It’s been pretty quiet around town/campus lately, so I don’t have a lot of news/reasons for blogging around here right now. Besides, isn’t the weather too nice to be doing this?
So, I share with you this cartoon from “Teachable Moments” at Inside Higher Ed, and if you’ve got a comment relevant for the blog– about EMU, about emus, about Ypsi, about Ann Arbor, about higher ed, etc., etc.– post away. As long as you’re not a jerk, I’ll approve it when I can.
Any thoughts about anything?
The news media’s coverage of the newly released study that finds that the state of Michigan has the very last ranking of all the 50 states in terms of the percentage of African America males who are graduated from high school, is worthy of attention for EMU educators. Not that much of a surprise, I guess, but to be shown by scholarly research to be dead-last is not a tribute to our great state’s success. Sitedad, you might want to link to some of the news reports on this study.
The study itself brings to mind the “Coleman report” of 1966: it found that concentrations of poverty along with racial segregation were the best predictors of lower levels of educational attainment. Coleman’s findings have, as i understand the literature (and it ain’t my field, so this is a layman’s talk here) been verified in countless subsequent studies.
Think now of Detroit and Flint, and the south side of Ypsilanti too: concentrations of poverty in overwhelmingly African American neigborhoods. Think then of the countless overwhelmingly white areas in the state. Fact is, Michigan has the highest level of residential segregation by race in the USA.
It all adds up to a real hindrance of achieving the Governor’s admirable goal of increasing the state’s level of educational attainment. Michigan’s ranking there is not that impressive, and it creates economic problems, especially for a deindustrializing state like Michigan. In Wayne County alone, 100,000 manufacturing jobs have vanished since 2000. ‘And boys those jobs ain’t coming back’ as Springsteen aptly sung about “My Hometown” a generation ago.
I agree with Mark but I don’t think “Segregation” is the cause of high school drop outs, but rather the effect of poverty.
In poverty comes crime. In crime, comes “good people” fleeing the cities and areas of crime for greener pastures while poorer, criminals, stay behind. And you are left with a city suffering under an endless cycle of crime + city corruption + School Board Misuse of School Funding+ Animosity towards “The Rich Suburbs” + the basic fundamental “inferiority complex” where African Americans are taught from birth that they can’t succeed in life because America is a racist country.
I can understand how growing up in a city like DETROIT or FLINT can make one feel “inferior” to those living in Grand Rapids or Bloomfield Hills. Problem is that personal responsibility is how one breaks out of poverty and stays away from a life of crime and that unfortunately is not what so many African Americans are being taught.
Wasn’t that long ago perhaps 5 years that I saw “Kill the Whities” scrawled in white chalk on a brick building in downtown Detroit. That mentality is what’s killing the State of Michigan’s chances to get better.
The only way to correct this is basically to follow in Rudy Giulliani’s footsteps. If
New York City can be turned around then so can a city with a much smaller population (Detroit). But, no one wants to get TOUGH for fear of appearing racist or losing an election.