12 December, 2005

Back in Line! (whip snap)

Apparently, black parents/families are the lastest trend in home-school education!

No kidding. Although there are no raw numbers, many organizations are reporting an increase in black families home-schooling their children. Before making any grand pronouncements on this, we have to remember that home-schooling accounts for only 2.2% of the entire school-age population according to 2003 statistics, of which most likely black families still remain a small portion of that number. Furthermore, only those families that have the time and the money are choosing this route over the more dismal choice of public education.

However, that is not to say that their presence is insignificant; it certainly is signifying something--increasing disatisfaction with the way black children are educated/treated in the public education system and a willingness to break with the herd and do something about it (see this article about the importance of choice in educating black youth).

But of course, as will inevitably happen when black people decide to think for themselves instead of what the Dems/Sharpton-Jackson tell them to, there is the 'black'-lash:

Joyce Burges, of the Baton Rouge, La., area, says she and other black home schoolers have been likened to traitors by people who think they've turned their backs on the struggle to gain equal access to public education. But she feels that when schools don't teach children to read, or fail to provide a safe place to learn, children should come first.


What struggle for equal access to public education? Pub-Ed is the default mode for all education of children--people have to opt out of the Pub-Ed system if they dont want their children to go there. The problem isnt equal access but the simple fact that the system is failing to educate black children. And who wants to gain access to a system that cannot even teach kids to read? I mean seriously people, I thought we had all agreed that Pub-Ed was the problem, not the solution.

Anyway, on a different note Im so sick and tired of the race traitor thing...basically, you are only a race traitor if you happen to disagree with what the person making the accusations believes, especially what they believe everyone of a particular race should think and feel. If you step out of the narrowly prescribed belief set assigned to your race then you are a traitor and no longer can claim to be "black" or "asian" or "whatever"--because as we all know only white people can posses/demonstrate plurality of thought/belief. Its especially insulting when liberal whites make those same-type accusations, for example like those against Condilezza Rice or Michelle Malkin, simply because they disagree with their positions. Apparently these same "I love all brown people" liberals have no problem replicating the dominant-race-narrative-asymmetrical-power-relations if the uppity minorities in question happen to be conservative.

2 comments:

Miss Self-Important said...

What I didn't get about this article is that it seemed as though the parents who could afford to homeschool their kids are not likely to be the same ones whose only other option would be a substandard public school. They'd be the ones with access to solid public schools or good private options, so why choose homeschool? The implication is not that this is an economic question (poor kids, bad schools), but a completely racial one (black kids are underserved by any school).

Eve said...

You're right, it is a little confusing. To clarify, you are absolutely correct that parents who could afford to homeschool their kids are not the same ones as those whose kids have to attend substandard schools. However, there is a very strong perception among black families, even the ones who can afford to homeschool, that black children are underserved by the school system--as you mentioned. Whether its because they are black or not I myself cannot say but there is no denying that black children are more likely to be put into remedial courses than other children and also to be diagnosed as having behavioral/learning problems than their classmates, even if said classmates exhibit similar problems. This could also be a socio-cultural thing and not only racial.
Please check out the link in the post, which links to an article about school choice and black families.