THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220021
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By BILL THOMAS
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
My son proudly maintained his ``A'' average in spite of difficult conditions. After I commended him for his achievement, I asked what did the grades A through E represent. He quickly answered: A - Above Average, B - Below Average, C - Critical, D - Disaster and E - the End. I concluded that he had unknowingly defined the disturbing condition of our public schools.
Somehow, we have allowed our scholastic standards to be lowered to a point so low that today diplomas are being awarded to students without regard to academic competence. Why?
While concentrating on accommodating those who are not prepared or willing to learn, our public schools have neglected those students who want to achieve despite their personal circumstances. Grades actually have little value, and most parents do realize that our children, who are now spending less than one hour per evening (none during weekends) on homework, are receiving good marks with little effort. Today's academic outcomes are not valid performance indicators.
The painful reality is that by the year 2000, black children entering the first grade will not perform at the third-grade level when they are 8 years old. Nearly 50 percent of black males and 40 percent of young black females, while quietly passed through the system, will not join their eighth-grade classmates when they turn 13.
Where is the shame when only 27 percent of black students attain at or above basic achievement levels in reading compared with 72 percent white; or only 32 percent of black students attained at or above basic achievement in math compared with 71 percent white?
It is sad commentary that only one black male who lives in Norfolk's housing projects had a ``B'' average and that only 38 percent graduate, while 63 percent of those graduating seniors maintained a ``D'' average.
Educational requirements, especially for young black males, cannot be satisfied within the existing educational framework. Clearly these children are not being encouraged to achieve or challenged to excel academically. Instead of being urged to achieve academically, these children are being appeased, and outcome-based education has been incorporated into the curriculum.
Worldwide educational standards have long since moved past the three R's to include the three C's: communications, computers and critical thinking. It frightens me to know that the United States is only the 36th most literate country in the world and that three out of five high-school graduates can't read, write a comprehensive paragraph or add up a lunch bill.
Advantaged and disadvantaged students do not perform well for some reasons that are totally unrelated to race, segregated schools or busing. Undisciplined and unruly children, unconcerned and unqualified teachers/administrators and dysfunctional families probably contribute more to bad schools and poor academic achievement than anything else. The tendency is to ``mainstream'' all these children into classrooms by chronological age, despite academic levels. The brightest kids are placed into groups with average, unprepared and undisciplined children with complex educational, spiritual and social needs. All students need help, but the price we are paying now at the expense of our best and brightest is too great.
This is not a reprimand of public schools. My neighbors and I are responsible for losing control of our public schools. We are also responsible for allowing liberal intellectuals on the left, psychologists and sociologists to convince educators and parents that it is wrong for disadvantaged children to pursue ``the American Dream.'' We were told that the American Dream is a white middle-class miracle and that it would be harmful to impose these American traditions on black and African-American children.
This region's economy and security are all tied to the success or failure of our public schools. No one, no race or no place is immune. We only sacrifice the future, until educational reform is demanded. Our democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of education and literacy for most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values. Values of families are important because they underpin the ways in which we cooperate with each other and respond to the challenges that clearly confront our communities. As Americans, we must admit that our primary source of authority is within ourselves, our spirituality, our common history and how much we care abut improving the quality of our lives together.
My son and his classmates will graduate in the class of 1999. They will face a future in a world economy in which knowledge will become the true capital and premier wealth-producing resource. Future technological advances will make rigorous demands on schools for educational academic performance and on parents for educational responsibility. Our children will also inherit our great unsolved crisis - the need to create a genuine ``American Dream,'' a multiracial democracy that truly embraces our disadvantaged while reconnecting the support networks, schools, families, churches, traditions, friends and neighborhoods that set the foundation and sustain our sense of purpose in life. MEMO: Mr. Thomas is an economist with Norfolk Center For Strategic Urban
Policy.
by CNB