Conservative, Not Liberal, Cities Are Ending the White-Black Achievement Gap in Education

Walter Williams, below, doesn't know why, so much more information is needed on that.  Is there an intensive system of remedial eduction, for instance, or are blacks in those cities unusually affluent?

A recent report by Chris Stewart has shed new light on some of the educational problems faced by black youth. The report is titled “The Secret Shame: How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity for All.”

Stewart is a self-described liberal and CEO of Brightbeam, a nonprofit network of education activists who want to hold progressive political leaders accountable.

The report asks, “So how do we explain outstandingly poor educational results for minority children in San Francisco—which also happens to be one of the wealthiest cities in the country?” “The Secret Shame” reports that progressive cities, on average, have black/white achievement gaps in math and reading that are 15 and 13 percentage points higher than in conservative cities.

For example, in San Francisco, 70% of white students are proficient in math; for black students it’s 12%—a 58-point gap. In Washington, D.C., 83% of white students scored proficient in reading compared to 23% of black students—a 60-point gap.

Yet, three of the 12 conservative cities researchers looked at—Virginia Beach, Anaheim, and Fort Worth—have effectively closed or even erased the gap in at least one of the academic categories studied, achieving a gap of zero or one.

“The politically conservative Oklahoma City has even turned the tables on our typical thinking about race-based gaps,” says Stewart. Black students in Oklahoma City even have higher high school graduation rates than white students.

Had “The Secret Shame” study analyzed other cities, it would have found that educational outcomes for most black youngsters is a national disgrace.

As of 2016, in Philadelphia, only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading.

In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test.

National Assessment of Education Progress tests (also called the Nation’s Report Card) give further testament to the tragedy.

In Philadelphia, 47% of its students scored below basic in math and 42% scored below basic in reading. In Baltimore, it was, respectively, 59% and 49%. In Detroit, 73% scored below basic in math and 56% in reading. Below basic means that a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his or her grade level.

Then there’s gross fraud practiced by the education establishment. High school graduation rates for black students range from a high of 84% in Texas to a low of 57% in Nevada and Oregon. However, according to ACT data, the percentage of black students judged to be college-ready in English, math, reading, and science ranges from 17% in Massachusetts to only 3% in Mississippi.

One concrete example of this fraud is the fact that Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School has a graduation rate of 70% while not a single student tested proficient in mathematics and only 3% did so in reading.

“The Secret Shame” report didn’t say why the black/white achievement gap was smaller in conservative cities compared to their progressive counterparts. But permit me to make a suggestion.

An Education Week article reported that in the 2015-16 school year, “5.8% of the nation’s 3.8 million teachers were physically attacked by a student.”

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics show that in the 2011-12 academic year, there were a record 209,800 primary and secondary school teachers who reported being physically attacked by a student.

A National Center for Education Statistics study found that 18% of the nation’s schools accounted for 75% of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6% accounted for half of all reported incidents.

These are schools with predominantly black student populations. My guess is that part of the reasons black academic achievement is greater in conservative cities is that schools are less tolerant of crime whereas schools in progressive cities make excuses.

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Far Left takeover of Tulsa University is disastrous

Suffering from self-inflicted wounds, the University of Tulsa is sick and getting sicker. This is a case study in how “progressive” academic leadership can wreck a once-excellent university.

Last April 11, the university’s administration rolled out “True Commitment,” a radical restructuring that gutted the liberal arts, raised course loads, dissolved academic departments, and effectively turned the university into a technical and vocational school. I wrote about the turmoil that caused in this article for the Martin Center, but I’ll recap the events below.

A campaign of opposition to the restructuring formed immediately, sparked by the circulation of an article that appeared in City Journal on April 17. Concerned Faculty of TU (CFTU) was born at a meeting attended by four hundred people. Faculty votes in the colleges of Law and Arts and Sciences overwhelmingly rejected True Commitment. Students drafted a petition and held a funeral for the liberal arts. Facebook pages and a website were launched, and roughly 20 academic associations and societies wrote letters condemning True Commitment.

The administration quickly launched a venomous counterattack, attempting to muzzle and intimidate faculty and student critics. One low point was an Astroturf email campaign orchestrated by president Gerard Clancy. In September, four college deans and several other administrators denounced the “selfishness and negativity” of the “faceless faculty members”—or perhaps just the “anonymous message board troll”—known as CFTU. Clancy’s email of September 27 was the coup de grâce:

Several poignant moments occurred this week with many on our campus taking a stand: a stand in the name of our students; a stand for what is best for our community; and a stand against a nameless group that has attacked not only our university but many within it. To date, we have not engaged with a faceless entity.…I also appreciate and value the leadership I’ve seen this week as so many have denounced those who negate our value and hold us back.

Even as TU’s administrators deliberately poisoned the university community, the trustees erected a steel wall to protect them. Faculty Senate resolutions proposing alternatives to True Commitment, and finding that the administration violated constitutional provisions relating to shared governance, were deemed “inconsistent with the University’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws” by the board of trustees.

A faculty vote of no confidence that ran 4 to 1 against the president and the provost resulted in an immediate resolution of board support for both administrators. On December 10, board chair Frederic Dorwart told the Faculty Senate that the trustees need not involve them in any curricular decisions, and brazenly asked faculty to apologize for their role in the current crisis.

Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get any worse, in late December, Moody’s downgraded $85 million in TU bonds two steps to Baa3 (just above junk) with a negative outlook, in large part because TU’s net tuition revenue declined 24 percent from 2015 to 2019. The administration subsequently informed us that we would now be entering a period of “austerity,” as $14 million to $20 million would have to be cut from the operating budget over the next two years.

How did a university with a $1.2 billion endowment end up in such bad shape? For one thing, we are seriously top-heavy. TU employs over a dozen people with the title of VP or higher. A study by TU economics professor Matthew Hendricks found that, in 2015, the last year for which broad comparisons are available, administrative spending per student at TU was in the top 9 percent of 796 comparable institutions, while the percentage of total expenditures allocated to academic instruction was in the bottom 12 percent. (That year, only 27.6 percent of TU’s budget—compared with 59 percent of Washington University’s—went to instruction.)

Hendricks also found that TU has the second-largest non-instructional staff size per student in the nation. But while budget cuts should obviously begin with unnecessary staff, the administration may not be eager to erode its primary base of support.

More bad news followed the bond downgrade. On January 30, president Clancy resigned, explaining that he’d promised his wife he would quit “if my health was affected” by his job. (Whose hasn’t been?) Provost Janet Levit was named interim president, where Dorwart has said she will remain until the university achieves “financial stability.” The accounting professor who oversaw the process leading to True Commitment was named interim provost.

Clancy’s departure might seem like a victory, except that the elevation of Levit completes the hostile takeover of the University of Tulsa by the billionaire George Kaiser, a story I wrote about in The Nation. Kaiser is the controlling shareholder of the Bank of Oklahoma Financial Corporation (BOKF), the corporate trustee of half of TU’s endowment. Dorwart is BOKF’s general counsel and president of the George Kaiser Family Foundation; BOKF’s CEO is also a TU trustee. Clancy served on BOKF’s board; and Janet Levit’s husband Ken is the CEO of the Kaiser Foundation. The potential conflicts of interest posed by those ethical entanglements are dizzying to contemplate.

That’s not all. True Commitment closely aligns with Kaiser’s “progressive” focus on alleviating poverty and making Tulsa more economically robust. Clancy was part of an Obama-era HUD task force that called for universities to become “anchor institutions” focused on serving the local community. TU is now part of the Higher Ed Forum of OK, an anchor institution consortium. Clancy also chaired the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce in 2011; TU has invested in various Chamber initiatives to train workers and bring new businesses to Tulsa.

The university has effectively opted to pump out workers and managers who will fit interchangeably into a globalized and digitalized system of production.

Unsurprisingly, Clancy announced in 2016 that TU would henceforth focus on recruiting first-generation college students. His 2017-2022 Strategic Plan, introduced by a section called “Jobs as Central to Life,” makes it clear that what such students need above all is employment. The university has effectively opted to pump out workers and managers who will fit interchangeably into a globalized and digitalized system of production. This is part of a national effort to monetize “human capital” through the creation of a “talent pipeline” from grades K through 20.

TU’s trustees, mostly business owners and executives, are happy to see the university assume the costs of workforce training they would otherwise have to bear. They may also stand to profit from endowment funds flowing into the construction of a new Tulsa Cyber District in a federally designated opportunity zone just west of the university, a project that aligns with Kaiser’s plan to make Tulsa a national hub for cybersecurity. A clandestinely produced TU brochure calling for investment in the Cyber District advertises the services of a “business sector consortium” composed of “alumni and trustees in leadership positions in energy, banking, credit rating and financial security, global retail, trucking and aviation.” Cui bono? When I asked this question of administrators, the brochure disappeared from the internet.

By February 2020, students were prepared to reject Janet Levit’s leadership. They voted no confidence in the interim president by a margin of more than 3 to 1. Levit and the trustees have so far not even acknowledged the vote, much less responded to it, and the local press has not reported on it.

What is more, the administration is once again suppressing dissent. The vice president of student affairs was seen tearing down posters advertising the vote, and two outspoken members of CFTU—nicknamed “Cluster F**k TU” by administration supporters—are now being investigated for harassment because a spreadsheet labeling certain faculty members as “known sycophants” was inadvertently attached to an email.

TU’s Strategic Plan praises Karamay in Xinjiang, China as a “model city for the future, built from the ground up in the past decade,” that “has the ability to plan in [the] absence of tradition.” This is somehow appropriate to the iron fist of corporate progressivism that has emerged at TU. Karamay and Xinjiang are known for authoritarian surveillance, severe pollution from coal gasification and coal-to-petrol projects, and the forcible internment of Uighur and Muslim minorities in detention and re-education camps.

After Clancy took over in late 2016, TU plunged out of the ranks of the top-100 national research universities; 75th eight years ago, we are now 121st. When Kaiser and his associates seized control of the university in 2018, they set to work destroying core academic programs and dividing and demoralizing the university community. The cuts set in motion by the recent Moody’s downgrade are likely to be exacerbated by the financial impact of the coronavirus, and it is unclear in what form—or even whether—TU will survive. This is what happens when know-nothing corporatists impose a “progressive” vision on a proud, once-flourishing university.

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Australia: Pupil free week from Monday so teachers can prepare for remote learning

QUEENSLAND will close schools from next week to all but the children of essential workers.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced schools would move to pupil-free days from next week, although anyone with a job would still be able to send their children to school.

“Next week Queensland schools will move to student free days ... schools will remain open to allow children of essential workers and vulnerable children to remain at school,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

The ruling applies to all schools, not just state schools.

It comes as independent schools had already moved online, with some bringing forward the end of term to offer alternative learning from home next week.

“Next week will give independent school staff valuable time to test and refine their alternative learning from home arrangements and undertake important preparations for what shape school education could take from Term 2. Independent School Queensland executive director David Robertson said.

He commended school principals and the dedication of all school staff in “working closely with their communities” and doing everything in their power to safeguard student and staff health and wellbeing and maintain learning.

The pupil-free days will allow teachers to remain at work and prepare future learning materials, Ms Palaszczuk said.

Education Minister Grace Grace said Queensland did have to “prepare for what the potential future may be”.

“So from Monday the 30th of March, we will be moving to student free days, but we do stress that schools will remain open for children of essential workers, that is those who are required in the workplace,” she said.

“It is vital we remain open for these workers because we don’t want to put pressure on the economy.”

“Schools are open for essential workers and workers required in the workplace ... and obviously vulnerable children will be catered for as well,” Ms Grace said.

“We are planning for all kind of scenarios... and that’s why next week is important for teachers to be given the time to plan the learning materials for what may be needed.”

Kindies will follow suit with pupil-free days next week so that teachers can prepare remote learning and activities for children as well.

Long daycare centres will be open but Education Minister Grace Grace asked parents to adhere to strict isolation requirements and that only the essential workers and workers required in their workplaces use daycare centres.

“Teachers will move to developing remote learning for students and all those learning materials for what may lie ahead,” Ms Grace said.

The Palaszczuk Government has until now maintained a national line that schools were safe to attend, although had told parents they may choose to keep their children at home this week if they were available to care for them there.

The Premier said the health advice that schools were safe had not changed.

“Let me give this very clear message to parents who will have their children at home next week: They should be learning from home, they should not be out in the shopping centres,” she said.

And she said they should not be visiting any grandparents with risk-factors for coronavirus.

When asked how long the measures would be in place and if they would continue after the term break, the Premier said they were preparing for “every scenario”.

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said she was happy with the decision.

“By reducing the numbers of children at school, we can make sure our older and vulnerable teachers aren’t in classrooms and increase the amount of social distancing in our schools, so it’s the perfect solution,” she said.

The Queensland Teachers’ Union also welcomed the decision for students to be given pupil-free days and to move Queensland schools from “business as usual”.

“Teachers will be engaged in preparation and planning in their schools around remote and flexible delivery into the future should schools close as a consequence of the national response to the pandemic,” QTU president Kevin Bates said.

“Schools will continue to provide supervision for children of essential services workers and vulnerable children including those in out of home care, students with disabilities who do not have medical complications and children for whom no other appropriate care arrangements are available - for example if both parents are working and their child could be at school and supervised.”

Health Minister Steven Miles said the state could have lost up to 30 per cent of its health staff if schools had completely closed. “It’s incredibly important that our health staff continue to be able to send their children to school,” he said.

“Modelling by our hospitals suggested if they had been unable to do that it would have potentially impacted on 30 per cent of our health workforce.

“We are already working on the basis that a proportion of our health workforce will get sick and that we will need to cover them.”

“We can also cover those that don’t have alternative arrangements for their children’s learning so it’s incredibly welcomed by our hospitals and our health staff that they will be able to continue to access schools.”

Dr Miles urged parents considering asking grandparents to look after children to consider the health of the elderly and those most vulnerable to the virus.

The pupil-free days ruling comes after the Department of Education issued all Queensland schools with two-weeks worth of school work that can be delivered online and via paper copy.

Two-week units of school work for Prep to Year 10 was made available to all Queensland schools on March 17, with subsequent rollouts of content.

Packs of school work are already available to parents and students with various activities in line with the national curriculum for each year level and answers available for parents to help them with their child’s learning.

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