[Dryerase] TTT-Why Are Our Schools Failing Black Children?

[Michael Novick]

Why Are Our Schools Failing Black Children?
by
Mabie Settlage

I am a middle school teacher, and I've been teaching for 15 years in 
inner-city South Central Los Angeles. My students are both Latino and 
African American. There has been a continuing "discussion" in L.A. of the 
behavior of African American, or Black students  provoked by a letter by a 
teacher at John Muir H.S. in Pasadena, and an article about it in the L.A. 
Times. In response, I would like to offer some observations.

First, it was said that the teacher, in complaining about the "disruptive 
behavior" of Black male students, and blaming it for poor educational 
results and low test scores, was only offering "empirical evidence, 
supported by statistics." But empirical evidence, offered without context 
or history, can be as manipulative and misleading as false propaganda. It's 
very American to say, "Let's look at this minute, just this minute," and 
then try to make generalizations or draw conclusions. That's ridiculous and 
an utter waste of time.

On September 11, 2001, events in the U.S. horrified the world. What 
happened, the empirical observation, has been replayed for political 
purposes ever since. But the "why," which would necessitate examining 
context and history, and that might prevent such an event from happening 
again, is ignored. So it is, too, in respect to America's ongoing race 
relations and racial issues. We refuse to let history shed any light on 
current reality.

Ten years ago, a bevy of right-wing ideologues put out a spate of 
"scholarly" books, papers and publications that categorized Black and Brown 
youth as violent, based on an imagined "jungle past." Nowhere in their 
writings was there any discussion of white violence. Yet from the beginning 
of this country, white violence has led the society, from the encounters 
with Native Americans, forced slave labor of Africans, escape from English 
governmental control, development of a docile labor force, and denial of 
voting rights to all but white property-owning males. The Twentieth Century 
saw the development and use of weapons of mass violence, targeted at 
civilians, as the leading employer and mainstay of U.S. industry, only to 
be recently overtaken by the prison-industrial complex of today.

LYNCHING

One particular chapter of this history of white violence is especially 
taboo  lynching. Very specific, very close, whites would gather in hundreds 
and thousands to beat, cut , hang and burn Black people, in forms of 
violence as extreme as any ever perpetrated by humans. Lynching by white 
mobs is always left out of the discussion of how violent and mob-like 
non-whites can be.

The U.S. uses children to drive the commercial economy. The psychological 
temptations and seductions used to generate desired consumer behavior are 
often violent, often sexual. Our society sells music, videos, attitudes, 
clothes, movies, TV air-time, and toys via a culture full of violence and 
disrespect for authority. All American children (and increasingly, children 
around the globe) are affected, both academically and culturally. But when 
children mimic the behaviors they have been socially inundated with, we 
blame them and their parents, as individuals. We expect discipline from 
children who are products of an increasingly undisciplined and selfish 
commercial society.

Many areas of our society have been adversely affected by the direction in 
which youth culture has been pushed U.S. capitalism in its drive for 
profits. But observably, the most affected are children whose social 
setting is more disorganized and alienating. This often includes Black 
children, and also Brown children, though for the time being, they have not 
been as heavily targeted for blame by the media. Even in respect to this, 
however, we must acknowledge that school shooters have been overwhelmingly 
rural, white and male. Is it an accident that the media are suddenly 
singling out Black youth as the culprits guilty of educational failures at 
the same moment that the L.A. mayor and police chief are singling them out 
as the cause of violence and crime?

RECENT LOCAL HISTORY

Let's look at some recent history. At my school, we have sixth, seventh and 
eighth graders. When I entered the system, there had been a successful 
lawsuit charging that English learners, mostly Latino/a immigrants, were 
not being served by the State of California. So we teachers were trained. 
In order to bring up the test scores of those targeted children, I had over 
125 hours of training, one part off-campus for two weeks that I paid for. 
Sure enough, the test scores of those children went up. One of the 
principles that we were taught was respect for the culture of Latino 
(Mexicano/a and Central American) children, to understand their history, 
and show respect for the language they came into the system with.

EBONICS

When this same idea was suggested as also being meaningful to help African 
American children raise their test scores, and named "Ebonics," it was 
trashed and ridiculed in the media and by political figures. There was no 
attempt to understand it was the same principle that was being applied to 
immigrant children. Of course white society doesn't respect Black culture 
and history; as a nation, we never have.

For "English Learners" (EL), the term used for immigrant children, there 
are several possibilities for grouping children to achieve success. For 
so-called "English Only" (EO) students, the term used essentially for 
African Americans children at my school, there are only two, often 
overcrowded classes in groups that stay together over the entire three 
years of middle school, no matter how successful or dysfunctional the group 
is. The only "alternative" is Special Ed, for children defined as having 
learning disorders or disabilities.

I have seen the EO 6th grade classes given again and again to the newer or 
weaker teachers, who often know nothing of the children's history or 
culture, and they often fail to teach, to reach or to discipline these 
students. I have watched students who enter in poorly-behaving groups being 
kept in those same groups because there are no different group levels, as 
offered to EL students.

THE TRAGEDIES OF DAILY LIFE

Tragically, I have seen sweet 6th graders enter my school, restless and 
hopeful, and leave three years later, behaving obnoxiously, undisciplined, 
defiant and uneducated. My school did not help them, it hurt.  I have 
written letters to LAUSD school board officials, and complained in local 
and regional education and school district meetings over the years, to 
embarrassed silence by everyone, regardless of race.

TIMIDITY, INDIFFERENCE & EMBARRASSMENT

With respect to Black children, if white teachers are intimidated, Latino 
teachers are distant, and Black teachers are embarrassed, who is going to 
step forward to demand and nurture good behavior and academic success for 
them, as for all our children?

The U.S. has a history of distorting, fabricating and embellishing the 
supposedly good behavior of white society and the supposedly bad behavior 
of any "others," but especially Black people. This belief system and 
methodology originally justified racial chattel slavery, and is now used to 
justify the prison/industrial complex. We can understand this fully, only 
if we are willing to put in work  to understand the history and colonial 
make-up of our class and race relations.  Through this work, we can 
deconstruct our own assumptions, and increase our expectations of Black 
children.

BLACK MALE YOUTH IN THE MEDIA

Understand the role of the media. The Pasadena teacher's letter, widely 
publicized by the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets, are also 
simultaneously stigmatizing Black youth as the culprits in a supposed wave 
of killings. Is this a coincidence?

Thirteen years ago, in NY, a brutal rape and beating took place in Central 
Park. A white professional woman was brutalized, and five Black boys were 
arrested, charged and forced into confessions. There was a media frenzy, 
and the boys were called a "pack," fiends, and "super-predators 'wilding' 
in the park." People in the city called for the death penalty. Donald Trump 
took out full-page ads calling for their execution, although they were 
juveniles not charged with a capital crime. Earlier this year, a man 
unconnected to the five confessed that he alone had raped and beaten the 
jogger. Now even the D.A. is moving to overturn the convictions. It had 
been a media hype, damaging to everyone, especially the boys who did 13 
years in prison for a crime they did not commit.

A letter similar to that from the Pasadena teacher, and to the letter from 
teachers at L.A.'s Washington Prep H.S. was written about a month before at 
Jefferson High School, similarly criticizing Latino students there, 
resulting in a campus riot  and it did not get reported in any L.A. media. 
The news media target those they want to denigrate.

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
OR EVIDENCE OF EMPIRE?

Here is some other empirical evidence. Real money has been taken out of 
schools in California and put, almost dollar for dollar, into prisons. To 
keep this profit-motivated system going, the state needs thousands of 
uneducated, angry young people coming into the criminal justice system 
every year, and the public schools are providing them.

African American children are fundamentally no different from any other 
children. They need hope. They need firm, consistent academic and social 
education. I have seen caring, but very firm teachers get control of even 
the "worst-behaving" classes at my school, when the system cares to assign 
them.

WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE?

All adults in a society are accountable for the rearing of our society's 
children. There are real, even severe problems in some areas that have been 
feeding the frenzy in media coverage. It is no mystery, it is part of 
history. So what are we going to do about?


Mabie Settlage is a long-time middle school teacher. She has been an 
anti-racist community activist in L.A. and in the US southeast where she is 
originally from. She has conducted training and workshops on uprooting 
white supremacy, and written about education issues from a classroom 
teacher's perspective.