Education Problems and Acceptance

UWM's Professor Martin Haberman has written a paper on the state of inner-city education, in which he charges the educational system with racism. In this essay, he charges

The reason that several hundred thousand of these central office functionaries in 120 districts can get away with, indeed be rewarded for, the unforgivable mass educational killing of children is that these are children of color and children in poverty. If the suburban and small town schools of Wisconsin had a graduation rate of 36% (the current graduation rate for African Americans in my city) there would not be an air of calm “professionalism” in the central offices, or at the school board, or in the streets outside the schools. The parents (and their lawyers) would be engaged in activities that would be closing down the system. The Governor would be calling out the National Guard to protect school property and convening a special session of the state legislature. The President as well as the Secretary of Education would be making personal visits and commitments promising immediate change. The universities, business associations, and community organizations would be holding forums and meetings. Churches would be holding all night vigils. The local foundations would be funding special studies and action task forces. The media would keep the story on page one until the system was changed. If the victims of such horrendous miseducation were white children in small towns and suburbs rather than urban minority children and children in poverty the dysfunctional bureaucracy would not survive one year let alone be allowed to grow even worse every year for over half a century.

I have elsewhere commented on the continuing use of race-based paradigms to address problems in our society. But let us consider the highlighted statement. Professor Hagerman says that, if suburban education produced such dismal graduation rates, there would be a mass popular protest against the district that would demand an overhaul. My question for the professor would be, why is there not such a protest in the inner-city he is talking about (Milwaukee, where I also live)? Isn't this a major problem? Suburban parents would not accept a 36% graduation rate, but inner city parents are. Any attempt to address the deficiencies of inner-city education must deal with this acceptance of inadequacy.

This is exactly what comedian Bill Cosby, who holds a doctorate in education, has been talking about, sometimes to great criticism.

This is about little children ... and people not giving them better choices. ... Talking. Talking. Parenting. Correctly parenting. That's what it's about. And you can't blame other things. You got to -- you got to straighten up your house. Straighten up your apartment. Straighten up your child.

and again

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. ... The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. ... Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. ... They are standing on the corner and they can't speak English.

CNN writes of the reception Cosby has received,

Some of his critics have attacked him for airing what they see as the black community's dirty laundry in public. Others said that Cosby should also be condemning establishment institutions that, in their view, helped create the situation.

But, if parents will not take the lead and demand better service from their local educational system, as Professor Hagerman says suburban parents would do, how can one condemn the services for being bad?

There is a general sense of acceptance in inner city communities of the way things are, from poor education and high dropout rates, to drugs, gangs, teen pregnancy, etc. The hip hop culture, so popular in that world, glamorizes gangs, drug dealing and prostitution, making incarceration and gunshot wounds badges of honor. (I'm not criticizing a genre of music, but rather a culture, created by marketing gurus to sell CDs.) For example, on the marketing of rapper Shyne's album "Godfather Buried Alive",

Def Jam's willingness to capitalize on [Jamal, Shyne's real name] Barrow's criminal background to promote his CD may seem crass, but it is the kind of stunt that is becoming more common as record companies strive to remain relevant to consumers. Increasingly, the music industry has sought to refashion itself as the prime purveyor of not just music, but culture and lifestyle. With the encouragement of music executives, such artists as Britney Spears and 50 Cent have teamed up with corporate advertisers to hawk shoes, soda and video games.

When it comes to rap stars, music industry executives know that they're selling menace as well as music. Criminality adds credibility, and in the case of Barrow, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., for assault, it may have been more marketable than his talent.

"Buying into Shyne isn't like buying into the normal hip-hop artist," said Marcus Logan, a consultant who helped construct the marketing campaign for Barrow's new release. "With him, the music is almost secondary…. We were selling his story, his credibility."

If, in this culture, "criminality adds credibility," how can one expect that simply "condemning establishment institutions," as Cosby's critics desire, even hope to redress the problems? (Interestingly, the chorus of critics includes Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam, who said "Judgment of the people in the situation is not helpful. How can you help them is the question.")

The reprehensible willingness of inner-city focused businesses like Def Jam to glamorize and exploit the very problems that oppress the people of the inner cities in order to make a buck must be considered a significant part of the problem. Life in the inner city will not improve, regardless of reforms in the government bureaucracy, until the people of the inner city commit to no longer accepting the status quo and begin to hold themselves to a higher standard. Education in the inner cities will not improve until inner city parents begin to act like the suburban parents in Professor Haberman's paper.