5
July 2006
Walter Williams
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Let's look at the recent "Nation's
Report Card," published annually by the U.S. Department of Education's
National Center for Education Statistics. Nationally, in reading, only 13
percent of black fourth graders, and 11 percent of black eighth graders score
as proficient. Twenty-nine percent achieve a score of "basic," which
is defined as having a partial knowledge and skills necessary to be proficient
in the grade. Fifty-nine percent score below basic, not having any of the
necessary knowledge and skills. It's the same story for black eighth graders,
with 40 percent scoring basic and 49 percent below basic.
In math, it's roughly the same
story. For black fourth graders, 12 percent score proficient, 47 percent score
basic and 40 percent below basic. For black eighth graders, 8 percent score
proficient, while 33 percent score basic and 59 percent score below basic;
however, one percent of black fourth graders and eighth graders achieved an
advanced score in math.
Teachers and politicians respond
to this tragic state of affairs by saying that more money is needed. The
Washington, D.C. school budget is about the nation's highest with about $15,000
per pupil. Its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation's
average.
Despite this, black academic
achievement in Washington, D.C. is the lowest in the nation. Reading scores for
Washington, D.C.'s fourth-grade black students are: 7 percent proficient, 21
percent basic and 71 percent below basic. For eighth-graders, it's 6 percent
proficient, 33 percent basic and 58 percent below basic. It's the same sad tale
in math. For fourth-graders, it's 5 percent proficient, 35 percent basic and 59
percent below basic. For eighth-graders, it's three percent proficient, 23
percent basic and 73 percent below basic. With these achievement levels, one
shouldn't be surprised that the average black high school graduate, depending
upon the subject, has the academic achievement level of the average white
sixth, seventh or eighth grader.
Racial discrimination has nothing
to do with what's no less than an education meltdown within the black
community. Where black education is the very worst, often the city mayor is
black, city council dominated by blacks, and often the school superintendent is
black, as well as most of the principals and teachers, and Democrats have run
the cities for decades. I'm not saying there's a causal connection, just that
one would be hard put to chalk up the rotten education to racial
discrimination.
There's enough blame for this
sorry state of affairs for all participants to have their share: students who
are hostile and alien to the education process, parents who don't care,
teachers who are incompetent or have been beaten down by the system, and
administrators who sanction unwarranted promotions and issuance of fraudulent
diplomas that attest that a student has mastered 12th-grade material when in
fact he hasn't mastered sixth- or seventh-grade material.
No one can solve the educational
problems that black people confront except black people themselves. First, it's
foolhardy, and black people cannot afford to buy into the idea that no black
child should be saved from the education morass until all black children can be
saved. That means we must find a way to permit the escape from rotten schools
for as many black children who want to be educated and have supportive parents
as we can. Educational vouchers or tuition tax credits would provide such a
mechanism.
At one time in black history,
there was a high value placed on education, so much so that blacks risked
punishment to acquire education in areas of our country where black education
was prohibited. Being 70 years old, I know there was a time when schools and
black parents cooperated with one another to see to it that children behaved in
school and did their work. In principle, the solution to black education
problems is not rocket science. The problem is summoning the will.