 |
| Obama Asks Public Schools to Ignore Bad Behavior by Black Students |
Back in 2007, I had two white female public school teachers tell me why Barack Obama was desperately needed as president. They said that black male students have no male role models. If only Obama was elected, black male students would improve their behavior and academic performance, they claimed.
In many major cities, black academic performance has actually gotten worse since Obama took office. We have also seen the dramatic nationwide rise of black teen mob violence under the Obama administration.
On July 26, Obama signed an executive order titled the “African American Education Initiative.” The order essentially gives a green light for black students to misbehave in public schools. In two places, Obama’s executive order calls on schools to reduce the number disciplinary actions taken against blacks students. The order specifically calls on schools to “not rely on methods that result in disparate use of disciplinary tools.”
To comply, public schools would have to engage in a racial quota system of discipline. The executive order will create a new Federal bureaucracy to pressure school systems to comply with the president’s demands. The executive order makes no mention of any effort to get black students to improve behavior.
There is a reason why blacks are more likely to be disciplined in school: black students are more likely to misbehave. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that there is a huge crime rate disparity between blacks and other racial groups.
Based on those disparities, one should expect that there would be a disparity in frequency of bad behavior between black and white school students in the public schools.
The DOJ reports that the homicide rate in the black community is nine times greater than in the white community. Between 1976 and 2005, the DOJ reported that blacks averaged 13 percent of the population, but accounted for 59 percent of felony homicide charges and 53 percent of non-felony manslaughter charges. It also might come as no surprise that 93-95 percent of black homicides victims are killed by a black perpetrator. Most of the rest are killed by a Latino perpetrator.
In reality, blacks are already less likely to be suspended for bad behavior than whites. Often, white teachers and administrators are afraid to discipline black students for fear of being called “racists.” Even some black school officials are afraid of being labeled a “sell-out” by black students.
The executive order also states that black students “lack equal access” to education. This statement by the White House is outrageous and easily disproved. Across the nation, majority black public schools routinely receive more funding per pupil than majority white public schools.
Washington DC is the perfect example. It has the highest average per pupil funding of any public schools in the nation. It also has the blackest public schools in the nation. Yet, this over-funding of black students yields no results in terms of academic improvement. DC public schools are widely touted as the worst performing schools in the entire industrialized world.
If DC was a state, it would be the state with the highest average per pupil expenditure and the lowest average performance. More money does not equal better test scores.
Missouri leads the nation in its black/white state funding gap. The state has spent billions of dollars in a failed effort to improve the academic performance of black students. Majority black schools in St. Louis and Kansas City have Olympic sized swimming pools, lavish theater and music departments, and state of the art computer labs. Per pupil spending is over double that of poor majority white public schools in the Ozark Mountain region of Missouri.
Once again, we see that the over-funding of black students yields no benefits. The very poor white students in the Ozarks have none of the lavish amenities enjoyed by the black students. However, the poor whites in the Ozarks outperform the better funded black students in the big cities.
Ohio has some pretty outrageous examples. Cincinnati’s majority black public schools are lavished with state funding that far exceeds what goes to schools with a poor white student body. Yet last February, the state launched a program to give Cincinnati schools even more money to pay students not to drop out.
In Chicago, majority black public schools have so much extra money they are hiring speakers from militant Black Power groups to give “motivational speeches.” (see video)
The reality is that there is a massive transfer of wealth from white taxpayers to black public school students. Obama’s blatantly false claims are an insult to all white people who pay taxes.
Obama’s excuse making will only continue to make things worse.
Original Article
