CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY cational opportunity. “ To date, the major priority in implementing Brown has been placed on eliminating segregation by eliminating racially identifiable schools. All too often, as in Portland, this has meant the assigning of black children to white schools and the loss of schools in black neighborhoods. “ Now, many black leaders are concerned with the failure of most blacks attending integrated schools to achieve better scores on standardized tests than those blacks remain-, ing in black schools. They have concluded that the cost of integration is too great; and they are supporting remedies that provide black parents with a choice of sending their children to predominantly white schools or providing effective schooling for them in neighborhood schools even though these schools remain mainly black.” To further understand the BUF position, it is important to look at two recent trends in our national life: the worsening economy and the state of integrated education 25 years after Brown. The success or failure of an educational system can in many ways be measured in economic terms. Thanks to the Civil Rights acts of the sixties, the old barriers to full social and economic integration were battered down. As a result, the ratio of Black to white family income and employment improved steadily for Blacks in the sixties. However, in the 1970s major changes occurred in the economy to reverse those trends. By 1977, a majority of the Black work force — 58 percent — held jobs in the better- paid industrial, blue-collar sector. Those opportunities are now in sharp decline as technological advances replace human workers with machines. Thirty years ago one-half of all workers were employed in manufacturing, mining, construction, transportation and utilities. By 1978 only about one- third of all workers were so employed. According to the United Auto Workers Union, some 15 million blue-collar jobs have been lost in the last eight years. On top of this, traditionally unionized industries have fled the inner cities for the suburbs, the sunbelt or foreign markets, leaving urban Black communities to depend on the degrading dependency of welfare. The new jobs are now in whitecollar positions, and it is here that the Black community’s impatience with the school system becomes particularly important. White-collar jobs require that Johnnie be able to read. Forty percent of all white working men are employed in professional, managerial or administrative positions. Only about 12 percent of the Black labor force has such jobs. At the same time that this change in the job market has been taking place, another dislocation of Blacks has been occurring. Government employment, which in the 1960s and 1970s rose dramatically, included large numbers of Blacks, through affirmative action programs. With the economy in a decline and with a middle-class tax revolt, these jobs have peaked and are in the process of being cut. The failure of the unions and the government to continue to provide opportunities for Blacks has forced the Black community to rely on the traditional American arenas of career seeking — geographic mobility, personal connections, and education. In what has always been a catch-22 situation for Blacks, without the degrees, their network of family and friends counts for little in the white-dominated world. In this context the importance of a proper education becomes almost a life-and-death issue in the Black community. As they see the failure of the integrationist period, the question of why Black children are not learning becomes paramount. Basic intelligence is usually the standard by which students advance and opportunities are granted, and the traditional measurements — IQ tests — have been labeled as racist by Black educators almost since their inception. According to Robert Williams, a Black Ph.D. who is head of the Minority Mental Health Program in St. Louis, the vocabulary in which IQ tests are written, as well as the questions on the tests that require children to use or define words, are unfair to Blacks because Blacks do not speak so-called standard English. Williams says that “ Black English” is not inferior to “ White English” but is different enough so that Black children are not able to understand or answer test questions as easily as white children can. In an article published in a 1974 Psychology Today, Williams reported the results of a study in which he “ translated” test questions into Black English. Thus, “ Point to the toy that is behind the sofa” became, “ Point to the toy that is in back of the couch.” “ Point to the squirrel that is about to run up the tree” became, “ Point to the squirrel that is fixing to run up the tree.” He said that Black children performed significantly better on the translated version of the test. Williams also reported that questions about so-called general knowledge are unfair to Black children. One IQ test question is, “What is the color of rubies?” A Black child is likely to answer, “ Ruby is black.” Another question is, “Where is Chile?” A Black child will answer, “ It’s on the shelf.” Another type of question asks the child to look at a picture and say what’s wrong with it. According to Williams, a Black ghetto child may see nothing wrong with a picture of a three-legged table, because such tables are common in the ghetto. Some IQ tests ask children to interpret proverbs. Williams’ study shows i i im tH i iii iii im ii t iiim H ii i The Hard Lessons of a Bitter Fight In the summer of ’68, having used up every possible student deferment, I found myself at New York City’s Hunter College taking three mickeymouse education courses to get an emergency teaching certificate and another opportunity to serve with our nation’s finest. A new teaching, license in those days qualified you for front-line duty in ghetto classrooms where the casualty rate rivaled Khe Sahn’s. That idyllic summer was spent sitting in the Bronx crabgrass arguing with young education majors over why people of dark skin wanted to be called Blacks and not Negroes. It seemed improbably to those students of higher learning that maybe Blacks had a motive similar to the Guineas, Kikes, and Micks of yesteryear. Naturally 1 wondered how these youngsters would make out face to face with the natives. At lunch, the first school day at P.S. 49, I was treated to a graphic description of the sexual similarities between the ape and our fair students . . . conducted by uptight young marrieds masquerading as teachers, two years away from pregnancy and permanent retirement. One, the “ music” instructor, would enter class and run through rythms by clapping her pudgy mitts 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. All the while the eight-year-olds would be working out James Brown numbers on the back desks. The first PTA meeting of the year found a local high school dance troupe swaying to the beat of African drums as they put on a marvelous show for the assembled parents. Only trouble was that half the faculty found the sensual gyrations of the scantally clad students a bit beyond reasonable taste. Needless to say this crew was a suited for ghetto teaching as they were for deep-sea diving. That’s not to imply that yours truly won any national teacher awards. But at least some semblance of an appreciation of another culture existed in the cerebellum’s grey matter. Part of that understanding came from urban rebellions of the Sixties which had forced many of us to reaccess our attitudes towards Black America. Also reexamining the Black experience was the Ford Foundation, who realized that unless they found ways of teaching Blacks the three R’s they’d learn their own three R ’s : (Riot, Rebellion, Revolution) in the street. So sho-nuff they figured maybe if we give the younguns a big dose of Black heritage and pride-stir — some positive role models and strong community support — maybe these kids could turn into half-decent stock. They couldn’t do worse than a school system that averaged a 50% drop out rate among minority students and about 2 kids per class able to read at grade level. The NYC Board of Education said, ; “ What the hell, you guys built the Model T and if you’ll give us some big bucks, we’ll give community control a test run.” Obtaining those leadership models required the nonvoluntary transfer of a good number of union teachers and principals to white schools and the hiring of a community-chosen staff that may not have had too many degrees after their names. This infuriated the liberal 60,000 member United Federation of Teachers, who had a vested interest in job protection. They had guarded their castle so well that only 12 teachers in the preceeding 20 years had been fired for incompetence . . . and half of those were mentally deranged. Given the success ratio in ghetto schools, it seemed incongrous to Black activists that so few teachers had been dismissed over the years. With the support o f the Ford Foundation, the Ocean-Hill Brownsville Community began to implement their version of neighborhood control by transfering the largely white staff out of the district. They were replaced by a group capable of providing strong role models, teaching the basics and l l l l t lH H t l l in m U I I IH im U l l l l l l im i l lH U M M IH I I I lU IH I I I I IH offering a heritage alien to the previous administration and faculty. This blew the union’s last gasket and precipatated the vitrolic two month strike by the teachers and principals that polarized the big apple into racial camps. The union played every card it could find to divide the city. They managed to get ahold of some anti- semetic literature being passed out in one classroom and a million copies of it were spread throughout the Jewish neighborhoods . . . as if racists weren’t teaching black kids. One hundred thousand middle-class, voting taxpayers descended on city hall in support of the union. On a walk th ro u g h th e neighborhood I grew up in, I heard a conversation on every corner. “ How could you side with them and turn on your own k ind .” “ This isn ’t Mississippi. Why should they get to choose their own teachers and principals — we don’t . ” To everyone I met, I tried to explain that whites were generally pleased with the schools their kids were attending. ' When I was in 6th grade I read at. an 8th grade level, which put me midway in the class. At P.S. 49 I would’ve been a child prodigy . The middle-class white kids were learning to read and write.They — and not the Blacks — were getting the jobs that schools were supposedly training them for. At P.S. 49 the staff was reduced to 5 black members and myself. The rest of the crew spent their idle time pouring glue into the school locks, threatening to “ get me” and “ picketing" in their cars with the motors running just in case . . . Inside the school, wonders were being wrought that I ’ll never forget. The Afro-American history teacher became principal and instilled a stern, loving, educational atmosphere hitherto unheard of at P.S. 49. Mrs. Howard had grown up in the back- woods of North Carolina. She barefooted 5 miles to and from school every day. The winters were too cold to make it — so high school graduation didn’t come until her 21st year. Mrs. Howard had a way of explaining the world that made sense to children. One of the biggest problems the school faced was toning down the constant battle between the boys and the girls. Our new principal spent the entire assembly retelling the famed Scottsboro Boys Case in a way that made those young boys understand that if they picked on the girls there was no telling what kind of trouble might result. Classroom upstarts were personally delivered home by a volunteer parent. You’d be amazed how quickly Johnnie learns to behave when a neighbor personally tells his mother of his misbehavior. Parents flocked to the school . . . to run the boilers, prepare the lunches, assist the teachers and patrol the halls. Everyone in the neighborhood was talking about / ;c goings-on at P.S. 49. As a result the ome environment became more ot a learning space. Homework was actually get- ting done for the first time in memory. One child who had been passed on to the 5th grade as a functioning illiterate was discovered to be the best reader in the school. I could go on for pages but the point is that community control can work. The uneducatable can be educated. After the strike, the com- 'placent staff was back in the saddle again. Community control had been smashed by the United Federation of | Teachers. Mrs. Howard went back tog her classroom. The parents headed | home. By the end of the year, 50% of | the classroom doors were withoutE windows. Seventy-five per cent o f the | books were destroyed and all the! televisions were stolen. The hallways | were training grounds for the asphalt = jungle. On the last day of school a | gang of 4th graders broke in, ran - i sacked the principal’s office and | defacated on his desk. Twelve years | later that principal is still at his desk. |
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