26/09: Remembering the Little Rock Nine (Part I): But also Speaking Honestly About the Real Tragedy of our Current State of American Education
Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
We do well to commemorate the heroism of the Little Rock Nine. No group of Americans stands any more deserving of our national commendations and gratitude.
However, too many stories this week, and even some statements emanating from the heroes themselves, identified remnants of segregation and re-segregation as the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Revolution. This far too convenient, conventional, and timid analysis misses the greater tragedy and current crisis:
Too many African American students are far less-prepared to succeed in school and society in 2007 than the Little Rock Nine were in 1957.
Some history:
For fifty years, sometimes ignorantly and sometimes purposefully, we have mischaracterized the goal of school desegregation. In truth, desegregation was never designed primarily to improve education. Rather, court-ordered integration of public schools was always a much larger social experiment designed to break down racial barriers within American culture.
In reply to the plaintiff's evidence presented to the Supreme Court in the storied Brown v. Board case, Justice Robert Jackson privately dismissed the argument as "sociology rather than law."
An aside: I might have added "bad sociology" to boot--but that may strike too many as redundant (something syntactically akin to "cold Vichyssoise").
Not too far removed from his role as the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Jackson understood that second-class citizenship in America based on race was no longer tenable in the post-World War II world. Moreover, Jackson understood that the moment for amelioration had arrived, and the Court was the proper venue for initiating drastic change. The famed jurist set his considerable talents toward cajoling his cohorts into making good law out of a necessary and worthy social goal. And, while reasonable people continue to disagree, for the most part, the Court accomplished its mission in a transcendently sublime way.
Brown inaugurated a social revolution. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Jim Crow fell away. Thanks to Brown, America came to grips with 350 years of oppression, discrimination, and mistreatment. Thanks to the "Washington Nine," the United States redeemed its troubled racial soul.
The Bad News
On the other hand, the pretext for Brown, as a remedy for inferior education for African American citizens, was misleading then and has played out over time as a much less happily successful story. In truth, the state of American education today lies in critical condition. More to the point, the state of education for African American students seems perilously unacceptable.
One of the most under-reported elements of the Little Rock Nine story has always been the scholastic aptitude of the young people tapped to integrate Central High. As Ernest Green asserted recently, the black kids were superior intellectually to vast majority of their 2,000-plus white schoolmates in 1957.
The black students were extremely well prepared to compete at Little Rock's model white high school. The Nine were already poised to excel in post-secondary education long before they attended the big school. They had attended black schools in the Little Rock area where they learned with inferior materials (hand-me-down books) and studied under teachers paid less than their white counterparts. Nevertheless, the Nine emerged from the experience academically disciplined and well-educated.
Why?
They had the support of talented black educators and tight-knit families and communities.
Watching the archival footage of the Nine--and comparing them to the students of today—I am in awe of their courage, demeanor, and sophistication.
What happened?
We lost sight of what makes for good education. Somewhere between then and now, we decided learning revolved around technology, impressive buildings, newer editions of school books, and the shibboleth of self esteem.
This crisis threatens all American students, but African Americans are especially at risk.
The challenge of 2007 is to somehow move beyond political correctness, therapeutic education, and our understandable awkwardness and guilt concerning historic racial injustices. During the first half of the twentieth century, talented and dedicated black educators prepared black students to accomplish great things. Selfless and optimistic black families supported their children and held them to high standards of conduct and achievement.
We won a great battle during the Civil Rights years. However, if we don't find some way to save families and restore discipline in schools, we are going to lose the war for American survival.
However, too many stories this week, and even some statements emanating from the heroes themselves, identified remnants of segregation and re-segregation as the unfinished work of the Civil Rights Revolution. This far too convenient, conventional, and timid analysis misses the greater tragedy and current crisis:
Too many African American students are far less-prepared to succeed in school and society in 2007 than the Little Rock Nine were in 1957.
Some history:
For fifty years, sometimes ignorantly and sometimes purposefully, we have mischaracterized the goal of school desegregation. In truth, desegregation was never designed primarily to improve education. Rather, court-ordered integration of public schools was always a much larger social experiment designed to break down racial barriers within American culture.
In reply to the plaintiff's evidence presented to the Supreme Court in the storied Brown v. Board case, Justice Robert Jackson privately dismissed the argument as "sociology rather than law."
An aside: I might have added "bad sociology" to boot--but that may strike too many as redundant (something syntactically akin to "cold Vichyssoise").
Not too far removed from his role as the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Jackson understood that second-class citizenship in America based on race was no longer tenable in the post-World War II world. Moreover, Jackson understood that the moment for amelioration had arrived, and the Court was the proper venue for initiating drastic change. The famed jurist set his considerable talents toward cajoling his cohorts into making good law out of a necessary and worthy social goal. And, while reasonable people continue to disagree, for the most part, the Court accomplished its mission in a transcendently sublime way.
Brown inaugurated a social revolution. Thanks to the Supreme Court, Jim Crow fell away. Thanks to Brown, America came to grips with 350 years of oppression, discrimination, and mistreatment. Thanks to the "Washington Nine," the United States redeemed its troubled racial soul.
The Bad News
On the other hand, the pretext for Brown, as a remedy for inferior education for African American citizens, was misleading then and has played out over time as a much less happily successful story. In truth, the state of American education today lies in critical condition. More to the point, the state of education for African American students seems perilously unacceptable.
One of the most under-reported elements of the Little Rock Nine story has always been the scholastic aptitude of the young people tapped to integrate Central High. As Ernest Green asserted recently, the black kids were superior intellectually to vast majority of their 2,000-plus white schoolmates in 1957.
The black students were extremely well prepared to compete at Little Rock's model white high school. The Nine were already poised to excel in post-secondary education long before they attended the big school. They had attended black schools in the Little Rock area where they learned with inferior materials (hand-me-down books) and studied under teachers paid less than their white counterparts. Nevertheless, the Nine emerged from the experience academically disciplined and well-educated.
Why?
They had the support of talented black educators and tight-knit families and communities.
Watching the archival footage of the Nine--and comparing them to the students of today—I am in awe of their courage, demeanor, and sophistication.
What happened?
We lost sight of what makes for good education. Somewhere between then and now, we decided learning revolved around technology, impressive buildings, newer editions of school books, and the shibboleth of self esteem.
This crisis threatens all American students, but African Americans are especially at risk.
The challenge of 2007 is to somehow move beyond political correctness, therapeutic education, and our understandable awkwardness and guilt concerning historic racial injustices. During the first half of the twentieth century, talented and dedicated black educators prepared black students to accomplish great things. Selfless and optimistic black families supported their children and held them to high standards of conduct and achievement.
We won a great battle during the Civil Rights years. However, if we don't find some way to save families and restore discipline in schools, we are going to lose the war for American survival.
an okie gardener wrote: