Rod Paige, the former United States Secretary of Education and a leader behind the No Child Left Behind Act, recently published a book called The Black-White Achievement Gap: Why Closing It Is the Greatest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time. Paige details the achievement gap we all see play out in our classroom—for example, that African-American students perform on average below 75% of their peers—and bemoans the corresponding social and economic disenfranchisement many students face. Drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and crime all correspond to grave educational disparities. Paige is not alone in upholding the achievement gap as a key battleground in the fight for full civil rights, but his voice stands out for insisting that education alone will not close the gap.
Today in education, programs like Teach For America, leaders like Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee, the expansion of charters, the introduction of pay for performance, and other reform measures have greatly expanded the discussion around the achievement gap and introduced a series of accountability measures. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which called for high stakes testing and a series of rewards and punishments, has gotten a bad rap to say the least in the current reform game. Paige argues, however, that NCLB was a necessary step on the road towards accountability. It paved the way where before there was nothing, and today’s reforms reflect its revolutionary implications that all students should achieve.
Paige argues, however, that we need to address ALL the aspects of the achievement gap—not just the work of the classroom. Education, he says, is one of three legs of a stool. The other legs—family and community—are equally necessary to support historically underperforming students and schools. Without reform in those areas, the achievement gap will not close.
Paige does not shy from discussion of high standards across the board—superintendents, principals, and classroom teachers should all be held accountable to the utmost. We must acknowledge, however, that they are not alone in supporting the child and we must include the entire family in the process of reform. We need to invest in reading workshops for parents, tutoring, and community programs that will support the whole child and family. We need to engage and encourage leaders in the African-American community to call for reform. We need to empower parents with the skills and knowledge to demand more of schools. The ideas themselves may not be new, but I can’t help but believe that there is not enough application happening today. More and more attention is focused on teachers and administrators, but Paige is right in his assessment that teachers alone cannot combat all aspects of the current gap in student achievement.
Herein lies a tie to Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone. While Canada’s conveyer belt of services is too resource-intensive to be presently feasible, I think great opportunity lies in beginning to move towards a similar continuum of services in our school systems. Current reforms are aimed at improving schools, but we need to be equally serious about changing homes and changing communities.
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As Loewen claims in “Lies My Teacher Told Me”, when students are given a narrative and linear tale of history, with a list of succession of presidents and foreign wars, they think of history as a boring set of stagnant facts as opposed to the active and unfolding process that it truly is. By making history seem as nothing more than an arbitrary list of facts, students are much more likely to blindly accept these facts at their face values. To combat this complacency, teachers should teach students to investigate multiple sides of each story or historical event before deciding for themselves what they believe is right or wrong. Loewen suggests that teachers of history should try using two different history textbooks simultaneously and have students compare how the two books differ in their facts on selected topics. Although going directly against how learning objectives are established in states around the country, Loewen also suggests that teachers should teach a fewer number of topics more in depth as opposed to only briefly going through a large number of objectives.
In the case of "Lies My Teacher Told Me”, Lowen proves how just as our textbooks underplay white racism, they also neglect racial idealism. In its ethnocentric undertones, the United States has sought not only to make white men into heroes, but also African-Americans, and those who support African-Americans, into demons. Such is the case for abolitionist John Brown, who in attempting to free slaves prior to the American Civil War was executed. When I first encountered a statue of John Brown in Harbor’s Ferry on a school field trip, what I saw before me seemed like a nightmare: an insane-looking demon with a wild beard on his face and a musket in his hand. By conjuring such an image, the United States government took a man who was a hero to the African-American community and made him into a villain. In order for the United States to preserve the dominance of the Upper class of its society, history books make sure to not only honor our European ancestors as heroes, but also demonize those would be heroes of all other races and social classes through the ideals of ethnocentrism.
After having read Loewen’s novel, I started to contemplate how my students, a population that is almost entirely African-American, view the history of our country and its affect on their daily lives. As a country discovered by White Europeans, with a constitution written by and a government established by White males, it would seem to me that my students really have no need to be interested in our government and in our history. During the last few weeks, I have noticed that only a few students in my class stand for the Pledge of Allegiance during the morning announcements each day. Remembering that I was excited as a child to stand with my peers to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance each morning, I was first taken aback by seeing virtually none of my students stand for the Pledge. With a renewed understanding of our nation’s hidden history, I can now see why African-American students see no value in Pledging Allegiance to a country that has robbed them of a distinct history and certain rights. Having read “Lies My Teacher Told Me”, I no longer have a problem with seeing my students silent in their seats during the Pledge of Allegiance.
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