The Role of the Black Elite in Outreaching to the Black Lower Class... - A Black Educational Renewal Movement

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A Black Educational Renewal Movement

A Black Educational Renewal Movement can address the twin-problems of deficient educational opportunities (e.g., under-funded urban schools, low quality teachers in many inner-city schools, etc.) and deficient educational outcomes (e.g., high dropout rates, low student achievement, etc.). These interrelated problems are legion. As I noted above, quoting figures from the so-called “nation’s report card” — the National Assessment of Educational Progress issued by the U.S. Department of Education — as reported in USA Today (August 6, 2007), some 59% of Black fourth-graders read below the basic level, as compared with 25% of White fourth-graders.

Black teachers and their associations, Black academics and college administrators can take the lead role in launching a Black Educational Renewal Movement. And contributions to such a movement by White teachers and academics will be welcome. A similar welcome extends to teachers and academics among Asian-Americans and Latino-Americans. After all, Black Americans’ struggles and movements to secure modern citizenship freedom and advance modern social mobility have been overwhelmingly pluralistic in purpose and functioning. This racial-inclusive pluralism principle extends back to the heroic anti-slavery Abolitionist Movement and reaches forward through the twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement.

Among a concrete and broad-reaching enterprise initiated by a 21st century Black Educational Movement might be, I suggest, a revival of the Black youth education role performed by African-American church congregations some four generations ago, during the 1930s. Data on the education role of Black churches and their national denominations (e.g., African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Colored Methodist Episcopal, and National Negro Baptist) can be found in the annual volume on Black American life produced at Tuskegee Institute during the 1930s, edited by Professor Monroe Work. The Negro Year Book 1931-1932 reported data on 154 church-based schools and academies for African-American children that had been established by 1930, of which 53 were funded by Black congregations affiliated with White church denominations (Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Catholic) while 101 schools were funded by mainline Black church denominations. These 154 church-based Black schools enrolled some 32,777 Black children — 18,349 elementary, 10,876 secondary, and 3,552 “other students.” These church-based Black schools enrolled 1,449 teachers and they mobilized $1,500,000 annual revenue to support their work.

From today’s vantage point, that nearly 40,000 Black children and youth were being educated over 75 years ago through schools sustained by African-American religious congregations is a fact of enormous significance. I was particularly interested in the 10,876 figure for secondary school Black youth, because a recent article on New York City’s vocational high schools — officially Career Technical Education (CTE) — by the African-American educator and community activist David R. Jones reported that out of 110,000 students in the city’s secondary vocational programs, some 43% are African-Americans and 44% are Latino. (See The Amsterdam News, August 23-29, 2007). Clearly, our 21st century African-American church denominations have much greater financial resources than African-American churches possessed three quarters of a century ago, which means that a Black-elite initiated Black Educational Renewal Movement today could assist significantly in galvanizing Black churches to revive the great education activities that their predecessors innovated in the 1920s and 1930s.

On the high school level in major cities today, a 21st century role in CTE-type schooling by a new African-American church-based education regime could have a significant impact on the life-chances of working-class African-American youth. As David R. Jones observes in his Amsterdam News article titled “Vocational High Schools Need Our Support”:

The idea behind CTE is to combine academic and vocational studies to prepare students for jobs in occupations that do not require a college education. CTE offers a pipeline to employment by creating curriculums that directly connect to employment after school. Most of the 22 vocational high schools [in N.Y. City] provide a broad curriculum of CTE courses. But several focus on specific occupations, such as automotive repair, art and design, graphic arts, computers, performing arts, and the fashion industry. (Emphasis Added)

Clearly, a 21st century new-era contribution by African-American church-based school programs could be stimulated and assisted by a Black Educational Renewal Movement. And if this new-era Black church-based education program focused on something like New York city’s CTE curriculums, a significant advancement of the life-chances of working-class high-school youth would result. Keep in mind that just as most White working-class high-school youth do not attend college and directly enter the job market, neither do most Black working-class youth attend college. It is important, therefore, that our Black working-class youth be prepared while at high school with knowledge and skills that connect them to employment opportunities in solid job-markets like automotive repairs, electronic repairs, fashion industry, graphic arts, computers, etc. Indeed, presently far too many Black youth of working-class and poor backgrounds are high-school dropouts and/or graduate without viable job-market skills. A new-era 21st century contribution by African-American church-based schools - assisted by a Black Educational Renewal Movement - could, I have not the slightest doubt, help to remedy this situation appreciably.