I have struggled with this commentary on the state of education within the nation for over two years. Education and equality do not exist within a vacuum and are closely related. Unfortunately, the American media claimed an end to racism when Barack Obama became the first African-American President. Everyone believed America entered a new post-racial era. Race would no longer play a significant role in American society. Within a month, the same media made the decree anyone opposed to Mr. Obama’s plans was racist. The supporters of Mr. Obama claimed people only opposed his policies because he was black. Even the mainstream media accepted and promoted the opinion any opposition was based solely on race.
Responding to racist claims
I do believe a discussion on racism and education is overdue in our nation. During my ninth-grade year of high school, I had an American History teacher who required us to read excerpts of the writings of W. E. B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and Ida B. Wells. All of them had a common theme – if the Freedmen and their descendants were going to succeed in the United States, education is essential. The need for education is true in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth century. In 2004 I began teaching American history at the college/university level.
The lessons from that ninth-grade American history class have stayed with me. Therefore, when I began teaching junior high in 1999 and at the university level in 2004, I have assigned selected readings for every American history class I’ve taught. Just this most recent summer semester (2020), I had a student who read the book, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois and was moved. He never heard the message that education is the strongest force for equality before. He now understands from a perspective he did not know existed.
Confronting “soft bias” in education
I could barely believe it myself when I first saw the claim made on one of the news websites I visit daily. Dr. Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor of California’s community college system, wants to end the system’s requirement that students have to master college algebra skills to graduate with an associate’s degree (Shimshock 2017). He bases his research with the fact that fifty percent of students do not finish their associates degree – which is, in his mind, a civil rights issue. This implies that if a student drops out of college for lack of academic progress, the problem must be a racist society which expects everyone to conform to a “white standard” of education.
This claim simply adds to a long and heated debate about the role race plays on education. Even in 1988, a New York Times article discussed the possibility of black and white children learning differently (Rimer 1988). While I remember hearing this kind of thinking before then by prime-time television character Archie Bunker, I never considered it as possible. I still don’t believe there are any racial reasons anyone cannot learn.
The introduction of Ebonics in education
This isn’t the first time in modern America where the public has been informed blacks and other minorities supposedly learn differently. Beginning in the mid-1990s, educational leaders suggested that African-American slang was, indeed, a separate language. It was given the name, “Ebonics” with the idea that schools should adopt a curriculum similar to what English as a Second Language (ESL) classes had done for Spanish-speaking students (“Oakland Schools Sanctions ‘Ebonics’ ” 1996). It was during this time I began college for the second time in my life.
Even on a small rural west-central Louisiana university campus, there were a lot of mixed emotions and ideas about Ebonics. The national media became fixated on if it was racist to demand African-Americans and other minorities to achieve the same academic standards as whites (Geyer 1996). In 1998, while taking a sociology class, this very topic was discussed. One of my fellow students, “Charlie,” an African-American student in that class, spoke out and felt it was racist to demand anything less than equality in academic standards. What the American academics of the 1990s were trying to sell was the racist idea that it was impossible or difficult for African Americans to learn standard American English.
The same (tired and racist) education argument (again)
Most Americans believed the Ebonics debate ended in the 1990s as outspoken advocates for educational equality demanded no lowering of standards for African American students. With the national focus being on African American culture in the United States, education is again under scrutiny. Dr. Rebecca Walkowitz, the English Department Chair at Rutgers University, said her department stands with the Black Lives Matter movement. The Graduate Writing Program will now emphasize ‘social justice’ and ‘critical grammar’” (Schow 2020).
This attention to requiring the use of standard English grammar rules is an ongoing response to a blog by Melissa A. Fabello, a writer for Every Day Feminism, an online magazine. One of the many anti-standard English statements she makes in her blog is, “We understand that a reference guide created by a white supremacist, hetero-patriarchal system does nothing but uphold that status quo” (Fabello 2004). Simply put, following a standard set of rules for writing the English language is the foundation of everything wrong with modern American society.
The backlash begins (again)
With the announcement by Rutgers and the idea requiring all graduate students to write in standard English in favor of pursuing a social justice learning model, there has been a backlash. In an interview with Laura Ingraham, Ingram asked if this is saying African American students can’t grasp learning language. Dr. Carol M. Swain responded, “Laura, it’s even worse than that because Black Lives Matter and Black people that claim to be activists are the ones who are really pushing for lower standards for Black students. And if you think about critical race theory, the assumption is that if you are White, you are privileged and that racism is permanent” (Carr 2020).
Dr. Swain’s reaction and frustration are understandable. And her frustration is not new. In the American Thinker, an online magazine, Patricia Dickson makes the observation about Fabello’s blog: “The entire article is a futile attempt to justify the failure of the public school system. The author is using the soft bigotry of low expectations under the guise of social justice” (Dickson 2015).
Alan Simmons is an instructor of history at a community college in Kentucky. He has been involved in education since 1999 and has taught in post-secondary education since 2004.
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Alan Simmons is an instructor of history at a community college in Kentucky. He has been involved in education since 1999 and has taught in post-secondary education since 2004.
Real equality begins with education
Alan Simmons Off Commentary, Educational issues & reform,
I have struggled with this commentary on the state of education within the nation for over two years. Education and equality do not exist within a vacuum and are closely related. Unfortunately, the American media claimed an end to racism when Barack Obama became the first African-American President. Everyone believed America entered a new post-racial era. Race would no longer play a significant role in American society. Within a month, the same media made the decree anyone opposed to Mr. Obama’s plans was racist. The supporters of Mr. Obama claimed people only opposed his policies because he was black. Even the mainstream media accepted and promoted the opinion any opposition was based solely on race.
Responding to racist claims
I do believe a discussion on racism and education is overdue in our nation. During my ninth-grade year of high school, I had an American History teacher who required us to read excerpts of the writings of W. E. B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and Ida B. Wells. All of them had a common theme – if the Freedmen and their descendants were going to succeed in the United States, education is essential. The need for education is true in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth century. In 2004 I began teaching American history at the college/university level.
The lessons from that ninth-grade American history class have stayed with me. Therefore, when I began teaching junior high in 1999 and at the university level in 2004, I have assigned selected readings for every American history class I’ve taught. Just this most recent summer semester (2020), I had a student who read the book, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois and was moved. He never heard the message that education is the strongest force for equality before. He now understands from a perspective he did not know existed.
Confronting “soft bias” in education
I could barely believe it myself when I first saw the claim made on one of the news websites I visit daily. Dr. Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the chancellor of California’s community college system, wants to end the system’s requirement that students have to master college algebra skills to graduate with an associate’s degree (Shimshock 2017). He bases his research with the fact that fifty percent of students do not finish their associates degree – which is, in his mind, a civil rights issue. This implies that if a student drops out of college for lack of academic progress, the problem must be a racist society which expects everyone to conform to a “white standard” of education.
This claim simply adds to a long and heated debate about the role race plays on education. Even in 1988, a New York Times article discussed the possibility of black and white children learning differently (Rimer 1988). While I remember hearing this kind of thinking before then by prime-time television character Archie Bunker, I never considered it as possible. I still don’t believe there are any racial reasons anyone cannot learn.
The introduction of Ebonics in education
This isn’t the first time in modern America where the public has been informed blacks and other minorities supposedly learn differently. Beginning in the mid-1990s, educational leaders suggested that African-American slang was, indeed, a separate language. It was given the name, “Ebonics” with the idea that schools should adopt a curriculum similar to what English as a Second Language (ESL) classes had done for Spanish-speaking students (“Oakland Schools Sanctions ‘Ebonics’ ” 1996). It was during this time I began college for the second time in my life.
Even on a small rural west-central Louisiana university campus, there were a lot of mixed emotions and ideas about Ebonics. The national media became fixated on if it was racist to demand African-Americans and other minorities to achieve the same academic standards as whites (Geyer 1996). In 1998, while taking a sociology class, this very topic was discussed. One of my fellow students, “Charlie,” an African-American student in that class, spoke out and felt it was racist to demand anything less than equality in academic standards. What the American academics of the 1990s were trying to sell was the racist idea that it was impossible or difficult for African Americans to learn standard American English.
The same (tired and racist) education argument (again)
Most Americans believed the Ebonics debate ended in the 1990s as outspoken advocates for educational equality demanded no lowering of standards for African American students. With the national focus being on African American culture in the United States, education is again under scrutiny. Dr. Rebecca Walkowitz, the English Department Chair at Rutgers University, said her department stands with the Black Lives Matter movement. The Graduate Writing Program will now emphasize ‘social justice’ and ‘critical grammar’” (Schow 2020).
This attention to requiring the use of standard English grammar rules is an ongoing response to a blog by Melissa A. Fabello, a writer for Every Day Feminism, an online magazine. One of the many anti-standard English statements she makes in her blog is, “We understand that a reference guide created by a white supremacist, hetero-patriarchal system does nothing but uphold that status quo” (Fabello 2004). Simply put, following a standard set of rules for writing the English language is the foundation of everything wrong with modern American society.
The backlash begins (again)
With the announcement by Rutgers and the idea requiring all graduate students to write in standard English in favor of pursuing a social justice learning model, there has been a backlash. In an interview with Laura Ingraham, Ingram asked if this is saying African American students can’t grasp learning language. Dr. Carol M. Swain responded, “Laura, it’s even worse than that because Black Lives Matter and Black people that claim to be activists are the ones who are really pushing for lower standards for Black students. And if you think about critical race theory, the assumption is that if you are White, you are privileged and that racism is permanent” (Carr 2020).
Dr. Swain’s reaction and frustration are understandable. And her frustration is not new. In the American Thinker, an online magazine, Patricia Dickson makes the observation about Fabello’s blog: “The entire article is a futile attempt to justify the failure of the public school system. The author is using the soft bigotry of low expectations under the guise of social justice” (Dickson 2015).
Alan Simmons
Alan Simmons is an instructor of history at a community college in Kentucky. He has been involved in education since 1999 and has taught in post-secondary education since 2004.
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About The Author
Alan Simmons
Alan Simmons is an instructor of history at a community college in Kentucky. He has been involved in education since 1999 and has taught in post-secondary education since 2004.