By Michael Evans
Forty years ago this past summer, thousands gathered on the mall in Washington, DC, to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak the words that would forever mark the soul of America: “I have a dream.” His words were an encouragement to those who had struggled long and hard, an indictment against those who had supported oppressive systems, and a wake-up call for a nation that could no longer sit idly by while injustice and prejudice wreaked havoc in the lives of Americans.
Revisiting the famous words of King’s “I have a dream” speech and looking at our current reality, particularly in the field of education, provides an interesting exercise. It quickly becomes apparent that as a country we have not fully arrived. There is still a need for the dream and for more dreamers.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. (King 1963a)
Is the “Negro” now free? In this informational age that is quickly moving toward a global society, it is apparent that both African American and Hispanic children are lagging seriously behind their white and their Asian peers. In their most recent book No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom charge that “the racial gap in academic achievement is an educational crisis” (2003, 1). After thorough research, they explain that “at age 17, the typical black or Hispanic student is scoring less well on the nation’s most reliable tests than at least 80 percent of his or her white classmates” (2). The Thernstroms claim that on average, African Americans are four years behind both white and Asian students. What opportunities await a high school graduate who has the equivalency of an eighth-grade education?
So, amid the productivity of America, the great opportunities, and the plenteous resources, there is still an island of students—many of them black and many of them brown—who can be found in urban communities “languishing in the corners of American society.”
ACSI has chosen to “dramatize [the] appalling condition.” For the past three-and-a-half years, ACSI’s Urban School Services Department has worked to fight against the educational trends in urban communities and to fight for a new reality: Kingdom schools that will provide quality, Christ-centered education to those in great need, Kingdom schools that will work hard to rescue generations of students.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro peoplea bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. (King 1963a)
All students, when cashing their check for a quality education, ought to find the resources available to meet that obligation. Too many are receiving returned checks marked “insufficient funds.”
According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report (U.S. Department of Education 2003), 9 out of 10 fourth graders in Washington, DC, are not even at a proficient level in reading. Bounced check!
According to the NAEP trial test on urban school districts (U.S. Department of Education 2002), in Los Angeles where 84 percent of the students are Hispanic or African American, 75 percent of fourth graders are below basic level in reading. That’s 3 out of every 4! Bounced check!
In their book Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb, John Ogbu and Astrid Davis (2003) study the academic disengagement of African American students who are still years behind their white counterparts. Though these students are equipped with quality opportunities for learning, they are still underperforming. Bounced check!
We must continue to grow the number of Christian educators who will stand in the gap and demand that this country make good on its promise to educate all its children. We must join in the commitment of our president to have “no child left behind.” We must support the families who desire education for their children, and we must give them options from which to choose. We must resolve afresh to do whatever is necessary to see that all children have an opportunity for quality education, even if that means enlarging our mission, redefining our programs, adding staff, or strengthening teacher preparation programs.
It is clear: we have an educational problem, we have a racial problem, and we have a societal problem. The children of color in our nation are not performing at a rate comparable to the mainstream in society. We must keep dreaming and planning for the day when there is a new reality for these children who are being left behind.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood....And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead.
We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. (King 1963a)
“Wait” and “be patient” are clichés commonly heard by those who are committed to the betterment of urban education and children of color. “Things will get better…eventually,” some say. But those trapped in failing systems cannot wait for eventually—not with the educational lives of their students on the line. There is indeed an incredible sense of the urgency of now. Now is the time to open more schools designed to serve students who are academically deprived. Now is the time to strengthen the many schools already in existence. Now is the time to equip teachers with the necessary tools—academic skills, biblical knowledge to integrate faith and learning, and cultural understandings—with which to serve these students well. Now is the time to remove all unnecessary barriers—restrictive admissions policies, lack of funds, and narrow vision and mission statements that do not include opening “the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children”—that keep these children from a Christ-centered education.
From his Birmingham jail cell, King (1963b) refuted the idea that the passage of time would eliminate the social problems of his day. It would take proactive leadership and a demand for changes, he charged. In No Excuses, the Thernstroms (2003) charge that it will take a healthy anger and discomfort over current realities to move people into action toward a plan for change. King would concur. There must be a resolve for a “better tomorrow.”
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. (King 1963a)
I too have a dream. I dream that the next forty years will see a further development of King’s dream. He dreamed of a day when all in America, especially African Americans, would be on equal footing without the crippling results of systematic racism and discrimination. And in many ways, we are living in the reality of that dream. However, we cannot be satisfied. Disparity in education is a glaring indicator that the fight is not over. What a good education leads to is essential in today’s world. When African American and Latino students are in danger of falling three to four years behind their peers, we have a crisis. And we still need the dream. And we continue to need more dreamers.
References
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1963a. I have a dream. Speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. August 28.
———. 1963b. Why we can’t wait. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
Ogbu, John, and Astrid Davis. 2003. Black American students in an affluent suburb: A study of academic disengagement. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom. 2003. No excuses: Closing the racial gap in learning. New York: Simon & Schuster.
U.S. Department of Education. 2002. Institute of Education Sciences,
National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 2002 trial urban district reading assessment.
———. 2003. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 2003 reading assessment. No longer available.
The Meantime Volume 3 Number 2