African Americans and the Education System Even though the Brown v. Board of Education was 62 years ago, African Americans are still fighting to have an equal education opportunity. “But many schools are as segregated today as they were before the ruling, and black children throughout the United States are performing at the bottom of the American educational system” (Jackson 1). Nevertheless, it took decades of hard work and struggle by numerous African Americans for a better education system. Education is the key to success, it gives people the knowledge that they need to strive and become more intelligent thinkers, which leads to more opportunities for them in the job industry. Ever since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination of any kind, African Americans have every right to have this equal educational opportunity like everyone else.
I am for tying teachers ability to their student’s assessment scores, but solely characterizing a teacher as good or bad based on those scores alone is not the way we should progress. There are many differing factors that will define how well a student learns. A large part of that does rest with their teachers, but a students learning is closely tied to whether the student also receives the proper support from home. Students, as well as their parents, must be held accountable their education. For students to own their education, the student must be pushed to excel at home.
There are many underlying themes in this collection of essays. One of the themes that DuBois speaks on extensively is education. DuBois stresses the importance of education amongst the black race. He believes that African Americans should be educated in order to guide and teach the uneducated blacks. DuBois stresses the fact that there is a need for higher education, the importance of role models, and the concept of self-motivation for the African American race.
“I Just Wanna Be Average” by Mike Rose illustrates numerous flaws in the education system that discredits the cultural myth of empowerment through education that is essential to achieving the American Dream. Mike Rose’s experience in the education system showed that not all schooling is equal. Mike Rose says that the students were “brought together by geography and parental desire” (152). Parents believed that if they were to bring their children to a private school away from public schools that they would receive a better education based on the assumption that private schools provide a more advanced curriculum and independence in learning. This is proven to be false because students are funneled into different educational tracks, the Vocational education and college prep groups, from the start.
When the opportunity did come along for African Americans to become educated and schools were created for them and by them, there have still being hurdles for them with chances of schools losing accreditation, and financial support for students. Policies, laws, and initiatives must really become priorities to help African Americans to ensure that they are allowed to succeed and achieve the same goals and lives as everyone else. Making sure there are able, understanding, and qualified teachers teaching students is also very important. Teachers play such a big role in the lives of students and helping them to succeed not primary and secondary school, but also continuing their journey’s into places of higher learning. This is a problem that can be fixed as long as we are serious about true equality and opportunities for
Moreover, they believe that their culture and heritage are the only ones with relevance to them. In her article Errors of the Afrocentrists, Anne Wortham examines Afrocentrism and its tendencies to prioritize their heritage over those of other cultures. They don't see their culture as a part of a bigger picture and believe that their history and contributions to society should be more prominently featured. “Afrocentrists claim that the way to improve the educational achievement of black children is to improve their self-image by requiring teachers to include or emphasize the contribution of blacks in the curriculum” (Wortham, 41). Emphasizing the achievements of one group suggests that it is superior or different to another.
It is widely known that racial and gender discrimination appeared from an early time which is still influence today’s society. The term Black American is used rather than African American because many Caribbeans and Africans identify themselves by their country of origin or use the term Black, and the federal government, along with Whites, will classify them as Blacks (ATWATER,1999). The first black president appearance is a great change for the racial discrimination which be expected to change the status of the black. For the education in America, the black children always face to the tough situation. These Black American children now enter school with various language genres, patterns of behavior, motivations, attitudes, and expectations that are either unacknowledged or seen as developmentally deficit by their science teachers.
Others have children with special needs or learning disabilities, so they choose to homeschool (Maaja, 1997). Ultimately, families are looking for what they believe is best for their children. And these families want to be actively involved in the education of their children. Homeschooling parents do not want strangers raising their children. They want to raise their children with freedom from government systems and institutions (Ray, 2000a).
The environment plays imperfect and agreeable roles in learning just how it does in our everyday lives, although most people might claim otherwise. Some might admit that it is not at all the environment that leads to a person succeeding or failing, but decide to criticize parents and how they raise their children. Derrick Meador’s article on About.com stated, “The key factors in determining the quality of education a child receives is the value that their parents place on education and the time they spend working with them at home. You can put almost any child in any learning environment and if they have those two things, they are typically going to be successful.” That is a certainly assuming statement. If the environment does not give parents the continuance to teach their children what they learn in a classroom then Derrick Meador’s post does not coincide.
If parents want to protect their children from diverse things in the world, in that case they should be capable to. In addition, I concur with that how home schooling parents are so dedicated to their children having an excellent education. I agree with the author stated that home schooling seems to be “Wonderful if people think about education as a consumption tool”. My position of the commentary is that I concur with what the author declared in the entire article. I believe parents that home school their children are significantly worried about how their children obtain their education, and that they would do anything for there child to have an excellent education.