If Not Now, When Will We Stand Up for Communities?

By Neil Mammen
Washington Informer

The American education system is in a state of crisis. While many point to the COVID-19 pandemic as the primary driver of academic decline, the truth is that the pandemic only accelerated the pace of what has been a decadelong race to the bottom in American education.

The rapid erosion of an education system of what was once the marvel of the world has hit African American students the hardest. Now, 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, many are left without the tools to enjoy the right to pursue the American dream previous generations fought so heroically to secure.

In America’s biggest cities and on the outskirts of some of our most affluent communities, African American students are falling far behind. For years, that failure could be laid at the feet of teachers unions and entrenched bureaucrats who fought to trap these students in whatever low-quality public institution corresponded to their zip code. Even today, they’re doing all they can to fight the prospect of competition delivered via school choice.

Today, these students face an even more pervasive threat: the replacement of the standard American curriculum with one drenched in radical ideology. Instead of giving them an education that helps them succeed in their lives and contribute meaningfully to the world around them, today’s kids must endure curricula designed to ingrain in them the notion that their lives are of little meaning and simply beyond their control. In public schools, children are identified primarily by the color of their skin and told that their dreams are restrained by a sophisticated racial and social hierarchy that are fundamentally unjust to them.

This is perhaps best demonstrated by the ongoing education crisis in our nation’s capital, an education system where dreams go to die. In Washington, D.C., students are simply no longer showing up to school, with 4 in 10 chronically truant. Among these students, Black kids are 10 times more likely than white students to skip. Those that do are being failed.  Data from 2023 show that only 11 percent of Black students in D.C. schools are proficient at math, and only 23 percent are proficient at reading. Here, white students perform nearly 60 points better in both categories. Lest you think this is a spending problem, D.C. spends more than $22,000 per pupil for this abysmal performance.

Instead of addressing this illiteracy crisis head on, D.C. is doubling down. Last year, the District of Columbia overhauled its social studies program to emphasize things like gender identity and white bias in academia. Sixth graders who can’t do long division will learn about how race, privilege and bias determine global resource allocation. High schoolers who lack the literacy to comprehend American classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” will dwell on how queer, Black indigenous and people of color are impacting change.

This isn’t education. This is indoctrination. And while D.C. is particularly bad, this is happening in communities across the country, and it’s having an outsized impact on Black kids who have struggled to catch up to their counterparts for decades. These children deserve better than an education that amounts to a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the chance they deserve is replaced by a curriculum full of division, grievances and malice.

That’s not to say American history isn’t complex. Racism has been and remains a pernicious force, and students of all creeds and colors should understand this story. But our history is enriched by the contributions of Black Americans who overcame barriers as big as slavery and “Jim Crow” to build an enduring legacy. Their descendants are more than worthy of a system that gives them the tools to dream.

Decades of failure haven’t been enough to move the needle. That’s why it’s time to march. We need to send a message to our leaders in Washington, D.C., that what’s happening in communities like D.C. — and Memphis, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Chicago and every place in between — simply can’t continue.

Our kids’ futures are too important. That’s why on Aug. 31, 2024, Every Black Life Matters will be proud to serve as a coalition partner at the March for Kids on the National Mall. We are calling for patriotic, concerned Americans from all walks of life to join us — to fight for the future of all kids and restore sanity in education at a time when it’s never been needed more.

Neil Mammen is the vice president and co-founder of Every Black Life Matters.