ED, James Smith criticizes the educational system

I have invited a few people to be guest writers and commentators on Proviso Probe. I hope they are informative and stimulate discussion.

The first contributor is James T. Smith, who ran for State Senate in the Democratic Primary against Sen. Kimberly Lightford.

Who Loves Black Children?

I have come to the conclusion, that even in 2006, that no one loves Black children. Whether from indifference or overt hatred the effect has been the same, and Successful Black Children are an endangered species in our society. To prove my case on need only look at Proviso School District – 209 where 3,224 its 4,791 students are Black 70-80% of these Black children are functioning below grade level.

Who cares where we lay the blame? For once we find whose at fault if we don’t fix this problem then we will continue to find the escalation of crime, taxes and “Business Flight” from our community. For decades the “Miseducation of the Negro” has been occurred with little attention paid to it, but now we are all suffering from it if only by the taxes we pay and the lower property values we face when institutions like Cabrini Green, which warehoused these problems, where torn down by the son of their architect, and their inhabitants scattered throughout the state.

Fixing the problem is not as hard as it sounds, because contrary to popular belief Black children are no less intelligent than any other race. America won with the Brown v. Topeka decision, but it didn’t change the lot Black Children have in public education. For entities like Proviso School District 209 and Chicago Public School District 299 are not about the education of children. These “Systems” are about jobs and contracts. There is no other business in America that would allow its employees to operate at a better than 70% failure rate in the provision of its services. By all accounts Proviso Township H.S. School District-209 failed to use more than $55,433,644, of Proviso Township property tax dollars, appropriately in the 2003-2004 school year, and in Chicago we are talking billions that go to waste every year.

Last week the front page of the Sun-Times, showed a grinning Jesse Jackson and Arnie Duncan swimming in a pool that fell into disrepair under their watch. Our government continues to resupply contracts and jobs to those who are part of a failing system. Ask them to show you the money and they will point where they sent it, but I want accountability in their spending of our money.

The problem can be fixed, by institutions like Outward Bound and their Expeditionary Learning Program, and by collaborating to find and implement best practices in education through our institutions of higher learning. The Constitution of the State of Illinois, requires our government to educate all children to their capacity, therefore we must build an educational community that does just that. We don’t need resources for there are others who successfully educate children for less than we use, but we do need to reallocate the existing resources to entities who will do the job. If they cant do the job we fire them and find someone who can.