This Could Have Been The Year of the Education Voter
This Could Have Been The Year of the Education Voter
Blavity: It is our job to help communities understand that if they want to see changes in the economy, they must see changes in the K-12 education system first
Angela Williams | a Blavity feature …
We live in a nation where 54 percent of adults read at or below a 6th grade level and 66 percent of 4th graders are not reading proficient. Nearly 30 percent of Americans scored in the lowest percentile of numeracy and 24 percent lacked basic digital problem solving abilities. When 44 percent of Americans could not name all three branches of government, you begin to understand why our politics are so volatile and our governance structures so fragile. Close to 20 percent of Black students and 37 percent of Hispanic students are unable to achieve a high school diploma or GED. And while 75 percent of white students earn regular diplomas, only half of Black students do.
Our K-12 education system never really functioned, fully, the way an education system should. The impact of that dysfunction has always harmed students of color – especially Black students – the worst. And, yet, when the pandemic (as devastating as it was) offered us an opportunity to finally re-envision education and pathways to achievement, we refused to take it. There was a moment, for example, when we could have paused to truly understand the benefits of an actual structured virtual learning environment (such as successful equity-centered virtual academy platforms already developed) versus being stuck in hastily thrown together emergency online classrooms. Knowing that Black youth had always been targets, long before pandemic, in racist school systems, communities and policymakers could have marshaled resources in a coalesced effort to craft new innovations, use new technology and design bold new models centered in anti-racist thinking.
We failed. As a result, our young people are scarred by learning loss, teacher shortages, and infrastructure failures at a time when creative public policy and sustained investments are needed the most …