For those of you that follow my personal blog, you know that on July 30, I welcomed my second son into the world. While I am honored, overjoyed, head-over-heels and feeling super charmed at being charged with the task of raising another young black male, I, ever the forward-thinking-worry-wart (so aptly named by my Mama), have also been somewhat filled with apprehension at the task. Now, I have discussed my concerns before as they relate to pressures within our own community. Recently, however, I came across a video on CNN revealing some startling new facts about black male performance in our national schools.
In the video, CNN correspondents revealed that the national graduate rate for black males is 47%. Even more appalling, in my hometown of New York City, the graduation rate for black males is just 28%. While I prepared to watch a video about biased standardized tests and socio-economic disadvantages, I was surprised when CNN Educational Correspondent and author, Steve Perry, pointed the finger directly at the prejudice of educators. When asked specifically what he thought accounted for the discrepancy, Perry repeated “expectations, expectations, expectations.” In sum, Perry noted that black males are more likely to be suspended as their behavior is often unfairly categorized as dangerous as opposed to mischievous – due to educators reacting more adversely to black male behaviors than white children. He noted that educators often expect our black boys to fail as opposed to expecting them to perform well. Perry went on to discuss successful charter and private schools whose focus is more on the children as opposed to the educators. As the Principal and Founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School, he used his own school as an example of children-focused environments where changing expectations produced better results.
While I am generally skeptical of statistics, this one and the conversation that followed was particularly intriguing to me. First, while I like to consider myself a true libertarian, I realized as a professional, I have found myself feeling somewhat insulated by own socio-economic status. Frankly, I just assume graduating high school, college and so forth will not be an issue for my children. Therefore, it was easy for me to point to socio-economic disadvantages as the root cause of underperformance in our communities. However, taking a closer look at this conversation and how it has applied to my own upbringing has cast a very bright light on just how true Perry’s commentary is. I recalled a recent conversation I had with my older brother about an experience he had in high school with a teacher who made him sit in the front of the classroom because he “looked” like he would be trouble. Knowing my brother and knowing how he was raised, I can confidently say his only offense was being a 6’5” black man. My brother and I laughed about it but I can tell the incident still left a bitter taste in his mouth and although he graduated, I wondered if the incident contributed to his decision not to pursue higher education. I know my mother had high expectations of all of her children but were they overshadowed by the low expectations of the school system? How do we even begin to call educators out on such an innate and institutionalized bias? Is it even realistic to think that you can change an individual’s expectations of an entire race or is a total overhaul of the education system the only solution? What are your thoughts MOH?
