Vernard T. Gant, DMin, is the director of Urban School Services for ACSI. Previously he served with the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Birmingham, Alabama. After studying the problem for years, Dr. Gant believes that the most effective way to help reverse the effects of the multigenerational breakdown of urban families is the Christ-centered school.
“This is what you were talking about last night,” said the host pastor at an urban education conference I was conducting in California, as he passed me a newspaper clipping. The previous evening I had been speaking on the educational plight of urban children who are represented mostly by African Americans and Latinos. My presentation had included what happens when these children fail to receive an education that properly prepares them to function successfully and effectively in society. The newspaper clipping—William Raspberry’s column in the Washington Post—vividly makes the point (2003):
And it gets worse. By the Justice Department’s projection, 32 percent of black males born in 2001 will spend some time in prison, unless something is done to change the trend.
I must confess, this was one of those times when I read it and wept. Racing through my mind was the disturbing question, What has happened to us as a society when we can look at two-year-olds and predict that one out of three will spend time in prison during his lifetime? The numbers, of course, represent projections that are based on current trends in incarceration rates. Mr. Raspberry, citing data from the report, points out that “by the time they reach their thirties, nearly twice as many black men will have been to prison as will have earned bachelor’s degrees.” And he adds, “Slightly more than half of black male dropouts will spend time in jail in their lifetime” (2003).
The trends are not much better for Hispanic males. The chances of a Latino male going to prison were over four times greater in 2001 than in 1974. If the incarceration rates remain unchanged, nearly one out of six Hispanic males will spend time in prison in his lifetime (Bonczar 2003, 1). And the rates seem almost certain to remain unchanged given the fact that Hispanics have the highest dropout rate in the nation (Greene 2001, 3).
As of the summer of 2002, there were 1,161,400 African American and Latino males incarcerated in the nation’s jails and prisons (Harrison and Karberg 2003, 11). This number represents more than double the entire prison population in 1980 when President Reagan took office. It is also more than the entire prison population of 1990 during the first Bush administration. These numbers represent human wastage of unparalleled proportion. We now have more black males between the ages of 20 and 40 wearing prison irons than black males in the same age bracket who wore the chains of slavery at the beginning of the Civil War—596,400 compared to 573,052 (ICPSR 2003).
It now seems certain: an academic death sentence is almost a guaranteed prison sentence. In 1997, only 21 percent of African American and 14.9 percent of Hispanic state prison inmates had high school diplomas (Harlow 2003, 6). In a knowledge-based, information driven society, an education is absolutely essential for amassing the necessary skills to function successfully and effectively. Without an education, positive options are few. Where positive options are curtailed, negative options prevail.
It now seems certain: an academic death sentence is almost a guaranteed prison sentence.
Hence, the justice system can look at the nation’s two year-old black males and brown males and start making preparation for the number of jail and prison cells that will be needed by the time the boys reach their twenties. This reality has an eerie resemblance to another period of time when a fatal decision was made in reference to two-year-old males. King Herod determined that the extermination of two-year-old boys was for the betterment of his society. He issued an executive order that all males in Bethlehem and surrounding districts who were two years old and younger were to be put to death (Matthew 2:16). Can you imagine the waste of precious human lives? This brings to mind yet another incident in Scripture, when Egypt’s Pharaoh made a similar fateful decision regarding the Hebrew male infants born in Goshen. He decided to “deal shrewdly” with the Hebrews, ultimately causing the infanticide of countless Hebrew baby boys (Exodus 1:22). I have often wondered what manner of person could issue such a decree. Equally perplexing to me is what manner of person could carry out such an order. How could a person toss a baby into a muddy river and watch him drown, that is, if the crocodiles did not get to him first? Now my mind shifts to a more disturbing series of questions: Where were the parents of those children in Bethlehem and Goshen? Where were the priests, the nobles, the men, the city leaders? Now my question is not so much what manner of people were they who committed the atrocities against the children, but what manner of people were they who knew about the atrocities but did nothing. Perhaps they felt powerless against the “system.” Perhaps they did not feel responsible for “other folk’s children.” The fact is, for whatever reason, they did nothing.
Today, we see the fate of two-year-old males being decided by systems that have basically determined that these children are dispensable elements in society, that they represent a throwaway population. The children are being readied for tossing into the “cold, muddy Nile Rivers” of our nation’s jails and prisons. It is relatively easy to ask the questions, What manner of parents do they have? or What manner of school systems do they attend that condemn them to such a fate? Maybe they live in poor neighborhoods or they attend failing schools or their mothers don’t care about their education. Certainly excuses abound. However, I suggest to us as people of God that those are the wrong questions and wrong considerations. A better question would be, What manner of people are we that as God’s representatives in the land, we would allow such a fate to be decided for children in our midst?
What manner of people are we that as God’s representatives in the land, we would allow such a fate to be decided for children in our midst?
In his column, William Raspberry (2003) raised the question of a possible solution: “And what might change it? Well, education might.” Mr. Raspberry was right; an education might, but a Christ-centered education will!
With such an education, children who now seemed destined for the Nile Rivers of society—destined for the prisons whose construction noises we can already hear in the background—can be rescued and given a future and a hope. In other words, we can educate these children toward a better tomorrow because, ultimately, our God has the final word concerning their future. Moreover, He grants us the wonderful privilege of both representing Him and participating with Him in doing the things today that will make a difference in the future.
References
Bonczar, Thomas P. 2003. Prevalence of imprisonment in U.S. population, 1974–2001. Bureau of
Justice Statistics Special Report. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. NCJ 197976 (August). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Greene, Jay P. 2001. High school graduation rates in the United States. Report for BAEO
(November). New York: The Manhattan Institute, Center for Civic Innovation.
Harlow, Caroline Wolf. 2003. Education and correctional populations. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Special Report. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. NCJ 195670 (January). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Harrison, Paige M., and Jennifer C. Karberg. 2003. Prison and jail inmates at midyear 2002. Bureau
of Justice Statistics Bulletin. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. NCJ 198877 (April). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
ICPSR. See Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. 2003. Study 00003: Historical
demographic, economic, and social data: U.S., 1790–1970. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR.
Raspberry, William. 2003. Connect the dots on crime. Washington Post, September 1, page A25.
Urban Education: From a Two-Year-Old's Point of View 5.2