Since this nation was founded over two centuries ago, there has been nearly constant tension between tradition and evolution. Yet over the years, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, the forces of progress have haltingly advanced, and continue to do so today. After all, just fifty years ago businesses still hung signs that screamed, "For Whites Only"; universities openly discriminated; and the government struggled mightily to suppress the memory of "separate but equal."
There's no doubt that our country has come a long way. But few would argue that our progress is complete, and it continues to mask a deeper dysfunction of the status quo.
There is an education crisis facing young men of color. It's not on the front page of the newspaper. People aren't organizing on Facebook or Twitter. But it's out there, and if we fail to address this crisis together, the education level of the entire American workforce will decline for the first time in our history.
President Obama has challenged our nation to reclaim its position as the world-leader in college degrees, and young men of color are the key to achieving this goal.
In the past, when a president called on us to act for the sake of our shared future, we responded. We built war planes and rocket ships. We invested in science and the arts. We achieved prosperity unparalleled in human history.
Today, young men of color face a challenge that lends itself much more towards apathy than activism. Many young men of color are not pushed to their limits by rigorous coursework in high school. Many find themselves adrift at large universities without organized support systems. And some are forced to choose between personal obligations and academic responsibilities.
These can be torturous choices that pit a family's past against its future.
But at a time when human capital is the world's most valuable natural resource, education is America's future, and we need to ensure that all of our students -- men and women, of color and not -- have the skills and support to succeed in college and beyond.
Unfortunately, too many young men of color never get their shot at success. Just 26 percent of African-Americans, 18 percent of Hispanic Americans and 24 percent of Native Americans and Pacific Islanders have at least an associate degree. In fact, a recent report commissioned by the College Board found that one out of every two young men of color aged 15-24 who graduates from high school will end up unemployed, incarcerated or dead.
These aren't just sobering statistics. These are the stories of our friends and our neighbors, real people with devastating problems -- problems that cannot be solved through rugged individualism or unyielding hope alone.
W. E. B. Du Bois, the great scholar and thinker, said, "We cannot base the education of future citizens on the present inexcusable inequality of wealth nor on physical differences of race. We must seek not to make men carpenters but to make carpenters men." Booker T. Washington, another great champion of education, differed with Du Bois on many things, but on this crucial issue they were in agreement. He said, "You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."
Du Bois and Washington understood an essential truth about America--that as long as educational opportunities are limited for some of us, we all suffer. We rise as one nation and we fall as one nation. But if we keep working hard--if we keep listening to each other and to our students--we can soften our landings and reach historic new heights.
Gaston Caperton is the president of The College Board and a former two-term governor of West Virginia. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good
qualities the world will be a better place.
Do public schools in urban areas suck?...YES!
Should there be more personal responsibility?...YES!
Should there be more community involvement?...Of course!
These things aren't mutually exclusive, they need to happen on every level. We have to help these young people navigate through the education system, as horrible as it may be while also working to change the system on a different level. That takes commitment and dedication. To the folks complaining, how many people are you being a blessing to? Degree or no degree. God Bless.
I mean, with your PhD, you have to know that none of us are genetically imbued with genes that determine we are to fail...Could it be that you have woefully misdiagnosed the problem and, due entirely to intellectual laziness, have not bothered to seek out what could be an entirely environmental factor?
Could it be that your assessment of the Black culture, albeit replete with psuedo-intellectual references, is entirely racist in nature?
Could it be that, if you had bothered to conduct a minimum of research instead of forwarding your racially tinged assessments you would have found out the following;
"As science gains greater insight into the consequences of stress on the brain, the picture that emerges is not a pretty one. A chronic overreaction to stress overloads the brain with powerful hormones that are intended only for short-term duty in emergency situations. Their cumulative effect damages and kills brain cells."
http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/stress.html
What would that tell you about the effects of stress on a young poverty stricken mind.....Doctor?
http://theeducatedsociety.com/do-we-have-a-culture-of-education-part-1/
http://theeducatedsociety.com/legislating-parenting-is-still-missing-the-point/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIuQtgPI-_A
Mechanisms have existed in the US for Hispanics and Blacks to access the road to power for almost 50 yrs now. That the rate of success is so modest must eventually be place on individuals, not on the indifference of the system. Ultimately, to think otherwise is to infantilize people and transform them into passive agents and not beings capable of volition.
In the end people are what we make of them, they are malleable and readily affected by their environment. Blacks were trapped into a negative psychology generations ago that persist today. In Detroit it started with mass factory closings. You can ignore it but that is America you are ignoring. You ignore the potential of future generations. We have a stake in their success and should do whatever we can to wake them from their slumber.
These negative attitudes seem to hit young males particularly hard regardless of race which I think is due to the marginalization of their future role in the family. They tend to fall by the wayside while females struggle forward. If we care about our boys then we will find a solution. If we don't we all will have to deal with the consequences.
I suppose that we could isolate Black American youth from their own community long enough for them to solidify an identity in which their "Blackness" plays a subordinate role, but I'm sure you would then get complaints that we were trying to eradicate or stifle Black culture. Further, having forces outside the Black American community working to "save Black youth from themselves" is hardly going to prove effective in raising their self-esteem. That is likely part of what causes them to rebel against education in the first place.
In my university job, I had one Black guy who worked for me and he was the model of the perfect student, employee and decent man. His dad was Morehouse, his mom Spelman. They were a little conservative for my taste, but had raised Charlie right. I asked Charlie if Marquita was right, and if so, what did he think. "They are lazy," he said very simply and quietly.
This was 40 years ago; Charlie was about 25 and his parents had grown up amid a racism and literally, a terror we cannot really know. But they had depended upon themselves, made the decisions and done well. And I am sure that whatever grad school Charlie attended he was a student first, then an engineer or whatever, then eventually, down the pike, a Black guy. His sense of identity was solid and I'm sure he's done very, very well in life.
The academic gender gap exists in all races where females out perform males and has existed for 30-40 years. This gap has been increasing steadily resulting in women getting 50% more 4 year degrees than men do ACROSS ALL RACES in America. That is what we should be talking about. The problem in minority communities may be more pronounced but it is a generally a male problem.
What do you propose we do about that?
I do think that much of the problem can be traced to the denigration of women in those communities, though. Girls can look up to their moms, who stick around, and to the many female teachers they have, who do the hard work of teaching in poor schools. They see wonderful women every day. Boys also see wonderful women, but they're part of a culture that teaches boys to look down on women. Therefore, all the good things they see women doing - being parents, teaching school - is automatically designated as a negative in their minds. It's not just that there are few good men in their lives. It's that they're taught to look down on the good people they do see everyday, merely because they're female.
The women need to rise up together and say loudly and clearly to every male in their life, "If you don't do your homework you will be grounded. If you drop out I will not date you. If you do not stay in school and graduate you will never dig out from under the ----load of disrespect I will heap on your sorry -----. We want smart, loving, self-supporting fathers not babydaddys."
I do know that the answer will come from the community itself. The "don't bother with school" attitude is not limited to people or color, or to men, but it does it young men of color the hardest. When I work with a young man who has now learned how foolish he was, I always ask him to go back to his neighborhood and tell his family and neighbors that school is a good thing and to work for it.
Please, there are enough young people of color who do value education to start making a difference. Tell your family, friends, neighbors! Businesses can start celebrating school and academic success; so can churches and youth clubs. You, the communities, can do it--and the system cannot. The system can support your efforts, but if you don't lead, your children will fall by the wayside.
http://theeducatedsociety.com/legislating-parenting-is-still-missing-the-point/