TheLoop21.com

By: Marvin King (Add to your loop)
Fri, 07/31/2009 - 00:00

Why should we accept less than the best schools?

The state of black public education is abysmal. African Americans have to be ashamed of at the achievement gap. True, you have standout schools. True, the overall levels of educational attainment have improved over the last 40 and 50 years.

But the unsettling truth is that society leaves far too many black students behind.

When it comes to education, African Americans should not settle for simply being better. Being the best should be the only standard.

One much ballyhooed alternative is the charter school, which we heard a lot about during the premiere of CNN's Black in America 2. Not all charter schools are as successful as Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., where the tough, but effective Steve Perry is principal, but many are.

Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, a pro-charter outfit, concedes that "forty-six percent of charter schools offered a comparable education to similar public schools, 17 percent offered a superior education and 37 percent offered an inferior one." On reading and math scores, there is little evidence that blacks will do better at the average charter school.

So why should we support charter schools? First, parents deserve choice. If your local public school is average at best, you deserve an opportunity. Settling for average leads too many African Americans to below average aspirations and outcomes.

Second, you can bet that parents will demand more charter schools that are in the superior category. If parents at one charter school know that another nearby charter school has succeeded in improving the test scores that gets their kids accepted into college, they will demand change at their own charter school, or they will move on. That is the value of charter schools, that they can (or should) adapt better and more quickly than public schools. Changing a public school is like parallel parking an 18-wheeler. It takes forever.

Third, because schools like Steve Perry's and the Bronx's Eagle Academy for Young Men, which Paul Mondesire wrote about recently, are making a difference. They're often innovative schools that fill a niche for young black men and women.

As an advocate of public schools, I have always resisted charter schools as nothing more than conservative efforts to tear apart public schools. I always thought these advocates did not have the best interests of African Americans and Hispanics in mind; really, they want to dismantle public schools and replace them with for-profit private schools. In my mind, these folks are anti-tax types that essentially want to save a buck by eliminating public schools.

My views are changing now because the public school system continues to fail too many black students. Just look at the numbers in a new report on the gap between the performance of black students and white students. High drop out rates equal high incarceration rates, which mean more poverty and more poor schools for black students, and then the cycle repeats. Viciously.

People fail to recognize that because more than 80 percent of black parents lack a college degree, they often have a more difficult time helping and preparing their children succeed in school. This systemic inequity puts millions of black schoolchildren at a structural disadvantage.

We don't need charter schools in every town. Where public schools work, don't fix them. Where public schools fail, and fail repeatedly, the state should mandate competition through charter schools. Let parents decide.

Marvin King is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Mississippi and writes the blog King Politics.

Photo by chidorian.

Will you watch all of CNN's 'Black in America 2'?

Yes, it'll be better

Maybe, depends on what I hear

No, the first was terrible

I'm not sure yet