Several school districts across the country have created a postion titled Director of Black Student Achievement in an effort to close the achievement gap. This position is the school district’s way of demonstrating that they are genuinely making efforts to improve the academic outcomes of Black students. The idea is if dedicated people are employed in these Black student achievement positions, there will be a considerable decline in the difference between the academic performance between Black and White students. Perhaps that is possible, but I tend to believe that unless there is an honest discussion about why there is an achievement gap in the first place, any other commentary is just a political tactic. The truth of the current conditions of Black students is easily traced to the history of public education in this country. One need only travel back sixty-five years to learn that segregated schools were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. A little more homework will reveal the reasons why it was unconstitutional and the conditions Black students endured prior to this ruling, leading up to it, and even after it. But one must go beyond the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling to the time before this country was founded.
From the early 17th century until the end of the Civil War, it was forbidden and eventually against the law to teach the enslaved to read (with some exception for religious scriptures) and write. This action perpetuated an intentional achievement gap that was supported by the legislative, economic, religious, and social systems of the day. Whatever individuals may have done to teach the enslaved outside of the law, it was never enough to circumvent the system that allowed it.
The system of enslavement continues to harm the descendants of the enslaved even now. The psychology that went into the decision to forbid reading, writing, and seeking knowledge cannot be overstated. It is the same mentality that went into separating the enslaved who spoke the same languages, and in the process, instigated the creation of African-American Vernacular English or Ebonics. I mention these things to suggest that if the Director of Black Student Achievement is not equipped to discuss this horrific history, Black students will continue to experience the achievement gap until that is done. I know that people don’t want to attribute today’s conditions that Black people endure with the historical and immoral past of this country, but until such time as that is done, the real issues cannot be addressed.
First, we tell the truth, and then we work to resolve the problem. If you name all the reasons given for the achievement gap: poverty, broken homes, lack of parental education, language differences, and teacher perception of AAVE, you can trace these back to the outcomes of enslavement, Jim Crow and segregation, and the fight for equal rights. This is a very real discussion that must occur for real changes to happen in the education of Black students. The historical denial of the education of the enslaved and the lack of investment in the education of the liberated Blacks and their descendants have been devestating and created an achievement gap for Black students. James W.C. Pennington, a former enslaved man who escaped slavery in 1828 at the age of 21 and first Black graduate of Yale University, sums up the destruction of slavery best.
“There is one sin that slavery committed against me which I never can forgive. It robbed me of my education; the injury is irreparable; I feel the embarrassment more seriously now than I ever did before. It cost me two years’ hard labor, after I fled, to unshackle my mind; it was three years before I had purged my language of slavery’s idioms; it was four years before I had thrown off the crouching aspect of slavery.”
Indeed, and it continues to rob the descendants of the enslaved with different shackles such as inequitable school funding and lack of resources. But it is not too late. It is only too late and tragic if we know the problem and do nothing about it.
The ReImagine Schools has is dedicated to eradicating the achievement gap, and we ask you to join us. We work with parents, teachers, and school and district administrators to provide the highest levels of instruction, training, and standards for excellent student and teacher outcomes. The Director of Black Student Achievement may be a start, but it must be followed with honest conversations about the history and origins of the achievement gap. We cannot delay any more because we do not want our students to reflect upon the education provided to them as the sin they cannot forgive.