Dear President Obama,
I am honored to serve on the “U.S. Commission for Improving the Quality of Education Opportunity for Marginalized Children in the United States.” I know that there are many positive attributes to an American education; however, there is much more to be done to ensure quality. I agree that conditions have worsened since Brown vs. Board of Education and it has been ignored or overlooked.
America, we have failed our schools by intentionally and unintentionally restoring segregation. In the book The Shame of the Nation, Kozol attacks the disparity in expenditures on education between central cities and wealthy , and the system of property taxes which most for funding school systems and states rely on. It describes how, in the United States, Black and Hispanic students tend to be concentrated in schools where they make up almost the entire student body. Kozol found that conditions had grown worse for inner-city children in the 50 years since the Supreme Court in the landmark ruling of Brown v. Board of Education dismantled the previous policy of segregated schools and their conceit of "separate but equal".
The chief most significant cause to resegregation in America is due to socioeconomic status. The rich live in luxury and the poor struggle for survival. Socioeconomic status determines the quality of education a child receives. Funding for education is provided by the federal government and from property taxes. The property taxes of the inner city are value far less than the suburbs. The more property taxes, the more funding for your school district. For example, in Arizona, a typical class of children of low income receives $29,000 less than does a class of nonpoor children, in Texas $23,000 less, Pennsylvania $33,000 less, in Illinois nearly $62,000 less and in New York $65,000 less (page 246). These numbers have determined that our suburban students are worth more value than their counterparts. As commissioner, I would like to increase more federal funding per pupil in the inner city in efforts to build better facilities with state of the art technology and to provide inner city students with more resources conducive to learning.
The Robin Hood approach would not be successful because taking money from the rich to give to the poor will upset “hard working families” and people do not want to share the wealth and only invest in the school district their child attends. I have seen money taken from the suburban schools and the funds improved athletics in the inner city and not toward education. However, equal funding for ALL students is a passion for mine. Education should not be depicted by dollar signs. President George W. Bush once compared increasing the funding of urban schools to “pumping gas into a flooded engine,” implying that any additional funds received by urban schools would be a waste. Is the value of a child similar to a flooded engine?
In the education system, children are viewed as an investment. It's like buying into a stock. Those who want to invest into a good stock, will invest their money and time into children who will be more successful. The children who are not able to mature intellectually and academically, are not children people want to invest in.
In many cities, wealthier white families continued to leave the city to settle in suburbs, with minorities comprising most of the families left in the public school system. This is known as white flight. White flight is a form of segregation because it allows a group of people to be separated in one particular area known as ghettos. When minorities begin to integrate into predominantly white neighborhoods, the demographics change from mostly white to a minority neighborhood. There is lack of diversity in our communities, therefore we are not able to live, work, or play with other races. Flight indicates fear, it indicates separatism, and most importantly it’s another form of segregation. For example, a friend of mine Richard Mills, who also served as a commissioner of education, discussed about a virulent resistance in East Meadows to keep students from Roosevelt integrating their schools.
The fliers said that Roosevelt schools were “failing badly,” because of rampant violence” and “drug sales” and “continual assaults” and other problems such as “teenage pregnancies.” If the integration plan went through the fliers warned “we will have no choice except to remove our children from the Eat Meadow schools and away(page 158).” This residential segregation is a repeat of the segregation of the 1950’s, but are accepted with terms such as school zone or school district. In Alabama, an area of apartments that were populated by minorities and was a part of the suburban school district but was soon annexed from the district and those students had to attend the inner city schools. As commissioner, I would suggest combining school districts, especially the smaller districts with other districts. This will allow populations of race to integrate and more federal funding will be used to accommodate the growth in populations.
Segregation has a major impact on the educational and cultural climate of schools. Minority students who attend suburban school districts are a part of a curriculum that they are not able to identify themselves with. Minorities of the inner city are taught the fundamentals of an American education. Fundamentals include ideologies, concepts, theories, literature, and history that are mostly credited to white scholars, leaving little curriculum to discuss the achievements of minorities and their contribution throughout history. As commissioner, I would like to implement a multicultural education. Research indicates that lessons, units, and teaching materials that include content about different racial and ethnic groups can help students to develop more positive intergroup attitudes if certain conditions exist in the teaching situation (Banks, 1995b). These conditions include positive images of the ethnic groups in the materials and the use of multiethnic materials in a consistent and sequential way.
The structure of classes in public schools is different than suburban areas. Disciplinary and behavioral corrections are a main focus in school. Recess is removed from elementary schools and is replaced for time focused on standardized testing. Teachers are emphasizing on standardized testing rather than being passionate for their specialty subject. Our expectations of inner city students are too low. Kozol’s addresses how inner city students are trained or given career choices that will make them “governed” and not “governors”. For example, one school official said, “We must start to think of students as workers” (p.94). We must instill in our youth they can be more than workers, beauticians, basketball players, rappers, or cashiers. But we must initiate a psychic conversion for our students to think of themselves as equal, capable to achieve, and give them affirmation that they are human, too.
“We now have far more educated black adults who have participated in desegregated schooling and who don’t want to go back. We also have a lot more white adults who have experienced school integration and have seen it work successfully.” Most people are not “doing anything politically today,” Orfield said, “but we should challenge them to act….” (page 122) We must stand up to segregation. No child should be left behind.
Sincerely,
Christopher Brown
5 Sentences of the Big Picture
In Chapters 5-8 of Race Matters, West address the importance of affirmative action and how it has helped promote redistributive measures to minorities but has not completely healed the racial divide in America. He also discusses the Black and Jewish relations on how to respond to xenophobia and racism among these people. West also tries to discuss the myths of black sexuality and encourages blacks to love their own bodies. In the final chapter, West discusses Malcolm X and his efforts to empower African Americans to rise against injustices. The chapter didn’t quite seem fitting for the book, but it left a feeling of empowerment.
4 Key Passages
Chapter Five page 96
“Affirmative action is not the most important issue for black progress in America, but it is part of a redistributive chain that must be strengthened if we are to confront and eliminate black poverty. If there were social democratic redistributive measures that wiped out black poverty, and if racial and sexual discrimination could be abated through the good will and meritorious judgments of those in power, affirmative action would unnecessary.”
Chapter Six page 109
“The present impasse in black-Jewish relations will be overcome only when self-critical exchanges take place within and across black and Jewish communities not simply about their own group interest but also, and more importantly, about what being black or Jewish means in ethical terms. This kind of reflection should take us to a higher moral ground where serious discussions about democracy and justice determine how we define ourselves and our policies and help us formulate strategies and tactics to sidestep the traps of tribalism and chauvinism.”
Chapter Seven page 125
“Black sexuality is a taboo subject in America principally because it is a form of black power over which whites have little control over-yet its visible manifestations evoke the most visceral of white responses, be it one of seductive obsession or downright disgust. On the one hand, black sexuality among blacks simply does not include whites, nor does it make them a central point of reference. It proceeds as if whites do not exist, as if whites are invisible and simply don’t matter. This form of black sexuality puts black agency center stage with no white presence at all. This can uncomfortable for white people accustomed to being custodians of power.”
Chapter Eight page 136
“Malcolm X was the prophet of black rage primarily because of his great love was neither abstract nor ephemeral. Rather, it was a concrete connection with a degraded and devalued people in need of psychic conversion. This is why Malcolm X’s articulation of black rage was not directed first and foremost at white America. Rather Malcolm believed that if black people felt the love that motivated that rage, the love would produce a psychic conversion in black people; they would affirm themselves as human beings, no longer viewing their bodies, minds, and souls through white lenses, and believing themselves capable of taking control of their own destinies.”
3 Key Terms
Page 104: anti-Semitism - is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion.
Page 124: miscegenation-The mixing or blending of race in marriage or breeding, interracial marriage; A mixing or blending, especially one which is considered to be inappropriate
Page 136: psychic conversion- the altering of one’s mindset through affirmation and overcoming biases, discrimination, and being valued
2 Connections
1. When discussing black sexuality with females they are often viewed as video vixens. Sex sell in the music industry and I don’t agree with the images of half nude black girls and the lyrics in rap songs with such lyrics referring to them as “bitches and hoes.” This devalues them and makes black women look promiscuous. Men will only view these women as sexual tools. Watch the following video….
2. I don’t know how I got into Baylor. Whether it was based on my academics or to meet a quota of minorities to attend the school; however, I will say that affirmative action is really beneficial in the education to allow minorities to attend schools so many few are accepted it. Affirmative action is also beneficial for white Americans. I have a white friend who wanted to attend an HBCU and he received minority scholarships.
1 Question Remaining
Which had the better philosophy of empowering black Americans? Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X?
5 Sentences of the Big Picture
"Race Matters", addresses a number of issues of importance to black America. Covering a range of topics including affirmative action, black sexuality and the crisis in black leadership, West's discussion presents a gloomy assessment of efforts within recent decades to overcome institutional obstacles to black achievement, such as the legacy of slavery and the persistence of white racism. Chapter one introduces his theory of nihilism in contemporary African American communities and how it is a social disease that permeates African American communities and can only cause destruction to ourselves and youth. Chapter two speaks of the racial reasoning in the Clarence Thomas debate. Chapter three West discusses the crisis of Black leadership and in chapter four he demystifies the new black conservative.
4 Key Passages
1. Chapter One pages 26-27
“Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort, convenience, machismo, femininity, violence, and sexual stimulation that bombard consumers. These seductive images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life overall others and thereby edge out nonmarket values-love, care, service to others-handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward off self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.”
2. Chapter Two page 38
“The fundamental aim of this undermining and dismantling is to replace racial reasoning with moral reasoning, to understand the black freedom struggle not as an affair of skin pigmentation and racial phenotype but rather as a matter of ethical principles and wise politics, and to combat the black nationalist attempt to subordinate the issues and interests of black women by linking mature black self-love and self-respect to egalitarian relations within and outside black communities. The failure of nerve of black leadership is its refusal to undermine and dismantle the framework of racial reasoning.”
3. Chapter Three page 70
“To be a serious black leader is to be a race-transcending prophet who critiques the powers that be (including the black component of the Establishment) and who puts forward a vision of fundamental social change for all who suffer from socially induced misery.”
4. Chapter Four page 83
“Nevertheless, black Americans have systematically rejected the arguments of the new black conservatives. This is not because blacks are duped by liberal black politicians nor because blacks worship the Democratic Party. Rather, it is because most blacks conclude that while racial discrimination is not the sole cause of their plight, it certainly is one cause. Thus, most black Americans view the new black conservative assault on the black liberal leadership as a step backward rather than forward. Black liberalism is indeed is inadequate, but black conservatism is unacceptable.”
3 Key Terms
1. page 22: Nihilism- is to be understood here not as a philosophical doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaningless, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.
2. page 56: Quality leadership- is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons.
3. page 78: Affirmative action- In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills not the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.
2 Connections
1. In resistance to nihilism in the market, my mom didn’t allow my sister to play with dolls when she was little because of the image it portrayed that beauty was important, that that you had to have that complexion, that hair length, and the fashion. Also, my mother felt that having children parent dolls at such a young age would lead to younger parents. Taking care of a doll is not equivalent to raising a baby. My mom also didn’t allow my brothers and I play with toy guns and water guns because she felt that it would instill violence at a young age. I appreciate her not allowing us to play with those toys.
2. In high school, I was one of the few active males at my school and community. I was a leader in community service and raising awareness about HIV and domestic violence. One reason there were few male leaders at my school because you had to sacrifice social popularity and be considered lame and an overachiever. Another reason is that the community didn’t want to take the leadership because we live in a time where we depend on someone else to stand up for what the entire race believes in.
1 question
1. How much different does America view poor black Americans and middle class black Americans. Does race still matter?
5 sentences on the Big Picture
Kozol examines, in chapter nine, the need for a broad political movement. “Herewith…a radical proposal…Revive the civil rights movement, which went into limbo long before some of its most important goals were accomplished…” (p. 216). Kozol reported on the efforts of teachers and principals to resist the restoration and strengthening of segregation in public schools. In Chapter 12, Kozol's last chapter is devoted to display examples of excellence that he witnessed while visiting schools in America’s most segregated and poorest schools. Mr. Bedrock and Miss Rosa demonstrated that even in the worst of situations there is still hope.
4 Key Passages
1. Chapter Nine (page 222)
“We now have far more educated black adults who have participated in desegregated schooling and who don’t want to go back. We also have a lot more white adults who have experienced school integration and have seen it work successfully.” Most people are not “doing anything politically today,” Orfield said, “but we should challenge them to act….”
2. Chapter Nine (page 234)
“No matter what the social obstacles that children, both minority and white, must learn to overcome, no matter what the necessary games that must be played and roles that must be filled in adolescent years (emphasis on style differences, and music tastes, and all the rest of what may seem to separate them at the start), a strange phenomenon- normality, humanity- kicks in; an, not in every case but far more often than a social order with our racial history has reason to expect, they do teach out across the structural divide time and again and we are better, as a nation, for the consequence.”
3. Chapter Twelve (page 286-287)
“Students in these schools still have to take the standardized exams that are required of all children in our public schools, and some of the anxieties associated with these tests and with the annual publication of the scores are present in these schools as well; but nobody tells the children that their test results define their worthiness or that these numbers measure their identities, or limited forms of learning that are tested by a standardized exam are more important than the ones to which a governmental number cannot be attached.”
4. Chapter Twelve (page 299)
“Teachers and principals should not permit the beautiful profession they have chosen to be redefined by those who know far less than they about the hearts of children. When they do this, as in schools in which the principals adopt the borrowed lexicons of building mangers CEOs, they come out sounding inauthentic, self-diminished, and they end up diminishing the human qualities of teachers. Schools can probably survive quite well without their rubric charts and numbered standards-listings plastering the walls. They can’t survive without good teachers and, no matter what curriculum may be in place, whether it’s approved by state officials or by Washington or not, they are no good at all if teachers are unable to enjoy the work they do and be invigorated by it unpredictables.
3 Key Terms
1. page 218; nostalgic- unhappy about being away and longing for familiar things or persons
2. page 218; vestige- a trace; a sign; A faint mark or visible sign left by something which is lost, or has perished, or is no longer present; remain
3. page 293; lamentation-the passionate and demonstrative activity of expressing grief
2 Connections
1. Starting a movement is somewhat scary. No one usually wants to step up to the plate, usually because of fear and the lack of support. I feel that we have overused Brown vs. Board of Education and that verdict was necessary for that time period but 2010 is totally different, same issue but different scenarios. We have to raise our voices. One way I took the initiative was created a Heritage Panel at my high school. Its goal was to build a more inclusive high school through dialogue. I felt that there was so much separation and we needed to be more unified. I had support from many faculty and students.
2. It was always something about my English teachers who always had a lasting impression on me. I noticed when there was a very authentic, nurturing, and caring environment I performed better. I would always notice my teacher’s emotions and other students did as well. It seemed as if my teachers were my mother away from home. When teachers are passionate about their subject and less about standardized testing, school is more enjoyable. We need more teachers who have that same passion and same love. I realize that love, including tough love is what most students want in addition to learning. My teachers have inspired me to teach because of the relationship they built with their students.
1 Question
Is apartheid education worst than slavery?
