Dumb As a DOOR Knob: Academic Performance of African Americans Continues to Decline

It appears that over the past decades, since the times of slavery and Jim Crow and up until the civil rights and black power movements, the value in which education is perceived in the African American community has reduced significantly. It was Malcolm X who said “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” In general terms, academic prowess and proficiency is on the decline for America regardless of ethnic persuasion, with the exception of Asian Americans. In fact we may be producing the stupidest generation in American history and present statistics suggest that U.S. high school students are basically incompetent in the areas of math, science, history, economics and geography.

According to a survey conducted by the National Geographic Society, only 37 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can find Iraq on a map of the world and that 50 percent of Americans cannot locate the state of New York on a map. Moreover, only 43 percent of all U.S. high school students knew that the Civil War was fought sometime between 1850 and 1900. Today, American 15-year-olds do not even rank in the top half of all advanced nations when it comes to math or science literacy based on report published by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Although the aforementioned is for all Americans, statistics for African Americans is even worse. A new study released by Seattle Public Schools revealed that African-American students whose primary language is English perform significantly worse in math and reading than black-African immigrant students who speak another language at home. Findings of the Seattle study indicate that only 36 percent of black students who speak English at home passed their grade's math test, while 47 percent of Somali-speaking students passed. Other black ethnic groups did even better. In reading, 56 percent of black students who speak English passed, while 67 percent of Somali-speaking students passed with other black ethnic groups scoring higher again. However, still in concert black students scored lower than the district average of 78 percent for reading.

As it stands presently, the African American community is moving farther and further away from the traditions and values that maintained our collective integrity – specifically the value and importance we attributed to reading and education. Today about 41% of African American males graduate from high school in the United States according to the Schott Foundation for Public Education and just 22 % of African American males who began at a four-year college graduated within six years (National Student Clearinghouse/Study by Consortium on Chicago School Research at U of Chicago).

Maybe this is why 69% of African American children in America cannot read at grade level in the 4th grade, compared with 29% among White children. Up until Brown V. Board of Education, it was discriminatory practices like segregation that kept Africa Americans poorly educated, now it is ourselves. Until we realize that more education is part of the answer, we will always be confronted with social and economic inequity.

Yes, the school systems are not servicing the needs of African American males as effectively as other ethnic groups. Many years ago, a black man who knew how to read was a threat to mainstream America, and during slavery such a skill was punishable by death. Now, education is no longer considered as a valuable, revolutionary act and we eventually victimize ourselves, just as much as the school systems our students attend.