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Black Americans and the Educational Wasteland of Our Public Schools
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10986 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1986 |
4,849 Words |
| Author
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J.A. Parker
J.A. Parker is president of the Lincoln Institute for Research
and Education in Washington D.C., and editor of the Lincoln
Review. He was director of President Reagan's transition team
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission |
American public education is a disaster whose steady decline has had an adverse impact upon citizens of all races. In the case of the black community, it has been particularly devastating.
Although we have compulsory education, and spend more money per student than we have ever spent before--and far more than is spent by any other country--we have an illiteracy rate which is skyrocketing: 20 percent of adults are functionally illiterate as are 13 percent of all 17-year-olds. There is, in addition, a 32 percent marginal illiteracy rate for adults and minority youth illiteracy may run as high as 40 percent. There is, in addition, a 32 percent marginal illiteracy rate for adults and minority youth illiteracy may run as high as 40 percent. There is an increase of 2.3 million adult illiterates each year.
These statistics--and others which are equally disturbing--can be found in the report "A Nation At Risk,:" issued by the U.S. Department of Education.
Author Jonathan Kozol, in his Illiterate America, argues that the figure he has adopted--60 million illiterate and semi-literate adult Americans--is a conservative estimate. It is his view that more than $250 billion is lost in income by people 25 to 35 years old who have less than high school level skills.
Not only are millions of adults unable to read a newspaper, but they also cannot read a product label at the grocery store or a driver's license manual. Perhaps as many as three out of four unemployed Americans--a group in which blacks are over-represented--are illiterate.
The failure of our public elementary and high schools to teach basic literacy skills has cost the military close to $40 million from fiscal year 1982 to 1984 to teach reading to recruits, who have already received high school diplomas. According to military statistics, the cost is expected to continue to rise into the 1990s. Basic reading skills programs like the ones in the military may be fund in government agencies and throughout private business and industry.
A pound of cure
The Carnegie Foundation recently released a 224-page report entitled "Corporate classroom." It reports that corporations are spending $40 billion on instruction which ranges from remedial work to doctoral programs. The author of the report said
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