Despite the apparently set-in-stone achievement gap between black and white students, a little common sense at home can go a long way.
A few years ago, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume insisted that there should be more blacks on TV. Too few colored folks on the idiot box hurts black kids’ self-esteem.
Reasonable people, myself included, thought the man was out of his mind. Children of all colors should be watching less or no TV, not more, especially when a persisting achievement gap leaves black kids, on average, four years behind their white peers by the time they graduate from high school.
Except for the liberal use of the term “African-American,” Derrick Z. Jackson’s latest column is very important for several reasons. First, he’s a black liberal, and other liberals are more willing to listen to him than to someone like me. Second, he suggests that blacks organize marches for something worthwhile, like education, instead of the usual tripe that gets national coverage, like the “Millions More” movement, led by a man who should seriously consider therapy. (The therapy part is my idea). Third, he lays out the numbers:
According to Nielsen Media Research, the television is on in the typical African-American home 11 hours, 10 minutes a day, compared with 7:34 in white homes. Nielsen translates that to 79 hours a week of TV in black homes compared with 52 hours a week of TV in white homes.
On average, black children watch nearly two hours more television a day than white students, which translates to 14 more hours a week that black students could be reading or doing homework. In addition, different studies indicate that the percentage of black children who watch six or more hours of television a day, about 40 percent, is as much as triple that of white children. Virtually every study concludes that when you watch that much television, you will be a poor student in every subject.
Much has been and will continue to be written about why black children lag behind their peers academically. Is the “acting white” syndrome to blame? Perhaps it’s family structure, or rather the lack of family structure. While too many people prefer to blame government for their ills, most of our troubles begin at home.
Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom have done tons of research on the academic achievement gap. Their No Excuses program has boasted positive results. In their book by the same name, they tackle controversial issues head on. The Thernstroms say that lack of discipline in the home is a big culprit. Children from low-income/inner-city homes lack it in a greater amount than other children.
Fortunately, being from a low-income home doesn’t necessarily mean a child will perform worse than other students. The problem I see is in our perception of “poor.” For the last forty years, thanks to socialist government programs, inner-city welfare dependents are what we think of when we hear the word “poor.” But that wasn’t always the case. There are hard-working poor people, but by definition, a welfare-dependent person is not “hard-working.”
I believe welfare dependency is inherently undignified; that’s not to say a particular individual on welfare lacks dignity. But a life lived on government “income” robs people of the will to achieve, to work hard, and to create rather than take. No one will ever convince me otherwise. I know people on welfare, and I’ve perceived it with my own eyes and ears and heard it from others.
Back to education. I’d wager that most black kids with low academic achievement are “low-income,” and the nature of that income is a government subsidy. If black kids are disproportionately without a solid family structure, I’m certain education is one of the least important issues in such households, generally speaking.
Back to Jackson. Read his column. Send it to your friends. Turn off the idiot box and stock your homes with books. For your children’s sake.
Related posts:
- The Achievement Gap and Social Skills
- The Hard Sayings of Bill Cosby
- The Mission: Middle-Class vs. Lower-Class Families
