Many intellectuals have touched on the problems with African Americans today and the statistics presented on dropout rates, graduation rates and etc. However, a huge issue that isn’t well presented are the challenges and progress that black males are making and have made in the American educational system today. In the book Getting It Wrong, By Algernon Austin, he touches on so many relevant topics in the african american community today pertaining to black males. Such as, the myths dealing with our African American men’s imprisonment rates, the poverty rates amongst blacks, the “high” pregnancy rates amongst our Black girls, racial discrimination in America, dealing with race in the work force and lack of education in the Black community, just to name a few topics. However, the key and most important struggle that he talks about is how Black intellectuals view Black America and how we are basically judged from statistics. In my opinion he proves how incorrect they are about the statistics with drop out rates, poverty rates, and etc. Many authors, comedians, and highly educated individuals such as Henry Louis Gates Jr., Derrick Bell, Bill Cosby and Hamil Harris, just to name a few all brought up valid points about the troubles in Black America and how as a people we are basically failing ourselves. Yet, my question is and remains, what exactly are …show more content…
Many documentaries and articles have been put out by high ranking intellectuals that realize the achievment gap between white americans and black americans. How can we fix this? However, in the documentary “American Promise”, filmed by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson, they follow the lives of 2 young black males growing up in a public and private school system. One of the young men (Idris) who attends an elite private school in Brooklyn New York
In each year from 1998 through 2000 there was a 1%-point decline in the graduation rate for black men. But for the past 4 years the graduation rate for black men increase by a 1% point and now stand at a 35%. This year the college graduation rate for black women rose by one percentage point to 46%. With many years of hard work African American thrive for a better education ignoring the statistic that states that 9.6% of African American would drop out of high school. African American prove that they can achieve and will achieve.
Written by public lecturer, who specializes in social injustices within the United States, and award-winning writer Johnathan Kozol, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” hones in on the issue of inequality in today’s schools around the country. In the excerpt observed, Kozol states how children who attend schools where the white population is almost nonexistent are not receiving the same attention and equal opportunities as children who attend predominately white schools. He then goes on providing examples of dilapidated school conditions, along with statistics on the number of doctors within these “separate but equal”
The history of the struggle for the advancement and progression of African Americans is a larger-than-life story. It reveals their endeavors for the initiation of change in political, financial, educational, and societal conditions. They did everything to shape their future and that of their country i.e. the United States of America. This struggle for the attainment of equal rights has helped them to determine the path and the pace of their improvement and development (Taylor & Mungazi, 2001, p. 1).
These claims have been well documented. However, the connection to the graduation gap may be clearer with an answer of how other factors such as financial and other family problems brought about by poverty affect them. The rest of the book provides possible solutions to questions of invisibility such as respecting and valuing black students. Another solution is removing remedial programs for challenging curricula and supports that are appropriate.
How should society handle the perceived differences between races when it comes to education? The goal of both researchers is to narrow the academic gap between white and black students. Both authors attribute the gap between the academic scores of black and white students from opposite sides of racial identity. As Dr. Beverly Daniels Tatum, President of Spelman College and clinical psychologist has written an article entitled “Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Her approach is from the perspective of the student and how they perceive their role and upper limits while maintaining their place in their peer group's expectations of their race. Dr. Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, has written an article entitled "The Facts about the Achievement Gap.” Her approach is from the perspective of how schools and society implicitly or explicitly cast students into achievement tracks based on their race. Both approach the same idea about racial identity, but they have different solutions, such as peer groups, the school board, and who is right about the solution.
Black males within American society struggle to be successful because of challenges arising from racism and oppression, lack of effective educational leadership, and adverse racial stereotypes. Toby S. Jenkins’, “Mr. Nigger: The Challenges of Educating Black Males Within American Society”, Bell Hooks’, “We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity”, and Tyrone C. Howard’s “Who Really Cares? The Disenfranchisement of African American Males in PreK-12 Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective” provide insight to understanding the challenges Black males face within American society and especially the educational system.
The pressures of racism on today’s society are being perpetuated by socioeconomic shaming against less fortunate black schoolchildren to look to the future of becoming less successful than the more financially stable white schoolchild sitting in the next classroom. The most unfortunate part about the white-black achievement gap is that there is no easy solution to solving it. One large proponent of the achievement gap between all schoolchildren is the factor of wealth and affluence in their homes. The racial achievement gap compared to the wealth achievement gap is quite staggering. Diane Ravitch states that “in contrast to the racial achievement gap, which has narrowed, the income achievement gap is growing…[and is] nearly twice as large
In America today there is a well-known “Achievement Gap” that effects the educational system today. The Achievement Gap is a theory that there is a learning gap in the way white students learn and retain information as opposed to the minority. In this minority group there falls one of the most prominent, black males. The question is why? Why has the graduation rate of black males decreased so much in 10 years? Why is this gap expanding over the years? Finally what are people doing to stop it? Are black males inferior to the other races and groups? The answer lies in the minds of black males, they are finding other ways around the educational system that may or may not be good.
The disparity facing African-Americans in education is cyclic in nature in that if a parent lacks the proper education required to possess a high earning power and as a result become another statistic of the lower class of the economy, hence being unable to provide their children with resources such as tutoring and other services that would help provide educational equity for them, these children are stuck lagging behind their upper-class peers that have access to these resources, leaving them with a lesser quality of education and limiting both their future earning power and their future children’s exposure to better educational resources, hence the cycle of educational disparity that plagues the African-Americans as a race.
As I read about the achievement gap (Taylor), I felt a sense of despair. Families of color are positioned between a rock and a hard place. When children enter kindergarten, the racial gap is half of its ultimate size because many children of color do not participate in high-quality programs. How can people of color "catch up" to their counterparts when they are behind at the age of 5? There are also institutional factors that continue this achievement gap and perpetuate racism by consequence. After Brown v Board of Education (1954), white families enrolled their children in private and suburban schools. Since school busing has been discontinued, school assignments based on residential neighborhoods have created racially segregated schools.
Ultimately the lack of reliable resources and preparation from underfunded schools leads African American students into being unprepared for college and jobs, once again reinforcing a vicious cycle of poverty within the community. Gillian B. White, a senior associate editor at The Atlantic, wrote a chilling article regarding the systematic racism that is deeply embedded in the American school system. In the article The Data: Race Influences School Funding, White states “At a given poverty level, districts that have a higher proportion of white students get substantially higher funding than districts that have more minority students” (White). In this quote White explains the clear correlation of race and inadequate funding in the American school
Also the harsh, unjust acts we have faced being black, growing up in America. After the passage of Civil Rights Acts, after the Economic opportunity act of 1964, which has paved the way for new rulings, laws, white’s attitudes towards African Americans has improved. This has resulted in providing more opportunities for blacks in America. Even though more opportunities have been open for blacks we still have a lot of progression to accomplish. As stated in the article “high schools in black neighborhoods receive less local, state, and federal support than those in white areas.” This statement supports my point of progression, to improve high schools in black neighborhoods we must gain the support of our community, government, and state to have more interest in educating young African American students. The authors audience seems to be African Americans because he is informing readers of what blacks had to go through as people, and what we must do to continue to improve our people. I feel the authors opinions are valid because he does in fact states opinions I have witnessed myself growing up as an African American in the united states. He expresses how he believes we still have room for progression especially in mostly high populated schools filled with African American students. Majority of schools which are primary dominated by blacks seem to have lower graduations
Looking at these statistics it is easy to recognize the many hardships African American males have to endure and it also depicts the portrait of Black male underachievement at various points in their lives. “There is no shortage of empirical evidence to highlight the difficulties African American males encounter, including the realm of education and the consequences associated with being undereducated (McGee, 2013).
For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that
In education, white people have always been at an advantage compared to other races. African-American have had quite a setback in prior years. There was a time when African-American weren’t even allowed to learn how to write or read in our country just because of the color of their skin. There has been quite the improvement from those times in terms of African-Americans obtaining an education. According to Essentials of Sociology, only about 20 percent of African-Americans had a high school diploma in the year of 1960. The number has increased significantly to roughly 82 percent in 2013. That percentage represents a significant change that shows how our nation has progressed throughout the years. However, you are still at a set back if you aren’t white. “Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students” (Hsieh, 2014).