Unequal Schools Threaten Future of U.S.

I spent some time researching my genealogy recently. I uncovered some notable ancestors, a number of quiet heroes and a few interesting characters. I learned several surprising things about the people who contributed to my being here. Discovering what many of them accomplished during their time made me realize I have a whole lot of catching up to do.

In one narrow aspect, this exploration confirmed what I already knew. I’m about as White as a person can be.

I’m not ashamed of my lack of color. I am proud of from whom and where I came. There are some brave slavery abolitionists inhabiting my line and I consider myself open-minded and free of racism. I have come to terms with my country’s checkered history pockmarked with racial inequality and would like to think I have helped the effort to stamp it out during my life. I have been willing to speak up against injustice – most of the time. Plus, I live in 2012, for God’s sake. Sure, racism still exists, but I convince myself the day is within reach when racial discrimination is something relegated to history books.

That’s why I winced when I heard Jada Williams read her essay. The 13-year-old from Rochester, New York had written a book report on The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in which she had the temerity to say little had change from the days of slavery – “just different people, different era” and “the same old discrimination still resides in the hearts of the white man.” Who does this girl think she is?

Williams said this about her mostly White teachers; “they are in a position of power to dictate what I can, cannot, and will learn, only desiring that I may get bored because of the inconsistency and the mismanagement of the classroom.”

My knee jerk reaction was to dismiss Williams as a hothead quick to play the race card, but something nagged me and I listened to her read her essay again. It is well written, but it has the undeniable voice of a 13-year-old, albeit a bright one. She has picked up some education along the way belying the charges she leveled at her school. Then I heard Williams say, “the reality of this is that most of my peers cannot read, and therefore comprehend the materials that have been provided.”

Aha! Surely she twisted a fact to make her point. Quick, to Google to prove she is exaggerating to dismiss her as nothing more than an overly excitable teen.

Unfortunately, old Whitie (me) finds a report about Rochester City School District, School 3 indicating that only 19 percent of the school’s eighth graders were proficient in language arts last year. A paltry 13 percent were proficient in math. Not only is Ms. Williams correct, I am beginning to think she underplayed the problem by saying most of her peers cannot read. She should have said nearly all of them.

A book about Frederick Douglass inspired Rochester, NY student Jada Williams to write a powerful essay.

Something is clearly wrong when a school has numbers like these. Freedom isn’t reaching its potential in a country where large segments of many communities are not learning, not gaining the tools essential for success, let alone, setting a course to self-reliance. Jada Williams knows this.

The Iowa General Assembly has spent much time this year debating education reform legislation and, save maybe a couple of those elected officials, none of them have made a better assessment of what is wrong in U.S. schools than this eighth grader did. As hard as it for me to admit, Ms. William’s jarring assertions are on target, but we should not stop there. Even in this day and age, race remains a factor, but socioeconomic differences play a role as well. The virulent, festering problem of inequality still threatens.

Much of what is said and written during the education reform debate involves testing and screening teachers. Ms. Williams, too, wants to make those who teach accountable, but she seems to know testing has little to do with the solution. America’s ailing schools will not be cured with more testing and additional rules that tie the hands of those professionals motivated to teach. We must establish a system that trains teaching professionals and lets them guide learning free from the micromanagement of elected officials.

We should heed the call of Jada Williams and fan a revolution. Until we change the culture of our schools and turn them from dismal factories processing children through a series of pass/fail assessments to places that inspire students to learn, Jada Williams, her classmates and countless American children will continue to suffer a clear and present life disadvantage.

Our best national investment is in the creation of schools that motivate the next generation of Americans to reach for a potential their ancestors never imagined. Perhaps the opening lines of our next national chapter on social justice and equality may begin with the words of a thirteen-year-old.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com


This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.