Charming the Cobra: Education and Race

More specifically, liberals often believe solving the education
conundrum is mandatory for our future. Conservatives, however, almost
universally declare that the education gap can be addressed by
neither federal programs nor funding. They both are probably correct
in this situation.

Solving America’s education gap is tantamount to our nation
fighting a cobra. In cobra fighting, you have two choices. First, you
can charm the cobra (typically by playing music), and prevent him
from striking you today. Secondly, you can choose to attack him like
Rikki Tikki Tavey, the mongoose of Rudyard Kipling fame, and solve
your problem permanently. Dealing with our educational woes at the
university level, while the majority of minority children are vastly
unprepared for life, simply charms the cobra.

To kill the cobra of educational inequities in America, we must
begin in pre-elementary school. Although we can do important work at
every stage of the educational process, our problem is that no one
wants to wait the 20-30 years it will take to reform a system. I want
to sound an alarm concerning our urgent national need to improve the
education of minority students. Further, I want to advocate that
resources and focus be directed primarily at charter schools.

Let me explain. While the nation’s high school dropout rate for
black and Latino students is 43 percent, in urban centers like
Detroit it is as high as 80 percent. This does not mean these young
people will never graduate. It simply means they do not graduate on
time. Unfortunately, academic failure is only the indicator of much
greater problems.

High school dropouts have higher rates of unemployment,
incarceration (60 percent of black male dropouts are eventually
incarcerated), drug use and violent behavior. Our struggling economy
has served to exacerbate these problems: The black unemployment rate
nationwide surged to 16.7 percent this fall, the highest since 1984.
But for black males in their 20s who lack a high school diploma, the
unemployment rate is a shocking 72 percent!

While almost everyone acknowledges that these problems begin in
childhood, the failure of urban public schools is an extremely touchy
subject. Many teachers are quick to point out the chaotic
environments poor urban students go home to every day. On the other
hand, parents who cannot afford private school are frustrated with
the disorderly school environments to which their children are
exposed. Unfortunately, both are correct: Too many inner city parents
do not provide the structure and discipline their children need to
succeed, but too many urban classrooms lack precisely the same
things.

These are exceedingly complicated problems with multiple causes,
and they will not be speedily resolved with one particular
intervention. However, that does NOT mean there is nothing we can do;
we must increase educational choice for urban parents, and local
churches must equip those parents to prepare their children for
educational success.

According to Andrew Broy of the Illinois Network of Charter
Schools, “Across all [Chicago area] charter schools, the average
growth rate of 3.8 scale points over those three years is 60 percent
higher than the Chicago average, an average that includes selective
enrollment high schools.” This means inner-city children in Chicago
charter schools showed more improvement than middle-class children in
magnet schools. Most famously, Urban Prep Academy in Chicago has
achieved 100 percent college enrollment for its all-male (and almost
entirely black) graduating class for two years successively.

How can we duplicate these results? Charter schools that show the
most success have comprehensive behavior policies, intense coaching
of teachers, longer school days and a “no excuses” approach to
education. Better trained teachers are able to offer rigorous
instruction, as well as be better attuned to the particular needs of
their students. For students from a disordered home environment,
longer days not only allow for more instruction, but limit the time
students are unsupervised or subjected to poor influences.

The “no-excuses” approach is vital to student success.
Students of any socioeconomic status who are given excuses not to
achieve will find ways to fail, but poor students lack stable parents
who can cushion their fall until they determine a course of action
toward a future. It is not surprising then how schools that
acknowledge the obstacles many urban students face but refuse to
accept them as excuses for failure are seeing their students succeed
at higher rates.

I want to encourage you to advocate for charter schools in your
region. Be sure your county commissioners and state representatives
are clear on your opinions regarding the need for quality education
from the youngest student to the postgraduate level. We can make a
difference today for the future of the next generation of Americans.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. is the senior pastor of Hope Christian Church, a 3,000-member congregation in the
Washington, D.C., area. He is also the guest editor of the January-February 2012 issue of Ministry Today about social transformation.