For those hoping to improve education outcomes for black children in America, that hope is probably misplaced. Leftists assiduously abuse data either to make it appear that the kids are doing fine or that it’s impossible for them to do well in an inherently racist system. However, if you dig through the misinformation, you discover that the kids are doing badly and that the racism that makes education impossible comes from the leftists.
One must examine the available information carefully. For instance, there are statistics showing that high school graduation rates for black students are improving, but that ignores the fact that they’re graduating functional illiterates. Why drop out when you can make it all the way through high school without working or learning anything? It makes it look like the policies are working, though, so the gravy train can keep rolling along.
Image created using ChatGPT.
To get some statistics on how black students are doing, I had to wade through an amazing amount of leftist lunacy. In their zeal to find racism everywhere, leftists don’t stop to think about what they’re saying. They often make absurd statements and reach tortured conclusions to support their positions.
For instance, the left claims that blacks graduating from college with more debt than whites proves systemic discrimination. That’s completely backwards! It’s actually an example of government largesse. The black students were beneficiaries of loans that enabled them to attend college. It seems obvious, but I guess the academics need to have it explained to them that more affluent students would not need as much financial assistance as a poor black student. It seems they’re complaining that their hand up wasn’t a hand out.
In another example of leftists’ circular thinking, leftists defend Affirmative Action policies that have been criticized for admitting underprepared minority students to college. Their defense: they cite studies that show that high school achievement gaps, not admissions policies, are responsible for high college dropout rates. What?! Isn’t admitting students with achievement gaps (i.e., underprepared) literally affirmative action?
The left complains that Black students are underrepresented in advanced placement (AP) and honors courses, even when access is available, limiting their exposure to rigorous curricula. Of course, it must be racism. Have they not heard that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink? Black students are underrepresented because many are not interested in or do not qualify for advanced courses.
Standardized tests like the SAT have been criticized for cultural and racial bias. Using this perceived bias as an excuse to have a two-tiered testing system treats black students as less capable. Having lower expectations for black students will actually handicap them later in life. They don’t realize that two-tiered testing is itself a form of racism.
The left also claims that disparities in disciplinary actions are evidence of systemic racism. This ignores the fact that black students are many times more likely to be involved in bad behavior than white students. The Sentencing Project states that black youth are nearly 6 times as likely to be incarcerated as their white peers. The left just can’t accept this reality, so the Sentencing Project positions itself as the winner of the “who can make up the lamest claim of racism” prize for these statements about why 12-17-year-olds are imprisoned for gun law crimes.
This was the study’s conclusion:
Executive Summary
Reducing gun violence should be an urgent priority in the United States. However, imposing harsh consequences for all adolescent gun possession cases harms urban youth of color disproportionately without benefits for community safety. Other approaches to reducing gun violence are far more equitable and effective.
Taking a kid with a gun off the streets doesn’t improve community safety? There may be situations where the expectation of proportionality is warranted, but a juvenile’s illegal possession of a firearm is not one of them. Enforcement must be color blind, with no regard for eventual statistics.
The statistics related to educational outcomes for students of all races are more than disappointing. For blacks, they are horrific. Incredibly, it looks like the longer blacks stay in school, the less educated they get! According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ (NAEP) 2022 reading assessment, 19% (Grade 4), 15% (Grade 8), and 6% (Grade 12) of black students were at or above the proficiency standard. Math scores follow a similar pattern. Both scores are far below those of their white peers.
There’s no point in adding more teachers. NAEP found no direct or causal link between student-teacher ratios and NAEP scores. They concluded that poverty, family structure, and violence (e.g., 80–90% Black-on-Black shootings) play larger roles.
The most common excuse given for the educational gaps is “systemic racism.” Why am I not surprised? The left trots out this vague, overused claim as the excuse for everything. Year after year, the same problems, and the studies on blacks always conclude systemic racism is at the root of whatever gap they find.
We shouldn’t be surprised at the results. Starting in kindergarten, we’re teaching our children that blacks are oppressed, that whites have privilege, that the police are out to get blacks, and that children can pick their own gender from a list of dozens. They’re being radicalized. They’re indoctrinated with leftist social and cultural dogma at the expense of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
In many respects, we’re following the radical Islamist practice of passing down generational hatred. The media inflames and amplifies every perceived act of racism. Building statues to career criminals is not helpful.
Ironically, the black children currently living in poverty are the only ones who can break the chains of poverty that bind them. Unfortunately, we’re sabotaging them every step of the way. A popular song once put it this way: If we poison our children with hatred, then a hard life is all that they’ll know.
The more I looked, the more it became clear that there’s nothing that we can do to fix the public school system. It’s a broken system run into the ground and kept there by zealous leftists. While most concerned people could suggest numerous improvements, the leftists in charge will have none of it. In their arrogance and hubris, they know what’s best for your children. In fact, they don’t even feel a need to inform you of the propaganda they feed your children; they prefer to work in secret.
Even if you could wave a wand and have the schools work, you still have a problem. When I was in school, we had plenty of homework. We had reading assignments, book reports to write, speeches and important texts to memorize, and problems to solve from our textbooks.
Do you think that a black kid going home to a single-parent home, in an impoverished community, plagued with drugs, violent gangs, and thugs with guns, is going to be doing homework? The odds are against those children. Sadly, the cultural issues within the poor black community are even more intractable than the public education problems. Taken together, I don’t see how we can ever cut this Gordian knot and free our poor black youth from the poverty they live in.