Few issues get the left/ right debate juices flowing like affirmative action. Its place is reserved among the hallowed ground of other hot button issues like abortion and gun control. It was deemed a victory for proponents when the Supreme Court recently upheld the University of Michigan’s law school affirmative action policy. But a recent report released by the school district in Oakland, CA reminds us that affirmative action can only do so much. In an alarming report, 25 percent of the registered ninth-graders in 1998 graduated from an Oakland high school this year.
According to the California Department of Education, Oakland apparently has the lowest graduation rate in the state for African American students, especially when it comes to the number of students who graduate with college requirements. Based on the requirements for admission to the University of California and California State University systems, only 3 percent of Oakland’s African American graduates met the entrance criteria this year. While other urban cities in California faired better than Oakland, the state has no urban city that can claim itself as a pipeline to the University of California or California State University systems when it comes to minority achievement. In 1996 California voters passed Proposition 209,which ended affirmative action programs in the state. But supporters of affirmative action cannot blame the Oakland report on the passage of Prop. 209.
Upon reading the Oakland findings, it does not require the critical thinking
of Augustine, Descartes, or Socrates to ask why so few students possess the skills
for college? When it comes to finding blame for this grim scenario there are plenty
of possibilities. Teachers, administrators, and elected officials are all contributing
factors. In a perfect world, parents would be the entity best equipped to alter
this unfortunate trend. But it is not a perfect world and many of the 75
percent represented in the Oakland report not graduating have parents who bear
similar scars of failure from public education. In spite of this reality, are
we to throw up our hands in a triage moment helplessly responding, “Oh well?”
Marjorie Wilkes, co-founder of the West Oakland Community School, believes the
Oakland study reveals a conflict between society’s contemporary expectations
of public education and the reality of it original mission.
“What was the original mission of public education?” Wilkes asked
rhetorically. “ The original mission was to create factory workers. Somewhere
the mission changed and no one is willing to have that conversation.”
Wilkes is correct. Our expectation, whether stated or not, is that schools prepare
young people for higher education; higher education then being the great liberator
that provides a bridge to success. Would we site any school as a model for duplication
that touted 92 percent of their students went on to work in factories?
Not that anything is wrong with a school that produced a myriad of factory workers, but it is not what we’ve come to expect from our public schools. But most of us would gladly take a myriad of factory workers over the hopelessness that is revealed in this report.
Regardless of where one falls on the affirmative action continuum, the real debate must be about substantial reform at the elementary and secondary educational levels. The educational gap between white students and their black and Latino counterparts is widening nationwide. National studies show that by 12th grade the gap is roughly four years. Affirmative action alone is not equipped to close the difference, nor can an antiquated school system still based on a 19th century motif.
Anything short of the resources to support smaller schools, smaller classes, quality teachers; and creating an atmosphere that recognizes that all kids can indeed learn, but one size does not fit all, will leave us tinkering around the edges about a policy that at best is designed to benefit a few students. Our expectation of public education does not match its ability to educate minority children. It is in the interest of supporters of affirmative action to parallel their efforts with authentic school reform. If education is indeed the great liberator, the Oakland report suggest we must all take heed to the words of Abraham Lincoln, “A country cannot survive half slave and half free.”