Every parent desires their child to attend a good school to get a good education. Unfortunately, getting a good education does not come easy for all, especially minority students, to be even more specific, Black students. In Ohio, Black students, no matter the economic status of their parents, continue to lag behind White students in almost every category from birth through post-secondary. In Ohio, Black students are at the bottom academically, and 1 in 2 live in poverty. With this statistic, enters the saving grace of EdChoice scholarships.
EdChoice is Ohio's income based scholarship program that affords students an opportunity to attend a private school due to living in a school district that with a low performing school. The mission and concept of EdChoice is great, however, the reality of this program doesn't quite lives up to the expectation. Black students leave their community schools to attend private institutions, which typically, are predominantly white institutions (PWIs). When asked who is the average teacher, Education Week (Will, 2020) discloses, "A 43 year old white woman, with nearly a decade and a half of teaching experience", and 85 percent of private school teachers are white, 7 percent are Hispanic, and 3.5 percent are black. While getting a good education is the idea, what comes with this notion for black students consists of micro aggressions, implicit bias, and constant explanations of culture, and lack of cultural identity. Don't get me wrong, private, public, charter, and independent schools all have their excellent qualities such as academic rigor, high standards, and cultural competence, and family and community engagement. However, for black students it seems they are damned if they remain at the low performing community school or receive a quality education at the cost of dealing with a little or a lot of racist incidents.
Micro aggressions (that aren't micro), bias, implicit bias, prejudice, or racial acts should not be associated with receiving a good education. It's a different kind of unfairness. The number of Black parents of Black boys who have to quit their jobs because their sons are being singled out for being too aggressive, not following the rules, or being misdiagnosed with a different letter of the alphabet is ridiculous. The percentage of Black children being expelled from preschool is disturbing. The amount of Black girls who attend private schools suffer challenges such as being passed over for AP classes and having to explain their hair type on a regular basis is tedious and degrading. The Black student who is forbidden from asking questions in class is maddening. The number of failing schools in low-income neighborhoods is genocide. Worse yet, our black children bring these stories home from school, and their parents advise them to ignore them and focus on getting a “good education”. A system that allows a person to be comfortable enough not to call a student's name at graduation, not helping students apply for college because they don't believe they can succeed, or having more suspensions of one group of people over the other and failing to find a solution is having a mental and emotional impact on our children. I'm not only unhappy over one event; I'm also outraged about what led to the "okness" for the graduation incident to happen in the first place. Perhaps fewer parents would reject their children's complaints about the school they attend if we genuinely had "EdChoice”, and fewer parents would be pushed to switch schools or stay in a school that does not suit their child's holistic educational needs. If children are having trouble in public, charter, private and religious institutions what’s the alternative?! "Black boys make up 18 percent of the male preschool enrollment, but 41 percent of male preschool suspensions, and Black girls make up 19 percent of female preschool enrollment, but account for an astounding 53 percent of female suspensions" (Strauss, 2020). The most disturbing fact about this issue in Ohio is that over 90 percent of educators are female and Black women are more than twice as likely to be working in early childhood as their white peers (Groundwork Ohio, 2020). thing about these stats, is that although white women make up
Black people, especially Black women have been carrying this burden too long , this too leads to the toxic stress that cause dis-ease in our wombs, that also increases our infant-mortality rates. Research says that a White woman with a HS diploma is more likely to have a healthier child than a Black woman with a Master degree. This is NOT okay!
I despise the fact that I can walk into an affluent school and see children smiling and studying with cutting-edge equipment and resources, only to see the exact reverse a few miles over the tracks at another school with a different race of people. I enjoy collaborating with my Black, White, Hispanic and other educators because we can build something unique and inclusive for children from many backgrounds. THATS my utopia that I’m fighting to become a reality in this country.
References
Groundwork Ohio. (2020). Drafting a new blueprint for success: Reflections on Ohio early childhood race & rural equity. https://www.groundworkohio.org/_files/ugd/a395ee_2014173c1fa349a5a6ef03070a0b391c.pdf
Strauss, V. (2020, November 26). New federal data shows Black preschoolers still disciplined at far higher rates than Whites. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/11/26/new-federal-data-shows-black-preschoolers-still-disciplined-far-higher-rates-than-whites/
Will, M. (2020). Still mostly white and female: New federal data on the teaching profession. EducationWeek. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/still-mostly-white-and-female-new-federal-data-on-the-teaching-profession/2020/04
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