Like me, if you were at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History on Aug. 13 to hear Roland Fryer Jr., the youngest Black tenured professor in Harvard University history, speak candidly about public education, you would be incensed that the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) is in its current paralytic state.
We in Detroit are creating a permanent underclass, underserved generation of young people — because of our inept public educational system that prioritizes politics over curriculum — who will not be able to fend for themselves or become tomorrow’s city and state drivers.
And if the masses of our children growing up in this city do not know how to read and write because of a dysfunctional educational system that cheats them of their future, they will become the laughing stock of a demanding global education.
Fryer last week cautioned a standing-room-only crowd of some 400 people inside the museum’s multipurpose room, hosted by State Sen. Hansen Clarke, that we must take meaningful steps to address the disparity of our educational system that is currently manifested in a decaying urban crisis.
The 31-year-old Harvard professor, who was raised in the South by his grandmother while his father was in prison and whose mother left him at a young age, called our educational crisis “the civil rights battle of the 21st century.”
“I think this is it. This is the ball game. Everything else is a sideshow,” Fryer said. “I think if you look at the disparities that I care about: Blacks live six years less than Whites in terms of life expectancy; we are 10 percent of the population but 50 percent of the prison population — all things that we care about are correlated with education.”
Because of these mind-boggling statistics that have become the usual introduction to Black America’s problems, Fryer, an economics professor, said he decided to get into the business of reaching children in public schools at their most receptive level.
This is not rocket science and here is why it is important that DPS has strong kindergarten and elementary programs for our children. If Black children at a tender age can be guarded against other vices and be preoccupied with learning tools that help them build their potentials and nurture their skills, we can cut off the prison pipe line.
Because if they are products of a meaningful education they are less likely to be prone to nefarious activities that could lead directly to crime and jail time. A meaningful education that allows Black children to make use of their skills in an environment that enables them to find a sense of achievement and entrepreneurship can help stem the ravaging tide of poverty in our communities. It may not be the final antidote to poverty, but it can be effective because crime, like a former Detroit police chief said to me in a meeting, is tied to quality of life.
“Our children are being underserved,” Fryer said. “The average Black 17 year old reads at the proficiency level of the average White 13 year old. This is it. This is the background.”
So at Harvard Fryer runs the Harvard Ed Labs, which provides incentives to students with good grades. Partnering cities like New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago have varying programs, all of which are geared to motivating
students to do better. Bank accounts are opened for students who perform through the scientifically designed program.
This economic theory will not necessarily work in every city and Fryer recognizes that. In fact, the results of his program are supposed to be out sometime this year when Fryer will measure the success against the grain of the reality on the ground.
Whatever we might think of Fryer and his economic theory to address the state of public education in schools, one thing is clear: he wants to do whatever it takes to get our children
on the path to a meaningful education that secures a better future for them.
“In (Washington) D.C. where I do a lot of my work, 12 percent of kids are doing math at grade level. That’s crazy,” Fryer said. “And frankly, few people have the heart to go to the schools and tell a fourth grader — look at him in the eye and say, ‘Look, you’ve got one in two shots of being in prison in 10 years.’ If we cannot educate our children, then we are in a lot of trouble.”
There are other fights to take on aside from education. That is why there is no straightjacket approach to battling the many problems confronting urban cities.
But Fryer said for now his ministry is education. That is where he is focusing his energy.
He offered key points that DPS should revisit thoroughly. The first prescription is human capital. That is the role of teachers in our school system.
“Who is actually teaching the children on a day-to-day basis? Teachers are the bedrock of our school system,” Fryer said, adding that performing teachers should be rewarded and failing ones ought to go.
DPS can no longer afford to have underperforming teachers in classrooms doing a disservice to students. Yes, with teachers comes the complexity of labor bargaining agreements. I understand that. But the bottom line is that DPS should not settle for teachers who cannot adapt to global education or fail to have an inkling of where the world is headed as a global village. Empty teachers belong outside, not inside the classrooms.
Closing the racial achievement gap, perhaps the most talked about subject in public education, needs to be addressed not only with the support of our communities but also with the requisite investment of the government.
“We are not only losing the achievement gap in our inner cities, but if you look around what’s happening in the world, the U.S., we are slipping,” Fryer said.
Fryer suggested “time on task” where students are preoccupied with information and data that allows them to utilize their skills in arriving at decisions. Children can be assessed periodically based on their skill level through efficient after-school programs that keep them engaged academically.
He also called for inculcating “culture and expectation” in children to motivate them to perform well in school because that is what his grandmother did. That is why the importance of parents in stabilizing DPS cannot be ovestated. Parents are among the biggest stakeholders in the educational process and every step taken should involve them.
On Monday afternoon, DPS hosted a public safety forum with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. Initially the information that was coming out of the district indicated that this forum would allow students and parents to testify.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be grandstanding
moments for a long list of elected officials
in the city to parade themselves and talk about their “grand vision” to address crime in DPS. This was ridiculous. Parents and students were placed last on the list to speak when most people in the room were tired and some media had already left.
The forum would have provided a monumental moment if parents and students were allowed to speak first about the crime they see firsthand in our schools and in the neighborhoods. This forum should have been a listening moment for our elected officials to take stock and hear what those who are been affected by the madness of violence are saying. Then our leaders could come back to us with a report based on testimony from parents and students.
That would have been an incentive to address crime. Let parents and students feel they have the ear of their leaders.
We have to change the mindset approach to education, just as Fryer is challenging us to do. We don’t have to agree with his method.
“How can we give short-term incentives for kids to do what is in their long-term best interest?” Fryer asked the audience at the museum. We can all ask, what kind of incentive can we provide our children to obtain a meaningful education?< /p>
But at DPS the incentive currently is a disheartening political circus where board members are taking the district’s emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, to court over control and power.
Granted, Bobb cannot and must not see himself as a dictator. He must engage the community at every level of the process.
The fact is, Bobb was given a responsibility to carry out. A lot of people don’t like what he’s doing because he came in like a tornado and started flushing out some of the district’s longstanding problems. An impotent board that was dominated by certain forces and interests emphasizing huge contracts rather than a curriculum to set the pace was the rule of law.
Calls in this community for a forensic audit of the district by past administrations always fell on deaf ears.
We either change or continue to build this mass underclass of young people.
Senior Editor Bankole Thompson is a radio and television analyst, sought after moderator and public lecturer. His latest book is “A Matter of Black Transformation.” E-mail him at bthompson@michronicle.com.