiny changes in the environment make, including in schools (weird environmental causes like the percent of the community that are professionals, and more obvious ones like level of rowdiness, class "leaders" setting the tone for relating to the teacher, etc). also, the decisive factor in a child's success in education does not appear to be family so much as peers.

but money will always be the key to fixing this nation's public school system, where a startling 30% of kids now drop out of high school (it wasn't this bad even 10 years ago). I propose federally funding every child with $8k/yr and letting them choose which school they go to, so public schools will compete on a level playing field with private schools.