Not that it was a total surprise, but it’s still a shocking statistic. A study by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Schott Foundation for Public Education has singled out Pinellas County for national notoriety. It graduates, states Schott, the lowest percentage of black males of any major school district in the country. In the COUNTRY. Approximately 20 percent. One in five.
The school district and the schools will–again–seek to address black underachievement–after questioning the Foundation’s methodology. Calls have already gone out for initiatives–more remedial classes, more study halls, more mentors as well as better principals, better teachers, and better pay.
As my African-American friend Joe Brown, the former Tampa Tribune editorial board stalwart, has often pointed out. Education is a “three-legged stool.” The school and its teachers, the students, the parents. Absent any one leg, the stool collapses.
This is not what M.L. King, Medgar Evers and Rosetta Parks had in mind.