Understood that you didn't comprehend what it could have meant to attend Yale when you were starting out there. But nothing prevented you from transferring to Howard or Grambling after two years, once you had the lay of the land and knew that the land was complicit in constructing a system you detested. Yet, you stayed, probably because it actually turned out to work for you. I admire what you did. MBAs Across America seems like a fantastic organization. But please, you made your choice to stay inside the system that creates the System, so own it.
23
This is a poignant essay and should make us deliberate further when making public polices, though out of good intentions, that may result in hurting those whom we aim to help. In New York City the Mayor is pushing to do away with SHSAT, an admission test qualifying applicants to top-notch public high schools in the city. The announced reason is to promote diversity in these schools since currently they have few Black and Hispanic students. Though the goal is laudable, we have to wonder whether thrusting students into a rigorous academic environment where they may not be ready for is really doing them a favor. The only result from this ill-conceived policy may just be ruining these schools. Back in the 1970's these schools were full of Black and Hispanic kids when the City invested more in their education. The right way to go is by raising the academic levels of the students and not by lowering standards.
12
right on. well said. the tragedy of the Landry thing to me was to see how these poor kids were being exploited on all sides - by the ego-driven cult-y founders of the school, obvi, but also by the ivy league admissions officers eager for social media fame, and the media which perpetuates the myth/dream/fantasy that keeps american capitalism humming along even as it crushes most everybody. thanks!
20
The meritocracy myth, the idea that people who are accepted to the good schools and who get the good jobs are the only ones who deserved it, is today's cover for elitism and racism. They used to be able to just outright reject minority candidates, but now there is this elaborate justification. Under-funding public schools, especially those not in high-property tax districts, further reduces competition for good jobs/schools.
I am white, but I came from a family that was poor and attended a magnet school in inner-city Memphis. Many of the high-achieving students succeeded in rising above their beginnings, but many suffered doing it.
After I escaped, I went to an elite school and an elite church where I met wealthy people who worked incredibly hard. They think this hard work makes them entitled to the doors that were opened for them. This is a fallacy. It's almost like kabuki theater of hard work. The consequences they were trying to avoid were nothing like the consequences (and near-hopelessness) faced by a poor single mother or a child growing up in the hood.
The saddest thing about this, to me, is how the "if you were deserving, you wouldn't be where you are" excuse for racism and elitism works like gas-lighting. The victim often ends up believing it.
This is a big problem, but there is one small step that everyone can take: stop pretending that we have a level playing field. stop pretending that the "deserving" win.
47
This is an emotionally moving and thought-provoking article by Casey Gerald about the poverty facing so many young Americans today.
It is such a startling juxtaposition to read Gerald's op-ed and then to read Jennifer Weiner's op-ed entitled "The Torture of Dressing for Your Office Holiday Party."
While black children are starving in our streets, Weiner contemplates the tremendous difficulty facing white women today in finding the most expensive outfit to wear to parties.
24
For every famous pop musician, there are hundreds, even thousands, as talented. Life in the US is a tumble as a capsule in a lottery-drawing.
9
"Part of what drives this system, and distracts from its horrors, is a myth in which we all participate: the American dream."
Well said. This article is a necessary and appropriate antidote to the voluminous drivel that has been published during this decade by the likes of "Tiger Mother" Amy Chua and others. There does appear to have emerged a serious divide between African-American and Asian-American graduates of Harvard and Yale. The latter people--for the most part the privileged children of doctors, lawyers, engineers, science PhDs, and tenured university professors (like Amy Chua's father) who experienced tightly managed and curated childhoods--tend to be supremely positive about all of their life experiences in America. No wonder why that's the case--being born on third base is usually great.
In some cases, these Asian-Americans have either willingly or unwillingly turned themselves into useful idiots for reactionary causes rooted in the idea that nobody in America is "born on third base" aka with overwhelming, often unsurmountable advantages. See the recent lawsuit challenging affirmative action policies at Harvard. I'm glad to see that at least some Asian-Americans recognize they're being used as pawns in a campaign by white Americans to dismantle race-based affirmative action.
And then you have people like Casey Gerald who wish to set the record straight from a different perspective. I've been skeptical about the phrase "American dream" since my childhood.
12
@AR: Much depends on wordplay. Language is the most important tool we have to come to mutual understandings.
3
Thank you for your powerful and thought provoking essay. While you make a compelling argument for why T.L.M.C. is symptomatic of a systemic problem, you didn't address how you think we could begin to resolve it. I'd be interested learning more about your ideas on actions needed to improve the situation. You have the experience and eloquence which make me look forward to reading or hearing more from you on this issue.
Theoretically, every child born has limitless potential - they could grow up to be President, astronaut, teacher, farmer.
How does society insure that every American child has the opportunity and resources to realize their unique potential?
There must be something in the air this morning as I've been pondering similar thoughts of what makes people (specifically my children) happy. My kids (who grew up in circumstances that were the polar opposite of your's) have studiously chosen to march to the beat of their own drum - they are very happy but they're very unconventional. And I worry, as mothers often do. I wondered how it is that they are so comfortable being so different until I realized hanging in my bathroom is this e. e. cummings quote:
"...to be nobody but yourself in a world which is trying its hardest night and day to make you everybody else is to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
44
@Reb El: The demand for astronauts is very small.
The common denominator of civilization is the assumption that we are all, in one way or another, pursuing happiness.
3
I'm sorry to have to point this out but success requires hard work. That is all the "bootstrap" argument you all seem to hate so much is saying.
Unless you live in a fictional uncorrupted communist country where you are given a job and everyones salary is the same all the way from garbage man to rocket scientist, you are probably going to have to work hard to succeed.
Even the trust fund children had a parent or grandparent that worked their butt off to get the money to create the trust find. Someone in every family is going to have to work hard, even if your are the richest family on earth.
If you want to get into MIT like I did, you are going to have to work more than everyone around you. It's that simple. Doesnt matter if you are white or black or Asian, you will have to work hard to get into MIT. Even if you go to MIT, you will still have to work hard to make money. Im white and I worked from 6th grade with the singular goal of getting into an elite college in mind. I worked more than everyone else, and I got in. Now I work hard running two companies! I work all the time and can't even see my wife. But it's my fault black people cant succeed.
I'm sorry, but only like 0.1% of us can be successful while also not working. For the rest of us of all races, you will have to pull up your bootstraps to succeed. Complaining about the 0.1% is just wasting time bc they aren't spending time complaining, they are just making more money.
14
@Jacqueline: The foundations of science were laid by people with the leisure time to think and explore.
Are you having fun yet?
15
From nothing to nowhere....sounds like what I see most white people doing out here in rural America.
I get that you believe the American Dream means that everyone has a middle class life with perfect equality, but for there to even be a middle class there has to be a lower class. The only way to guarantee equality of outcomes is to live in an uncorrupted communist country, which so far does not exist!
This school was run by two black people who abused the systems of affirmative action to cheat for their own personal aggrandizement. I'm tired of every problem in the black community being blamed on white people, especially when there are more poor white people than there are all of black people.
I am friends withseveral successful black entrepreneurs, including one who is a multi-millionaire, and they never tall about racism. They talk about making more money, just like everyone else who isnt stuck in the perpetual victimhood mentality where us white people have secret meetings for how to keep the black population down.
You know what the poor white people do? They place the blame for their position on everyone else. Just like I see in so many of these articles where someone is trying to convince me that my race is evil to the bone. It's a frame of mind that successful people just dont waste time on.
19
We focus on outliers to make systemic injustice invisible. By definition, most people cant be outliers any more than they can be above average (except in Lake Wobegon). The children who are around average need to have good chances at average lives.
7
For a real chance for everyone, you will have to work around the teachers' union and do-nothing politicians who promise everything but deliver on very little.
Good luck to all the climbers.
2
What is the theme of this article? Poor me, I was a good football player, got a scholarship to an ivy, then jobs on wall street? My heart is breaking.
And what evidence does he offer that our school and housing policies were DESIGNED to maintain white supremacy and punish the poor and working class? Really? Housing policies were misguided programs that had unintended consequences. Poorer school districts are not an obstacle to a good education if a person wants to achieve. A bigger obstacle is when students abuse achievement oriented students and disrupt the schools. A bigger obstacle is when families and communities don't value education.
Who asked you to give up who you were or where you came from? Did you really want to go back to Oak Cliff? No one told you to forget being Black or give up what you value. But if assimilation means doing the things that must be done to achieve, I don't get your complaint.
Can we do a better job for poorer schools? You bet. BUt that isn't the primary problem.
Achievement requires hard work and sacrifice. Some people deal with it well, others not so well. That isn't related to race or social class.
Do poor Black children need unforgiving discipline to achieve? I don't know if that is true but if it is what does that speak to? Is it because white privilege makes it so easy for Whites to achieve or is it that the average White kid comes from a more stable environment where education is valued?
22
I've always hated the 'Lean In' idea because it says that if women only worked harder, they would be as successful as similarly qualified men. It doesn't acknowledge that Sandberg got where she is in large part because she had sponsors (e.g., Summers) who leapfrogged her along - in the same way that many, many successful men have their careers accelerated. Sandberg holds herself up as an example that it is possible to make it through the system without acknowledging that she succeeded because she was one of the very lucky few women for whom the existing system worked (that she is an anomaly, not a example).
I love this article because it so clearly articulates that this is exactly the same thing. A few kids get successfully through college which 'proves' that anyone can do it if they only work a little harder. Nope. I know (literally) hundreds of women who have similar gifts and capabilities to Sandberg. None of them are billionaires. Fewer than should be are even 'one of the more successful in their field'. Just because a few women, a few poor kids, etc. make it through doesn't mean that the system works for everyone or that it's a good system. The plural of anecdote is not data.
21
@NYC
Sheryl Sandberg:
National Merit Scholar - Harvard x 2 degrees - World Bank -McKinsey - Google - Facebook
Sure what a remarkable bit of luck she had a mentor.
The 'singular' of anecdote is not 'luck' either.
I worked with many... many smart hardworking and talented women at my big three consulting gig and none of them were 'lucky' either.
6
Brilliant article. Captures so many critical truths and realities. Thank you, Casey.
5
Mr. Casey Gerald is obviously an educated man, who has written a compelling article. it is unfortunate that education can be painful, especially in the humanities , which exposes scholars to the pains and shortcomings of the real world. The world has always experienced scarcity, where masses have had insufficient resources to live well. All through history, although the suffering underclass has vastly outnumbered the elite class, it has nevertheless lacked the wherewithal to rise up as a class and claim full equality.
Revolutions only put new oppressors into power. In a country like America, democracy is tweaked so that what the masses need is rarely given. Our present democracy does not cater to most of our people. Education for the masses is not done well. Only getting into great schools will give a meaningful education. Too bad. But the few who slip through and learn deeply about the real world become the intellectual elite. Not too many make it. What education does provide is an opportunity to do something good---to chip away at the facade of unfairness and make life more bearable for more people.
11
The problem rests with the premise.
No, we have not starved schools of resources; real spending has more that doubled. In NJ, “poor” children attend the most expensive public schools in the world. And they still fail.
If a child lacks a “stable household”, whose fault is that? If she lacks sufficient food, whose fault is that?
No, it is not “structural cruelty advanced by neoliberals and conservatives”; it’s not the want of a “social safety net”; at $1 trillion or so a year, we spend far too much on such things. It’s people who shouldn’t be parents – like yours, apparently – acting irresponsibly.
Society can help around the edges, with programs like school vouchers, which serve parents, students, and taxpayers rather than the teachers’ unions.
But, absent some kind of limit on who can be parents, anathema to a free society, there is simply no way for government to “solve” this problem.
24
This is an accurate and scathingly honest depiction of the moral decay so ingrained in this country today. Decay that is perfectly typified by the abject moral failure of the man in the White House and the political party he represents.
When I was a child I was sold the "American Dream" narrative every day in school. I was sold on the truthfulness, integrity and basic decency of the people who live in this country. Only to find out it was all a big lie.
Instead of benevolence, we are global plunderers.
Instead of fairness and justice, we are duplicitous liars that preside over a completely rigged legal system.
Instead of offering basic human decency, we offer social and financial enslavement.
Instead of aspiring to what we could have become, we have allowed our country to rot away from the inside out.
And more than anything, I've learned that one party, and
one party alone, is the major driving force of this moral and ethical degeneracy, theft, and outright perversion of power for the sake of power alone. They are the professional user class. The professional schemers. The professional liars. The professional criminals. The professional dream killers. And their name is "the modern GOP". And they are rotten to the core.
Don't think so? Then you haven't been paying attention.
The Iraq War. The great recession. Massive tax giveaways to the rich. The decimation of the health care system. Stolen court seats. Stolen elections. And now, political usurpation. It's endless.
11
Didn't we all LEARN THIS ALREADY from the horrific experience of Indian Schools?
Ripping people loose from the only background they know and placing them into a background they will never quite fit into is psychologically stressful in ways that can become severe. Read "Hillbilly Elegy" - JD Vance became a "success" financially, because of the Yale education. But what of the rest of his family? Is he to consider them a failure? Are they to consider themselves, by comparison with him, a failure?
Let's start working harder to fix the system that divides people into "success" vs "failure" based on wealth. Let's fix this system that says Ivy League grads are "better" people and families should sacrifice and endure horrible things to get there.
Let's lift up EVERYONE, not a select few. And especially, let's stop this charter school/ Ivy League system that forces the few who succeeded to denounce everyone who was left behind, even their own families.
10
Thank you for this eloquent and insightful piece.
Our education system is yet another shining example of true American exceptionalism. What a bunch of lies we are as a nation. Whatever we once were or could be was lost 50 years ago. Sad.
2
well, are there not two sides to the coin the author describes so well? would he rather not have had the man from Yale offer him a way out of poverty and misery? it might not have a perfect solution, but i rather think it was better than nothing by far. better to be like John Henry or a Stepin-Fetchit? let's really hope and agree with the author that the day will come when the 3rd alternative of "normal citizen" will be viable for all of us.
3
A healthy, democratic society needs well-educated people at all levels. The solution to our problems of segregation and unequal opportunities does not lie at Harvard or Yale but in education systems which embrace students and teach them not just basic skills but citizenship skills and the values of honesty, compassion, and acceptance of all people. It should expose them to art and literature and music of all sorts which shouldn´t be hard with the internet and it should teach them enough history to understand why they are where they are. It can also teach some vocational skills depending on the desires and talents of the students. It should not be an either-or-proposition. I might add that basic skills should include understanding how your credit card interest works and how home mortgages work and perhaps how to budget when you have enough money to budget.
6
I beg to differ.
These success stories do not claim that the system is perfect; no system involving human beings is or can be so. What they do say is that it is possible for someone to make it up the ladder in an imperfect system.
Of course, working hard and playing by the rules will not guarantee success. However, not working hard and ignoring the rules can guarantee failure, so the choice is to have the possibility of success or not.
To me, the alleged abuse of the students by the Landry school is not the main problem with it. The falsification of records and lack of proper preparation is. Sending unprepared students into the higher education system not only penalizes the individual students, but calls into question the qualifications of future generations of students as well.
9
I totally disagree. It is possible, that no human system is perfect, but some systems are better than other. The success stories of individuals just distract from reality and stay in the way of the system's improvement. Just because the people do win lottery, doesn't mean that lottery is a decent system to pull many folk out of poverty. The tale of Laundry is not about fake the records, it happened before (Atlanta scandal, for example) but it was necessary to give the kids the chance for better life, which they may have without this cheating. Sure, it will be much better to prepare kids, but in absence of resources it is impossible, and if you don't have success stories you have even less resources that is how the system works, and that what is need to be changed. And students 'unprepared' is a big woop, why do you think the colleges have remedial classes? Exactly, because many students are not prepared to the college in their schools, and that is systemic failure.
3
I do not doubt that it is more difficult for minorities to both achieve at a high level and then "fit-in" if they do, both are hard for anyone, but a skin color that screams out your difference must make achieving satisfaction at your achievements even more unlikely.
The barriers to anyone not born into a situation that nurtures their academic, social and psychological success are enormous. Expectations placed on children are extremely powerful in shaping their future successes, failures and happiness. The Ayn Rand or Horatio Alger narratives completely miss the point that no one is solely accountable for his successes or failures. At every step along a child's life their are people helping, or hindering, her progress.
A system modeled after sports has at each level only a few who can move on to the next higher level of achievement, while the majority are told, in effect, "you're just not good enough or you just didn't try hard enough". That is not a system that will help the majority of children achieve a positive sense of themselves, except one of mediocracy or failure.
That "sports model" is not one that benefits the majority, but rewards only those who "make it" and in the process places enormous burdens on those successes to be perfect in every way. That is not fair to either the majority or to the successes.
We must find a way to help every child. Far too many children are being under-served, mostly, I think because of under-funded public schools.
2
Admittedly, I don't know what justice can be achieved given the state we are in as a nation. I am firmly convinced, however, by 20-plus years of work in higher education, that getting every Landry student prepared for success at UL Lafayette (where I know some of the faculty) is a better move in the right direction than is getting a handful into or even ready for a so-called elite education anywhere.
18
Thanks to the author for speaking in plain words and metaphors I could readily understand in describing his experience and the issue he is addressing. So many authors don’t, and thus fail to communicate their point.
I was raised in a purely “white” environment in the 60s and early 70s, owing to the homogeneous nature of the rural area I was reared. There were few black students at my college other than the recruited athletes. I never had a black person in any college class. My law school class had but maybe 5 black students out of a starting class of 240 (1977).
Law school was a grinding wheel that made success in getting good grades totally dependent on shaping one’s mind to “think like a lawyer” and nothing else (meaning, absorbing and applying the law—another layer of shaping the mind would come in the practice.)
My friends who became doctors were shaped in the same way at medical school, and later in their residencies, fellowships and practices.
Even as “white” people taught by “white” teachers and professors there were things we had to relinquish from our upbringing and social backgrounds to conform to our educational disciplines and professions. I think I can see how that would be more jarring for minority students coming from a economically wanting background than for “white” students.
Frankly, at least for professionals who require graduate degrees, such as medicine and law, and fields such as engineering, I don’t see that changing.
10
The American dream says anyone can pull themselves up by the bootstraps and have a good job if only they tried hard enough. But, I wonder, if everybody went to college, got degrees in STEM fields, would there be enough jobs for everybody who worked hard? If everybody were a chemist or an engineer, wouldn't salaries for chemists and engineers plunge because there were too many of them?
Around 1970, NASA laid off a glut of engineers. At the same time, the company my dad worked at laid off 6 of their 12 engineers. There was suddenly too many engineers in Texas. It took my dad about two years to find a job, even though he had a degree from one of the country's best engineering schools (Rice). Some of his associates gave up looking and became insurance salesmen and car dealers.
When I see "anybody can make if if they try. I wonder if it's true. Are there really enough jobs for each and every one of us to be successful professionals?
14
As someone who for many years has worked with transitioning prisoners, I cringe at the author's claim that failure is "the inevitable outcome" of "structural cruelty" and "white supremacy". I know from experience that those who comfort themselves with those beliefs are those who are most likely to return to prison. Others, who choose to be larger than their pain and their histories, and stronger than the indignities of society, are those most likely to make for themselves a constructive future. A person can reclaim his soul, his dignity and his life at any time. I've seen it happen time and time again. It doesn't require the permission of others or for the world to change itself.
22
What the author, and others, fail to acknowledge that many of those who are fortunate to attend an elite school no longer fit in with most of their age group (I refrain from saying "peers) back home. At their college, they study subjects that seldom have relevance to those whose horizons, abilities, and interests are not so esoteric.
I recall a comment by a student at an Ivy league who graduated from a medium sized, public high school, who said she often wondered why she was admitted, why everyone seemed so much smarter and better prepared. And yet by her senior year, academic honors came her way, but she still felt apart both from others at the university as well as those she'd left behind, back home.
There is an easy path, and a more difficult one. The latter often includes a sense of not fitting in, whether with those left behind or those at the very top, whose rules and values are also hard to fathom.
13
The people behind T.M. Landry, and other private/charter schools like them, give us a lesson in insatiable greed. Do anything to make money with no social conscience, no moral/ethical values and no concern for anyone but themselves.
WE THE PEOPLE must work together to stop these crooks at every level. Thanks to Mr. Gerald for this article. Let's share it with every person who has school age children.
Hard work and intelligence are what help average people gain real, sustainable traction in society. Crooks get caught in the end and their "victims" always pay the price. Do not get sucked into these schemes. Question everything.
7
Forget the bootstrap myth, tell children doing well in school will not be helpful to their lives. Why didn’t Obama mention this in every speech?
5
Thank you so much for this essay, it is so necessary. I've worked in many pre-K centers in the Bronx where classrooms are named after Ivy League institutions. So "Princeton" and "Yale" are celebrated as the ultimate goal. This has always enraged me, but as a white teacher I've struggled to effectively articulate why without seeming like a bigot. The beautiful children I work with deserve to be able to discover all of life's opportunities at no charge to them.
In comments people have been asking for solutions to this problem. One simple one would be to celebrate the public institutions that educate our children. CUNY and SUNY as well as local community colleges that do so much for our children and could always use more funding and support. The New York Times drives so much of this Ivy envy, and it is so destructive.
35
I totally agree with this. I work with high school students in Yonkers and the obsession with the Ivy League by the Times and others is a pet peeve of mine. An admission to a CUNY or a SUNY (or a good, meets-all/most need college) is a big win in my book. Why do we always have to hold up this narrow definition of success?
17
I taught in inner city schools in Providence, RI. I had lots of black kids in my classes. I taught art and yes a lot of those kids were pushed into my classes because their potential wasn't encouraged. But we had great fun-- all of us. They were not all downtrodden and without hope who would become drugs addicts or pushers, nor did they go on to Yale. It is not an either or situation. It is my strong belief that both sides of the equation must be looked at: systemic racism and the disintegration of black families. Was it white supremacy that made your mother disappear or your father addicted to drugs? There is such a thing as human agency that has nothing to do with the American Dream that is such a false goal for all of us. Most white people do not know black people so will never see themselves as being a part of white supremacy and are not going to see themselves as guilty. For all of us to move forward this 'fact' must be accepted too.
13
I had to stop reading the comments section. I now understand that many of the readers of the NYTimes are deeply racist themselves. Just one appalling comment after another focusing on the father (bet these folks want their own meth-head childrend to get rehab instead of prison), and non-existent mother and actually thinking that white supremacy has not systematically attacked Black/Brown families. Clearly, none of these people will ever read "White Fragility," number 5 on the best sellers list. Its a shame. As a Black woman, I feel more and more that I am actually living in a quasi-apartheid state.
21
@CBlaming white people for everything that goes wrong in the black community has proved counterproductive for five decades. Maybe it’s time to look in the mirror.
15
@Moderate The book I am referring to is “White Fragility,” by Robin DiAngelo.
@Moderate No one is blaming white people for everything. I am asking you to look at structural, persistent, institutionalized racism. It is difficult work. Clearly, most white folks aren’t up to it. No need to be offended - if you don’t care you don’t care. Read the book and start the process if you care.
6
It’s hard to give up that victim status.
16
I was with you until you said you went from Yale, then HBS, to Obama, and then to open a non-profit to support small-business owners. There is absolutely everything wrong with the last decision about non-profits. I am aware my opinion is singular and that I will be widely pilloried for saying such.
Even though you are referring to a gigantic tragedy that should not occur, you lost credibility.
Why? Because you think you can help small business without profit. That makes you singularly ineligible to serve as a spokesperson for opportunity and potential of people.
8
i agree with the author. It’s time to demand African Americans to go to schools with African American administrators and school boards and teachers. That’s the only way to get rid of the myth problem. Obama should go on a myth busting tour to spread the word.
3
You write:
"We are given the kind of advice I heard a senior administrator offer a group of black Yale freshmen a few years ago: 'If you’re going to be a token, just be the best token you can be.' And as the ones who 'made it,' we feel no right to complain about this bitter bargain that offers us the keys to the kingdom as long as we leave pieces of ourselves behind."
===========
That last sentence is painfully beautiful. (Hard enough to 'summit' from a growin'-up-"white" base as a lower-middle-class 'kid' (in economic 'terms') in 1950's-'60's Brooklyn. Can't begin to imagine the ill of the oddments I'd be carrying yet if my 'sufferance' were of a nation's black/white disgraces -- let alone one bred not of meager economic status, but of poverty.)
1
Absolute, 100% ugly racism on full display at the NY Times. This author is willing to blame the conscious actions of white people for the plight of black Americans. We are *trying* to hold black people down. We don't do it with any other group, but for some reason we make this vast effort to keep this one group - the group that has exaggerated rates of single-parent families, the group that far outranks any other identifiable demographic in violent crimes across the board.
I don't want to be a jerk, I don't like pointing fingers, but this guy demands it. The plight of black Americans is the fault of individual poor decisions, not white tyranny. These sort of accusations work on kids, and the insecure, but most people grow out of it and grow to resent it.
23
A small request: Can we finally retire the phrase "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps"? Just picture someone physically trying to do that, and you will realize what a laughable and un-useful image and phrase it really is.
7
In the classical music world of success, many gifted players in the past few decades have come from Japan. I had thought, well, strong focus, work ethic, tiger moms, Suzuki violin, whatever, it's the culture. And then, recently, I heard the violinist Midori mention in a discussion that in Japan all children are guaranteed a musical education. A new picture snapped into focus: every child is given the opportunity to learn. All children who have musical talent and want to use it are given the instruction they need to grow. What could we do for our nation if we believed all of our people deserved and must be offered a good education?
24
Thank you so much for this piece. Our problems of inequity and inequality are made that much more poignant when a person who came from hard circumstances (for lack of a better word) examines this paradigm closely and says "Hold on, something is very wrong with this picture".
The specter of Respectability Politics is looming, and those viral videos are evidence. It may have once been a sort of bandaid for the disenfranchised, but it's hardly a solution, and it's pretty insulting to boot. Especially considering we have over a century's worth (or more) of literature and philosophical thought (much of it by the deconstructivists), and many many follow up works to dig through. Thread the needle with W.E.B. Dubois and follow the string through to artists like James Baldwin (read them, don't consume quotes!) and Angela Davis. And every person should read the back and forth between Henry Louis Gates and Joyce A. Joyce.
1
I am a product of South Central Los Angeles and the Catholic schools there. My mom was a seamstress and my dad a partially disabled vet. I've been a Family Physician for more than 25 years. My wife is a primary school educator. I've seen the impact and been the beneficiary of dedicated teachers and will always be grateful to the Catholic Church for maintaining a presence in the inner cities. But there is a cost to be paid for the journey. The education quagmire will remain that as long as this country does not address that a good educational system is necessary but not sufficient.
9
I grew up a poor factory worker in Chicago then later due to several lucky breaks was able to attend college in Boston. While there I tutored incoming students in mathematics. The work was rewarding and taught me I really liked tutoring and teaching.
After graduating and not knowing anything else I went back to a factory job. An official from the school district contacted me and explained the shortage of math and science teachers was so severe, they would waive all certification requirements if I would come and teach in the local high school or community college.
With dreams of glorious summer vacations and making application I was greatly dismayed to find my teacher's salary would be less than half that of the factory and not enough to cover the mortgage and utility bills.
When I told him the only solution was to raise teachers' salaries he said, "No, then we will get people who only want money and don't care about education."
Quite the contrary! They are *preventing* good teaching because good teachers simply cannot afford to work there. Yes I did want to try it but also needed a roof over my head.
Going back to the factory, I have remained there, on and off to this day.
33
Urban children from poverty are trapped in the “Bermuda Triangle” of school districts. They are wedged between the following:
School Boards acting as “celebrity judges” (without the knowledge or experience). Boards hire superintendents more attuned to board member’s fame and fortune than results for poor kids. They preen and prance for the union and other constituencies while generations of children remain victims of low expectations rather than circumstances.
Teacher Unions have extended beyond the noble purpose of securing fair compensation and safe, fair working conditions. Now unions advocate for lowered expectations, adult conveniences, and curriculum-instruction-assessment based on perception rather than empirical evidence of individual student growth.
Community Institutions promoting ideologies rather than holding districts accountable for outcomes. Influential leaders and media ignore it as districts perform lower, become more violent, add central office administrators with little impact on achievement, and spend large amounts of taxpayer dollars on ineffective strategies—as long as their ideological countenance is reflected back at them. Often, Citizens argue for “lowering the roof” rather than high expectations and building better scaffolding to reach high standards. Rich kids require fewer rungs on that ladder.
Meanwhile schools with poor kids sail against strong winds—as their districts spew platitudes about Social Causes, yet act as Political Entities.
2
How true, as this democracy is still based on a capitalistic system where inequality remains it's main problem. And capitalism, though dependent on democratic values, does not abide by a willingness to share the pie, hence, attributing it's success to meritocracy (distinct from equal opportunity, achievable only for a minority by birth and place... and the connections it provides). Still, we love 'stories', however viral; but hopefully given in the right context and intent in fighting the social inequities inherent in the system. Not to dampen your aim, making public a loud secret of injustice, we may have a long road to travel yet to achieve solidarity with the least among us. Without justice, peace in society is not achievable.
3
We know how to educate everyone. We do. The problem is we are not willing to fund and support effective public schools, k-universtiy. We are not willing to have an equitable tax structure where people actually pay a fair share according to their ability. We are unwilling to spend the money that the public manages to collect on the populations that need it the most. I sincerely hope that the youth of today are getting tired of the outcomes from our mean-spirited, under-regulated, under-taxed capitalistic Libertarian culture. It's not working. The education pedagogies that were developed in the united States in the 80s, the same ones rejected by conservative politicians and voters, are being very successfully implemented in Finland today.
Recently I heard a definition of "conservative" that rang true. "A conservative is someone who does not want to pay for anything."
15
@mary bardmess
It is a progressive tax rate. Who is not paying their fair share? The more income the higher the tax rate. This is a problem?
4
Give me a break! There are so many carve-out exemptions for the real estate, finance, energy, etc sectors that calling our tax system progressive is a lie.
8
Unless that "income" is the result of "capital gains". If you make money from money, as opposed to working long hours for it, you will pay 0%, 15%, or 20% (this last only if your income is over about $450,000). The top tax rate on earned income is 37%. Only 52% of Americans own stock and are eligible for this tax break. They are not the poorer people.
Moreover, FICA taxes use a flat rate. It amounts to about 15% of earned income up to $132,900 (not collected on income over that amount) and one third of all federal taxes collected.
In addition, eight states with state income taxes have flat rates.
If you want to see a truly progressive income tax, check out the rates during the Eisenhower administration.
4
People keep saying, "Public schools, public schools" but public schools are not actually "public" schools.
Public schools are private schools. But the difference is that instead of paying higher tuition, you pay higher property or state taxes.
In NJ, all the good public schools are concentrated in high-income neighborhoods, rich people. Bad public schools are in poorer towns. But everyone says their public schools are great, even when they're not and they'll get defensive about it. Because that's the public school they can afford, in a low-income community.
Public schools offer more equality because a low-income person could reside in high-income area if willing to sacrifice. But big picture, it's very segregated. Rich people don't want to live next to poor people. So it becomes vicious cycle. Rich kids enrich other rich kids, who are already come from highly educated pedigree of parents. Poor are not, they don't have resources, skills, work ethics, or knowledge to navigate themselves through the system.
Neighborhoods need to be more equal. Rich need to live with poor, poor with rich. Trust each other more, not look at each other with suspicion, lock doors, or see someone as criminal, but as a friend, family. Help each other out, poor and rich kids hanging out together. Then rich will feel more empathetic to poor, not as people to push away and keep down, but people to help up.
10
@df
Public schools are free, land own by a governmental entity. Private schools are not free to all, land not owned by the government.
1
Public schools are open to and must accept as students all children living within the school district. Private schools, including religious and charter schools, are not open to all students and can cherry pick. Public schools are free in that students and parents are not charged tuition.
All residents of the school district pay taxes to support the public schools, including people with no children and parents who pay tuition so their kids can attend private schools.
Public schools used to be funded almost exclusively by local property taxes. Now, about 36% of public school funding comes from local property taxes - a situation that continues to create inequalities. The rest comes from state taxes, state lotteries, and the federal government (about 8%).
5
Overall, a good article. We need to take a more holistic look at education and the workforce. But there is a glaring oversight: Defining a "good education" as attending an "elite" school, or even college, is really misguided and a real problem in this country. Many people don't realize how few freshmen slots there are at these schools. The numbers are really low -- I believe it's around 1,600 at a school like Harvard or Princeton. Athletes get a large percentage, so for most, the competition is over a few hundred slots in a nation of over 300 million. There are millions of jobs to fill so what impact is this going to have? It's close to winning a lottery. We are also brainwashing a generation to think it is essential to have a college degree to join the 21st century workforce. Why are good jobs that don't require college, like electricians, plumbers, machinists, get mostly ignored in these discussions? Pushing people that aren't really interested in, or not fully capable of, academic work into college is not doing them a favor. Making what we call blue collar jobs look like "failure" is also not helpful. We should offer multiple education and career paths for people for life. Producing more college graduates does not create more good jobs (outside of faculty & administration at universities).
15
I agree completely. At the beginning of his term, Trump met with Merkel and suggested that the US might do well to adopt several ideas from the German educational system - principally high level vocational training and industry sponsored apprenticeship programs. (30% of Germans now attend university - so a university education is no longer merely for the elite) Of course, we have heard no more about it. Instead, we hear about arming teachers.
One of the problems of our society is that we no longer value skilled work or blue-collar jobs. We no longer seem to subscribe to my grandfather's maxim: "If a job needs to be done, the person doing it deserves respect and decent pay." It's one of the reasons for the "populist" revolt.
5
Thank you.
6
Hold on - you say that people from similar backgrounds to yours can’t get ahead because of “systemic injustice, of decades of school and housing policies designed to maintain white supremacy and punish the poor and working class.”
But your mother abandoned you and your sister, and apparently your father was never in the picture, so you were raised by your grandmother. That’s certainly not a strong family structure for success, but it’s got nothing to do with “white supremacy.”
28
TM Landry starts a school to defraud his own community and you blame “white supremacy”? Good luck with that!
25
...and yet, a Black man sits on the Supreme Court and is so cloistered that he cannot see or speak of the reality of the American Black. This voice is so lost, that he hampers the efforts of most all Black Americans and perpetuates Jim Crow.
12
For most American white male, there is no such thing as white supremacism. They own the country as they should be.
1
When a movie or television action scene is dangerous, deceptive or entirely unrealistic—especially to children—there is often a disclaiming subtitle such as: “These stunts are performed by trained professionals. DON’T TRY THEM AT HOME!”
Perhaps televised athletics, where African Americans are significantly “overrepresented” and is deceptively seductive to young black males, should have the disclaimer: “Your chance of ever playing professional sports is one in thousands! Going to college is MUCH more likely.”
Should we somehow etch in the conscience of our country a “disclaimer” that African Americans like Mr. Casey Gerald and those thought to be produced by T. M. Landry College Prep are not “statistical freaks,” but fortunate strivers who somehow escaped the brutal snares of racism, poverty, the criminal justice system, etc., etc.?
If our country heeds such a disclaimer, these “statistical freaks” will be “humanized” and many others of equal talents will avoid or be unhooked from the snares that now entrap thousands of them.
2
Is the problem primarily structural racism?
Or is the problem primarily cultural?
I believe it's the latter.
13
“If you’re going to be a token, just be the best token you can be.”
That really sums up everything that’s wrong with a system where obstacle after obstacle is thrown into the path of minority kids who have to be extraordinary to get opportunities that more privileged ones get as a matter of course. And when so-called liberals make cynical statements like that it is so clear how they really feel even if they themselves can’t see it.
7
@Marc
I wish the author would tell us who referred to the students as tokens. Since there are so many other exaggerations in the article I wish he had been specific. Vague accusations are not credible.
5
Stunned and disgusted to find the article about the frivolous waste of stolen billions from hard working Malaysian citizens by greedy ilk shortly after reading this excellent piece. This is not only a US problem. It's a human, WORLD, problem!
1
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Thank you.
4
If The NY Times offered a free subscription to every child under 18, then at least every child would have access to something good to read.
7
Would teenagers actually want to read the NYT? Doubtful I think.
2
Amen. When I was a kid we got heavily discounted subscriptions to Time magazine—back when it was a magazine with an art section, literature section, religion section, etc. I read it and it really advanced my learning on matters not touched on in regular classes.
5
I'm happy to see that media outlets like the New York Times are finally recognizing that charter schools have a serious downside and are not the answer to a neglected public school system. These profit-making enterprises are nothing more than a scam being perpetrated on desperate parents by an industry in collusion with politicians.
85
@Susan S Yes. It also has a lot to do with making an end run around laws that protect civil rights and unions.
8
TM Landry is not a charter school. It is an unaccredited private school.
11
@Susan S
See the life and legacy of Dr. Barbara Ann Sizemore on educating black boys and girls in public schools.
2
The arguments given in this article have been pressingly relevant for at least fifty years. Let's give thanks where it is due. Thank you, Ronald Reagan, for teaching the governing class and the electorate to despise and destroy the very system that brought them whatever wealth and social order they may have come by. Thank you, Harvard Business School and Chicago economists for teaching that the ultimate aim of business is the siphoning of wealth from those who work to hucksters in banking and finance. Thank you, leaders of the Christian religion, for teaching the nation that abortion and homosexuality are the main ills of our society, while one in five American children live in poverty. We are hysterical about Trump and his cronies, but these processes have festered in the home of the free and brave for decades, under leadership with varying convictions. The author is right: look in the mirror first. And beware the philanthropist: behind every great fortune is an even greater crime.
12
A powerful and personal read that dispels the Horatio Alger notion that all that's needed is grit and guts.
I am reminded of "The Sad and Tragic Life of Robert Peace" another Yale graduate. That book, this essay and "Displaced" should be required reading for all those who think there's a single answer to ending the cycle of unequal opportunity and downward mobility. Wish that the current administration would read......oops. Bad verb choice....
9
Mr. Gerald makes many valid points. Unfortunately his solution at the end of the article is platitudes and tripe:
"We must ensure that all children have a true opportunity to realize their potential. We ought to subscribe to a new vision of success, where the goal is not just great kids, but free and whole ones too."
There is a paragraph missing. This should have been the penultimate paragraph. The final paragraph should have provided viable suggestions and guidelines.
14
In general, we need to stop fetishizing superstars. The American economy has become hollowed out for everyone, to the point where there will soon only be billionaires and the poor. We need good middle and working class jobs, and to stop worshipping the tech titans and financiers who seek to turn everyone else into robots and slaves.
21
A sad truth. So many marginalized citizens with so much to contribute are strangled by cultural isolation.
11
@Sally
I thought it was hateful and unlawful to criticize someone’s culture. Isn’t that racism?
We need someone with a bully pulpit to reach all Americans with your message. Stop, think; what do we stand for and how can we get back to those values? We have to get people to really think again, not just blindly believe. Who will be that person?
1
The author was abandoned by his mother and a drug addict father. Instead of blaming them for his hardships he blames society. My children are "privileged", going to good schools and having a stable home life, but if their parents behaved like his did, their lives would be difficult.
It is strange to blame the "privileged" who not only take care of their families but pay the income taxes that provide a safety net for the children of the irresponsible.
21
Getting into a top academic school like Yale based on being recruited for playing football is an example of the system not working.
15
Perhaps. But the author also got an MBA later, so he’s no dummy.
2
“We can’t let the tragedy of Landry be blamed on the people directing it, rather than being seen as a symptom of a national disease.”
Fine: let’s fix the disease. But let’s also not pretend that Mr. Landry deserves no blame for what happened at his school. Remember, he failed in teaching the kids in his charge and falsified records and children’s stories to get them admitted to Ivy League schools. He was a huckster who figured out a way to line his pockets at the expense of the people he claimed to be helping.
17
Reminds me so much of Richard Rodriguez’s “Hunger Of Memory,” and how success breeds alienation. Bracing and honest.
5
People are expecting too much from public schools. The author complains about the system not being fair but what system can make a mother remain with their child and prevent a father from using drugs?
Now multiply this story to hundreds of thousands in a given neighborhood and no wonder the multitude of kids fail. I think these pieces would resonate with me, a child of working class African immigrants, more if I didn’t know any better. That people have agency, can make better choices and can in fact pull themselves up by their bootstraps, with some help along the way.
50
@Ed
His family situation has nothing to do with academic achievement. How can one attack the culture of another group in such a manner?
4
@Ed if like me, you read Mr. Gerald's memoir, you'll learn his father Rod Gerald - a college football star at OSU - became hooked on drugs when rich white alumni of OSU began giving him cocaine to get him through championship bowl games after he had broken bones. He was fed drugs as a college student, so that rich white people could enjoy watching their sport and their team succeed. So when you ask us: "what system can prevent a father from using drugs" I know you meant it rhetorically, but I think it is essential investigate that exact question, as Mr. Gerald does here. Of course individuals have agency. But there is a great deal more complexity and nuance here than you are admitting to, and our existing racial and class structures/systems are an enormous part of this story.
23
Shamrock -
Did I read this correctly? Family has nothing to do with academic achievement? Where are you getting that from? Kids need support, encouragement, and most important, someone checking homework and report cards. I can’t believe this needs to be explained.
Amazing how far people will go to blame society for their problems.
21
Thank you so much for your essay. I get angry when I hear politicians say if you only tried hard and worked hard you would pull yourself up by your bootstraps. In my neighborhood crime and drugs are rampant. Many children who go to school live in drug households and/or are homeless. A significant number do not know their numbers or alphabet before they go to school and they go home to such chaos, it will be hard for them to learn. Their parents sell their food stamps to buy drugs so outside of school the children get little food. Teachers can only do so much.
I don't know the solution, but pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is in the majority of cases not a choice.
83
Excellent, eloquent, thoughtful: I agree with all these adjectives used in earlier comments. I'm a white man who has benefited from certain amount of privilege, and I've been trying for many years to put these things into words. The few who manage to overcome the obstacles are held up as proof that the obstacles really aren't so bad, and anyone can achieve success if he'll only work hard. As for those who don't succeed, that leads to the conclusion that the poor are really just lazy, so the well off have nothing for which to apologize. Or, in the older standard form, "The poor have none but themselves to blame for their poverty." It omits not only the structural barriers that make success so very difficult, but also the price paid by those who do achieve it. Thank you, Mr. Gerald.
109
@Thomas
Being all white and all male is the supreme American powerful privilege. Color aka race is the malign American hypocrisy. Barack Obama is only half-white by nature which overcomes his all white cultural nurture.
I’ve experienced a socioeconomic vertical move via college - welfare mom to scientist/consultant. It isn’t easy. Many of my old, poorer friends give me way too much credit and admiration, of which I feel I do not deserve. Many of my richer, newer friends have no clue of my past, and they don’t want one. When I try and talk about going to bed hungry I get blank stares, as if I’m telling a fairy tale. I don’t feel as if I completely belong anywhere anymore. Socioeconomics plays a vital role in how one bonds with the people around them - neighborhood, community, region, nation. Moving throughout this structure may cause a deep sense of dis-belonging and a feeling of fraud. And the fear of poverty clings. It’s complicated.
173
@Christine Feinholz
If you were and are black in America, it is not "complicated". It is very simple. Your black life does not matter to white America.
8
Excellent column. We also need to tame this obsession with getting into an Ivy League school, an obsession that afflicts families of all backgrounds. Yes, it is important to strive for excellence. But excellence can be found in many places, including several historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. Andrew Gillum, for instance, is a proud graduate of Florida A&M University and came close to being Florida’s new governor. I’ve worked at the highest levels of corporate America and remain thankful for the education I received through public schools, kindergarten through college.
117
I agree and I also think that if Gollum was white he would be governor elect of Florida. Florida is still the South, to get there you have to drive north of Miami.
5
@JM
An Ivy League education did not turn Barack and Michelle Obama white like Donald and Melania Trump.
And neither Marcus Garvey nor Malcolm X had any college education.
An HBCU college education did not make my black great grandfathers and my grandmother and grandfather white.
4
It is reasonable to tie this narrative to race, but it goes beyond that. The outlined narrative is a problem for a growing socioeconomic underclass everywhere.
Success stories of overcoming hardship are held up like bright, shiny baubles. They feed the "bootstrap" theory of success--look what these committed folks can do--that is embedded among our national mythologies. They are uncommon exceptions that are used to dupe the public, to distract from more embedded problems of our growing economic inequality where 1% of the population controls almost 40% of the nation's wealth (coming out of WWII it was about 8%).
133
Thank you for putting into beautiful, cogent words what my scrambled brain could not.
When I read the Landry story I was struck not by the bullying and unlawful behavior of the founders but rather by the quiet desperation of families and students willing to endure almost anything to get out of their current lot in life. They’ve totally bought into the “education is critical for success” message and found the only path available to them.
In addition to the historic, systemic and institutionalized racism discussed here the damage done by; 1) gutting funding for public education, 2) syphoning funds from public schools to fund disastrous charter schools, and 3) politicizing and thereby undercutting attempts to improve teaching content and practices (Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards) is evident in every single community. In affluent communities parents of means are backfilling the gaping holes thereby increasing the disparity.
Obviously this should be fixed because-you know-our shared humanity. But appealing to the baser instincts of our budgetary overlords is an argument they may respond to; A fully educated society leads to one of economic prosperity and vitality, innovation and civic engagement. It starts with high quality effective education FOR ALL.
145
@JAS
The white European American Judeo-Christian majority all time fictional role model hero is "Tarzan" who out black Africans the black Africans in their own deserts, grasslands and tropical forests. The white male movie actors and film themes change. But they are all " Tarzan" remakes.
While the white European American Judeo-Christian majority's favorite black African American Christian is one who forgives, loves and worships white people from Uncle Tom to "Gone With the Wind" to Sidney Poitier in "Lilies of the Field" and " Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? ". The iconic " Good Negro" like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson do not speak to nor for a majority of black African Americans.
See "The Mis-Education of the Negro" by Carter G. Woodson
6
Thank you for this powerful, much needed and true perspective.
1
Mr. Gerald highlights such an important and overlooked point: there is an often unspoken loneliness to social and economic mobility in America. Striving and achieving this warped sense of the America Dream often leaves those moving up with a low-grade anxiety and a sense of never quite fitting in that never really leaves once you've moved from one neighborhood to another, from one lifestyle to another, from one semblance of opportunity to another.
Going back isn't an option, but being where you sometimes leaves you feeling perpetually short or shy of whatever it is people think you have become.
115
@NYC
Going back isn’t an option because you are never really welcome there anymore, because you are different, viewed through the unforgiving lens of “who do you think you are?”
4
@NYC
Blah! Blah!
That "loneliness to social and economic mobility in America" is how black African American lives are lived and have been lived and have not mattered for most of American history. Yet black hopes and dreams have never faded from their humanity denying enslavement to their separate and unequal American trials and tribulations and beyond.
But about 2/3rds of the 37 000 Americans who die from gunshot every year are suicides. And 80% are white men who tend to use handguns, be veterans and to suffer from depression. They have no empathy nor sympathy for desperate despairing nature of black lives. Yet they kill themselves. Imagine the toll if they were blessed to be black in America.
The white American majority is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate. Along with a decreasing white life expectancy due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide. The only whites having babies come from the single parent socioeconomic educational bottom of the pyramid heap.
4
Mr Gerald's well-drawn indictment must also include the recent push for "market-based" education reforms. Markets tell leaders to spend resources on children who will produce the best return on their investment as measured by public success, which, in return, will lure more money and more students signaling success to their schools. Until very recently, the media has bought into this reality TV view of constitutes a successful education. No one looked at of the children left behind.
And this blind spot extends to other areas of public policy. It helps explain our current reality-TV president who governs by tweets and boasts and will condone the most deplorable of conduct if it produces a profit.
7
And yet people, very much against their class interests, continue to vote in the very politicians who despise and resist any attempt to address these systemic inequalities for the sake of their doners and the elite. People are distracted and placated by basketball, football, etc., which has replaced religion as the new opiate of the masses to maintain social order and the status quo preventing people from becoming politically and socially active.
7
A great, great article. It’s a lot easier to pick a handful of people we deem worthy to pull out of poverty, than it is to address the underlying problems in poor communities. So we do that - and we wonder why things don’t get better.
24
Thanks for writing and publishing this piece which is compelling. I wanted to say that even outliers from the upper strata of American society deal with systemic injustice though they may have better tools and relationships to deal with it. Indeed, We often consider all these people as "messed up." Practically by definition, outliers are messed up no matter where they come from: the top or the bottom or where they end up: the top or the bottom. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20 and we can only work to change things with the kind of perspective Mr. Gerald articulates.
4
Excellent essay. However, I feel that Mr. and Mrs. Landry should be held accountable for their egregious conduct since they abused and traumatized these young people for their own personal monetary gain. The Ivy League Schools that eagerly accepted these exploited students also bear culpability as does our entire society for holding such schools in the highest esteem. Our entire educational system is broken, so comprehensive reform is what’s desperately needed in my opinion.
“The function of education... is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals. We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
15
Excellent essay, thank you for assembling the facts so cogently. There is another issue too - once one makes it out, there may be no safety net to help one recover from any career mistakes.
Rich kids always have someone to bail them out. Poor kids, not so much.
32
Investing more money is a big part of the solution. However, look at any wealthy school and you will see children failing. They are from dysfunctional home situations. The number of dysfunctional homes in the US is growing. Until this problem is addressed all children will not make it no matter how much money is spent. A school age child is in school 1260 hours a year and in a dysfunctional setting 7500 hours. For some students the safest, best place for them is where they spend 16% of their time a year. How do we fix the other 84%?
17
@RHB50 I can't agree. The story here is about poor children and justice, let's focus on them for a change.
6
@RHB50 We have found that the school system (at least CCISD where we live) is increasingly dysfunctional. I suspect many other school systems are dysfunctional as well. Despite living in an upper middle class district, the schools have become punitive and toxic, largely as a result of lack of funding and well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided attempts to get tough and raise the bar to push everyone through at a fast pace. This has meant that evidence-based teaching, learning, and discipline are left behind, leaving even well-off kids with stable home environments stressed out and falling behind. Teachers are likewise stressed, underpaid, and in a few cases not qualified for their jobs, either academically or psychologically. As a result, after years of deterioration, we and several other upper middle class families that we know are shifting to home schooling. Education is too important to waste on a dysfunctional school system. Sadly, those with lesser means are stuck with this system. Many of them probably also have dysfunctional homes. As the author of this article notes: this is a systemic problem. However, we should not think that it applies only to underserved areas. I've taught at the MS and PhD level since '92. Many American grad students struggle with basic writing, math, and reasoning skills. When our system is incentivized to leave no child behind, yet not given the resources to do it right, it is easier to just pass them on.
7
Thank you for your eloquent and insightful essay. When anyone cites the “bootstrap” myth and the need for disadvantaged people to simply work harder, I ask them what they would suggest that people born without any bootstraps should do. We have abandoned so many Americans, effectively punishing them for being poor or living in the “wrong” neighborhoods.
77
@J.
" We did not land on Plymouth Rock. It landed on us". Malcolm X
While Barack Hussein Obama talked down to black people from HBCU campuses to black churches to black civic and social organizations to the CBC to stop crying and whining while black and wearing baggy jeans being baby daddy/momma uneducated and on welfare or criminals.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright knew Obama was a politician first. And so did Reverend Jesse Jackson.
We have been misled and misinformed by some of our so-called black leaders. The Obamas are off collecting and counting their coins earned from their public service. While black lives still don't matter in MAGA Trump's America.
No one ever worked harder and longer for less return than enslaved black Africans and their seperate and unequal black African American heirs.
The socioeconomics of education have been slowly but steadily changing over the past few decades with not a peep of complaint from the press or government. Throwing up the occasional successful class migrant to the media has lulled Americans into thinking the The Dream is alive. Every statistic out there dramatically describes just the opposite situation. Where you are born now is where you stay. Shoving someone into an Ivy League school does not give that student a fair shot at success. They need to be educated regarding not just book knowledge but proper study habits and the identification of cheap resources available to augment what they receive in class. A first step towards fixing this biased system and starting back down the road towards reviving The American Dream is to have the bulk of education funding come out of Washington, not local school taxes. Right now our tax structure feeds the motto “Them as has gets more.” When 90% of school funds become the same value, districts that can afford an add-on school tax can go that route if they feel the need.
29
@Djr
Apparently TIMES readers don't care. All other of today's op-eds have more reader comments than this. This horrible, societal injustice continues to be ignored.
1
America has no education system. We 'graduate' every year, millions of teenagers who cannot read, write or think their way out of a paper bag. They are all condemned to fail.
Until we commit to a resurrection of our school system with highly paid teachers and schools that have heat, paint and curriculum that is both demanding and supported, we will continue to lose generations, black and white. We cannot bring back the ones we've ruined by our educational neglect. If we want to change the outcome, we have to start at the beginning of the process, not the end.
54
@ijarvis: Absolutely correct. Those attending NYC public schools prior to 1970 (an estimate) will generally tell you that they got a great education from (generally) dedicated professional teachers. Not everyone was a great student, but the opportunity and encouragement was there. I remember, as a child, one of my aunts introducing me to a friend. She didn't introduce the woman as a teacher. What she said was, "This is Miss. B, she's an EDUCATOR." That really stuck. Today there are elite schools, and fine schools in the suburbs, but the general run of public schools has declined precipitously during the last half century. If someone actually wanted to Make America Great Again, the place to start would be our public education infrastructure, and returning teaching to a reasonably paid and respected profession.
9
I'm a high achiever - but am gay (and white and Jewish). Somehow I'd think that Mr. Gerald is focusing on the black or minority community, and hopefully he's including mine. I'm positive I'm earning $20k less than my peers.
1
@Peter -- Mr. Gerald is gay, too. He didn't mention that in this op-ed piece, as it wasn't relevant to the point he was making, but it's something that runs all through his book "There Will Be No Miracles Here." That book is well written and well worth reading. Mr. Gerald's coming out story is like nothing I've ever read before, because his life is like nothing I've experienced. His book is, of course, more than a coming out story. It's the story of a journey.
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Please read “White Fragility,” by Robin Diangelo. The book will show you how your comment supports white supremacy and ignores everything Mr. Gerald just wrote. I do not mean to minimize your struggles, but the system supports all oppression - we should understand that with eyes wide open.
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To most in America’s upper ranks, successes like Mr. Gerald’s are proof that the system that has so benefited us works, and that not only is the bounty we have reaped from it truly deserved but that no changes to it, especially changes that might threaten our cozy and prosperous lives, are truly necessary. Sadly, his success is also seen by the same people as evidence that most of those from families and neighborhoods and circumstances like Mr. Gerald’s simply don’t have what it takes to succeed in America.
However, as Mr. Gerald so eloquently argues, up out of poverty successes like his, which are as rare as unicorns among families on America’s lower economic rungs, should be seen instead as evidence of the momental failure of the American Dream.
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@Scott Macfarlane
Mr MacFarland,
A denunciation of the "American Dream" in your last paragraph is unwarranted; and misplaced.
The success of Mr Gerald is in no way a failure as you propose; while opportunity at a better education plays a part of the outcome, Mr Gerald's hard work would be the determining factor.
I believe he would have been successful at a less prestigious school (many individuals are mismatched in the choice of schools). Clearly he would have been happier in a more convivial atmosphere, The elites are recruiting for 'diversity' to satisfy the administration, a school closer to home might have been more accepting and less stressful on the student.
However, Mr. Gerald's intelligence and personal grit are the defining characteristics of the individual's success. Mr Gerald is no evidence of "monumental failure", quite the opposite. To rise from poverty with little support of family is no denunciation of the school system; it is a story of an individual overcoming obstacles to live a better life through his effort and education.
Bravo, the state did not accomplish this, the individual did!
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@Scott Macfarlane
"Yet I marvel at this curious thing, that God would make a poet black and yet bid him to sing" Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry was black and gay.
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@Kenneth Galloway The rareness of success, like Mr. Gerald's, is the "monumental failure".
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The colleges are just as much at fault. In their pursuit of holistic admissions, they encourage and reward stories of hardship and victimhood. Many of which as we have found out are exaggerated or completely fictional. The colleges don't have any reliable way of verifying personal statements or ECs.
This story should be a lesson on those who would like to get rid of those pesky standardized tests. Tests are like democracy, they are the worst form of evaluation for admission, except when compared to all the other methods. In fact tests like the SAT were created in the 1920s so that the poor and people of modest means can have a chance in elite admissions that people with connections already did.
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@Chloe
I completely disagree. Standardized testing emerged from the eugenics movement. It was designed to establish a scientific basis for race-based standards of superiority -- and, consequently, inferiority -- as an anchor for logical and ethical excuses for race-based discrimination. In my fifteen years of work as a college admissions officer, not once have I heard a substantive, coherent argument for standardized testing; what I see, instead, is that it's simply a time-saving measure for offices of admission that are faced with processing thousands upon thousands of applications, a colossal and neverending mountain of toil. Standardized testing is more of an expediency that "happens" to have the effect of enforcing the status quo than a legitimate criterion for admission. I am absolutely convinced that all the other methods are, in fact, better for the purpose, but most schools simply don't have enough staff to properly evaluate oceans of essays and interviews, and there are, of course, plenty of people who are very happy with the status quo anyway, and that's the really telling point.
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@Chloe Except that all systems designed to equalize the playing field can be gamed by those with resources. In the case of standardized testing some kids get extensive training for the test and others don't. So the results are meaningless.
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@Chloe While standardized tests may have been intended to democratize admissions, they The racist origins of tests like the SAT are fairly well documented. Carl Brigham, who brought us the SAT, was an enthusiastic member of the eugenics movement, and used the results of his Army Alpha Test (which he later adapted into the SAT) to conclude that American education is declining and "will proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial mixture becomes more and more extensive." He later repudiated these views, and opposed the use of the SAT and the formation of the ETS.
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This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking article by Casey Gerald. His sadness and loneliness seem to deepen when he thinks about other young black women and men caught in an environment which they did not create.
We, the white middleclass and upper-middleclass Americans who did create the harsh environment from which Casey Gerald escaped physically, need to think more clearly about this problem and try to fix it.
Offering a pathway for exceptional youngsters to remove themselves from friends and family is not a solution.
We need to look at how our state and local governments promote segregation, and the prime culprits appear to be our real estate industry, our taxing authorities and our school boards.
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@sdw
Our upper middle class (I am one of those) has become a major part of the problem. They are a big part of the problem--even if their own forms of economic protectionism are historically understandable: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ ("The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy," June 2018)
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@sdw
I looked at my comment and believe the last paragraph should be changed to read as follows:
We need to look at how our state and local governments promote segregation to accommodate the wishes of many white Americans to keep black Americans out of sight and out of mind. The prime vehicles for accomplishing this terrible goal appear to be our real estate industry, our taxing authorities and our school boards.
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@sdw
All white European American Judeo-Christian people benefited from and still benefit from the white supremacy that enslaved and made separate and unequal black Africans in America.
Thank you for avoiding the Clarence Thomas trap of "I did it, it's all about me."
The problem -- the systematic neglect of the black working class -- you describe is the unfortunate spawn of two evils, the rejection of the generous New Deal approach to vast economic problems and our national inability to come to grips with the reverberating consequences of black slavery.
I wish I felt more optimistic. But as my great congressman, Jamie Raskin, says, quoting his father, when it gets dark, you be the light (I paraphrase). The only choice is to soldier on, doing what we can each in our world.
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You are right. No one should have to give up their community or soul for a chance to succeed in a system that destroys both. We need to reform our economy and educational system so that people and communities are supported.
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Come on mr. trump, be useful, fix this. The social safety net, public
education, wages, the lives of All Americans.
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Charter schools made a racist, unequal system, as it was, far worse over time. Selling off what was supposed to be "the great equalizer" was never going to be a successful substitute for an education system that is funded exactly at the same level whether in the poorest Louisiana parrish or a well-to-do burrough. All kids deserve the same well-rounded education, whether they're the smart daughter of a banker or the smart son of the school janitor. All kids deserve the same level of respect, safety and investment whether they're transgender, minority or majority.
High intelligence doesn't have a zip code. Neither should education.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that some smart children go on to illustrious universities on their own smarts and curiosity. The author is right. Writing about them in the wide-eyed fashion we see on occasion is racist fetishization. The focus should be on ensuring that all of the children who are accomplished fulfill their promise and not be googoo-eyed when they do, in spite of a rotten system.
---
https://www.rimaregas.com
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@Rima Regas
God aka Mother Nature has no gender, color aka race, ethnic, national origin, faith, socioeconomic, educational nor historic evolutionary natural fit smart wise favorites.
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago as primate apes.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations.
What we call race aka color is a malign socioeconomic political educational demographic historical white supremacist nationalist American myth meant to legally and morally justify black African enslavement and separate and unequal black African American Jim Crow.
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@Blackmamba
Every kindergartner should know this ..
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Political and financial "attention must be paid" to our many schools, not just schools with minority enrollments, but also to the nation's small rural schools and communities where graduates must compete in higher education or employment with those who have had superior learning opportunities, cultural advantages, enlightened leadership.
As in that earlier Gilded Age, today "America Great" means giving more wealth and power to the wealthy and powerful, since they run the show, help write laws to their benefit -- while ignoring a Festivus for the Restofus.
We who, like Casey Gerald, have experienced and studied educational shortcomings and mistakes and who are trying to make a difference, however small in bringing learning enrichment to those in need understand the need.
More "attention must be paid."
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
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