Some time ago I heard about a report on Black students and education that “showed”, among other things, that Black kids respond more to the praise of teachers than parents. I found that stunning and still say it is not believable.

But I write that to write, isn’t it amazing that if you consider Blacks in the inner city schools as a group, then the group’s “lack of emphasis” on education is the key? Yet, when some of those same students are moved to a program like KIPP or when the parents jump ship to charter schools or private vouchers, than those groups of Blacks are no longer considered?

If not clear, it’s just the issue of aggregation vs deaggregation.

A poverty mindset–definitely yes. Influenced by racism??

Don’t forget that this same type of trend can be seen in counties where the population is majority white. Whites that are either heavily involved with their kids and/or have the resources will move their kids to either a private school or use their friends’ address so that they can send their kids to the “better” school. California has plenty of examples of this that I can point to. On the other hand, I have seen Black folks do the same thing. I can’t say I blame them one bit.

This is why I tend to agree with the question Ed posed by asking what percentage of this is the parent’s/child responsibility versus the schools’. Check this out! This is an article that was written back in 1993 about the PG county school system.

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The county is famous for its large black middle-class. Writing in the New York Times Magazine, David J. Dent called it “the closest thing to utopia that black middle-class families could find in America.” But like most of sub-urban America, the county has found itself vulnerable to bourgeois trendiness. The board of education, which oversees a two-thirds black student population, has hit upon a race-specific fad: Afrocentrism.

In 1987 the board voted, innocently enough, to restructure its schools’ curricula and expand the coverage of “race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economics, religion, region, age, and citizen-ship,” according to board member Suzanne M. Plogman. When a nine-foot-tall stack of 32 multicultural course manuals appeared before the board for approval at the start of the 1991-92 school year, some complained that the two-week review period did not allow enough time for their proper consideration. Despite warnings from several parents, the board hustled through a vote endorsing all but two of the manuals.

Problems with much of the approved curriculum soon emerged, and Superintendent Edward M. Felegy suspended five social-studies guides for further review. Good thing, too: Reading them, one discovers that slaves chopped sugar cane in the American Southwest; that Croatians (instead of Croatan Indians) served as the heretofore unknown levelers of the “Lost Colony” in Roanoke, North Carolina; that the English fought the British in the American Revolution; and, according to one illustration, that colonial mothers had access to electric ranges in their kitchens.

Yet these errors – some of which could be reasonably attributed to poor copy editing, though this raises its own troubling questions – only break the surface of a much deeper problem. The tenth-grade world-history manual, for instance, drenches itself in black nationalist historical revisionism. The guide starts by allowing the word “African” to slip in and out of its racial connotation enough times to ensure that ancient Egypt comes across as an exclusively black nation, a theory widely disputed by Egyptologists. The authors then cite the notorious Portland Baseline Essays, George James’s Stolen Legacy, and other questionable reference points to reinforce their claims and state, predictably, that “Egypt was supreme in the leadership of civilization … Egyptian culture survived and flourished under the name and control of the Greeks.”

By relying so heavily on these Afrocentric authorities, the curriculum appears more intent on engaging in racial polemics than on teaching history. Approximately 5 per cent of the world history manual’s 164 pages, for instance, is devoted to making the case for black African migrations to the pre-Columbian Americas, an idea dismissed by most archaeologists and Mesoamerican experts.

All of this aims chiefly at boosting the self-esteem of black students. The increasingly familiar argument runs something like this: The school performance of black students lags behind that of whites because the black students lack a proper sense of self-worth. They live in a society that does not value them, one that constantly reminds them of their diminished status. Educators must teach all students to value themselves in order for them to achieve high marks in school. As school-board member Brenda Hughes told the Bowie Blade-News, the county’s Afrocentric curricula “will enhance [students'] self-esteem, motivate achievement, and help them to be law-abiding citizens.” (source)

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I find this interesting because it addresses the question weather or not if the curriculum has ever been tailored to “Black needs”.

Yep. That’s ONE of the sad things about it.

TRIM plays a part. I don’t see how new schools can be built and existing schools updated with TRIM in place. But, relying on property taxes won’t mean anything if parents don’t do their part and students don’t do their part.

I just need to know how much is parents/children and how much is the school system.

Bowie High School innovation.

The short explanation for the poor performance of Af-Am students in Prince George’s is the same for that of similarly populated, upwardly-mobile suburban counties all over America; relatively little of the ‘affluence’ — be it material, intellectual, social, or spiritual — is directed towards the school system with the education of Af-Ams in mind. Such an environment describes a condition of poverty as perhaps influenced by racism, factors that too many of us do not want to confront. Unfortunately.

Mitchilleville is growing. I call it BougieVillie. The homes are cars are NICE. The people earn good money or at least look like they do.

Toll Brothers, NVR, and other luxury builders are building nice homes in the county. Relative to Montgomery, Anne Arundel, and Northern Virgina, the prices are reasonable. I’ve looked at the area and am unsure of moving there, not because of crime, that’s mostly inside the Beltway in areas that border D.C. except for car theft which is the worst in Maryland. I’m not sure because of traffic issues and schools.

I lived in Montgomery County and I remember the traffic issues. If I lived in PG County, it would be 12 years of private school for “D.S. 2.0″ and given the area, that’s a lot of money. But if I stay in this area, based on what I’ve learned in the past few months, I’ll be spending the money anyway, unless we home school.

But back to the topic, I’d like to see a better breakdown, especially the percentage of Black students in private schools in the area. Which schools are performing poorly, by region (inside vs outside beltway), income, etc.

Why?

Just because the Black people I work with who live in PG County, are sending their kids to private schools or are seriously considering moving to Howard County or Charles County, for better schools.

Additionally, because of the poor schools, it seems like more parents are getting involved to improve the schools.

But that is ancedotal.

The county is hostile to charter schools but some parents are trying to get a few opened.

I think the next 5 years for the school system will be telling.

The neighborhood school concept is just getting back to being used after parents and the local NAACP sued to stop busing of students.

A little reported factoid is the number of Blacks leaving PG county to go to Charles county because of the school system.