Mass incarceration rooted in math frustration
The African American community is witnessing another marginalization of urban children, particularly urban boys. The latest educational adventure is taking place on the heels of a prior generation of black children being swept up into the horrific drug culture of the 1980s and 90s, some of them still doing time for petty marijuana charges.
If education prevents delinquency, how do we as a nation continue to justify the statistics showing urban students are consistently reading below grade level, with global rankings showing all U.S. children, not just the poor Black ones, are not measuring up.
The U.S. has lagged somewhere between 18th and 25th globally in math and science for the past 30 years, behind almost every European and Asian nation.
It seems education is a priority in name only
The irony is adults who do not have children attending public schools - but who still have a ‘vested interest' in the societal outcome — will be surprised to learn that Math and Arithmetic as you learned it growing up has been replaced by a confusing and concocted instructional curriculum that was seemingly designed to stifle this next generation of young urban students. “New Math” and “Eureka” math are high-minded concepts for combining critical thinking, logic, and computation, with comprehension, reasoning and accuracy.
The same 2nd and 3rd grade students across America who —by every measure don't read well but are still wonderful little humans — face extraordinary challenges to learn New Math, simply to complete even the most rudimentary classroom computations.
As America has stumbled through more than three decades of ‘education reforms', the results have seen race to the top and the no child left behind movements flounder, and that common core “standard” dissolve because it was ill-conceived from the start. We have placed the blame for America's educational stagnation and decline squarely on the shoulders of some very poor children and parents who were least prepared to carry such a load.
It's not that urban children in the U.S. are inherently unintelligent or unable to comprehend higher levels of thinking; it's just that American children in general have so many distractions and options to early academic pursuit. Africanamerican children are bright, creative and willing to engage new skills. Questions that appear on a 5th grade math homework assignment or exam are similar if not identical to law school exam questions, and the children aren't ready for it.
It’s so much easier for them to just ‘do’ social media
Modern American children often lack common sense, patience, maturity and the innate desire to learn things that they don't know, unless it's a new musical lyric or celebrity tweet. Since the early 80s, urban parents and adults have not realistically prepared black students to seek learning, and have given even low-income pre-teens far too many phones and gadgets, with full access to explicit adult conversations at ten years old.
These facts set a palatable stage for Corporate charter-school organizations who promise a brighter day for young poor underachievers, along with educational consultants, textbook manufacturers, and the other disinterested third parties who have taken the lead on what young black boys learn, where they learn it, and how this “New Math” is taught.
Few urban children have sufficiently mastered basic multiplication tables by third grade, nor have they mastered the use and pronunciation of words containing more than six letters.
When confronted with a basic New Math, Eureka, or arithmetic problem that should be simple and automatic, suddenly it becomes a daunting written/reading problem that requires skill, cognition and focus. These are foreign concepts to many poor, unexposed, traumatized urban boys, forcing them to make some hard decisions. Teachers face constant pressure to raise test scores, sometimes leading to “gradechanging” scandals, criminal arrests, and administrative hostilities throughout large school systems.
The boys who can't read well often act out during class, with disastrous results. When they are eventually suspended, it begins a harsh journey for many of them, ultimately leaving school without graduating. The process begins early, which is why “New Math” and “Eureka” are so dangerous to the educational and economic existence of young urban boys. They have to master the basics first.
The 30-year experiment into public education has had catastrophic results for young urban males, especially when layered on top of their own mischief and lack of initiative. Urban boys are victims of “Math Frustration”, and the misplaced use of shaky reading skills to completely confuse them about basic arithmetic is the most sinister aspect of the modern Corporate/school takeover.
It's systematic, racist, and the latest noose around the economic throats of young urban men and boys. We know how that usually works out for the boys.
Tony Nichelson is the Operations Director at South Soul Media