(ThyBlackMan.com) When I was in graduate school, one of my mentors (Dr. Carson Lee, RIP), gave me a copy of a book written by Jonathan Kozol titled “Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public Schools.” The book is a powerful firsthand account of systemic racism, neglect, and educational inequality in Boston’s public schools during the 1960s.
Kozol, a white teacher, recounts his experience teaching in a predominantly black, underfunded elementary school in Boston. He describes how, at the time, black students were given inferior materials and taught by unmotivated, often racist teachers, using a curriculum that devalued black culture, history, and identity. He observed that teachers and administrators enforced rigid discipline and conformity rather than nurturing critical thinking or emotional growth. Kozol was fired for reading Langston Hughes’ poems to his class.
During the years he taught, systemic racism was a real thing. Today, anything from a blue jeans commercial to retail store displays is considered to be a representation of systemic racism.
Writing out of emotions rooted in anger, the initial title for this essay was: Fck Free College Mane, Fix K-12. But understanding my disdain for the habitual use of foul language in public, I decided to change it. Either way, one can sniff the purpose of these words and sentences to follow. All of which happened after wondering how Frederick Douglass would feel, and what he would think about learning that not a single student could pass math and reading in a school that bears his name (ranks in the bottom 50% of all schools in Maryland for overall test scores)?
“In 2023, state test results for students in Baltimore City Schools indicated that 40% of high schools did not have any students score proficient in math. Not a single student. This represented 13 Baltimore City high schools, although Baltimore City Schools received $1.6 billion from taxpayers, the most ever. They also received $799 million in COVID-19 relief funding from the federal government.”
“Baltimore City’s Public Schools’ math scores were the lowest in the state, with just 7 percent of third through eighth graders proving to be proficient in math. In total, 23 Baltimore City schools reported no students who tested proficient in math. This included eight elementary schools, three Middle/High schools, and two Elementary/Middle schools.”
Why and how did this become acceptable? People are quick to go outside and protest and riot on behalf of criminal illegal immigrants, but are completely copacetic with our failing schools, and how they fail students. People are more interested in the ridiculousness of “free college tuition for everybody” than taking the time to consider that grades K through 12 are working effectively to get kids to university, who cannot read or do basic math. Schools in America aren’t even for learning anymore; they are just places where you go to fight and watch fights. It would not surprise me one bit if the average government public school had more than 4 fights every day.
The educational outcomes of Baltimore are replicated across the nation. In Chicago:
“…during the 2021-2022 school year, 33 Chicago Public Schools had zero students who met grade-level expectations in math. Moreover, 22 schools had no students proficient in reading, resulting in a total of 55 schools where not a single student was proficient in either subject.”
“It has been reported that as of 2023-2024, approximately 31% of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system students in grades 3 through 8 achieved proficiency in English Language Arts. In mathematics, about 19% of students reached proficiency. For 11th-grade students, proficiency rates are lower. In the 2023-2024 school year, only 22.4% of 11th graders met reading proficiency standards, and 18.6% achieved proficiency in math.”
If the average person could peer into a classroom or school in the U.S. on any given weekday, they would probably think they were watching a National Geographic special. When a kid or teacher thinks that they have to fight or stay strapped just to go to school safely, then something is wrong.
The “Leave No Child Behind” act ruined the entire education system, and added way more leniency to ignorance. Instead of being taught what to do properly, kids are pushed even further into grades with topics brand new to them, when in the grade before, they were already struggling. It has had a disproportionate impact on poor and minority schools. First, schools in high-poverty areas were more likely to be labeled failing, and the policy made no room for adequately addressing the root causes of achievement gaps. In addition, its ‘one-size-fits-all approach’ did not consider differences between schools, districts, or states, yet still applied uniform standards regardless of local context or capacity.
Common Core was no better. Unfortunately, Common Core isn’t about truly knowing the answer or the material. It’s about demonstrating a willingness to follow directions. Too many in public government schools lack a foundation in logic and have no method for distinguishing verifiable truth. or baseless assertions in a reliable manner.
In the U.S., Education is gradually losing its value for the students it’s meant to support. The school system changes incredibly slowly; meanwhile, the way children are raised evolves every year. As a result, 90% of kids in 20 years won’t be able to access the same education we received through our current system. Schools don’t focus on students’ strengths; instead, they only aim to improve weaknesses and eliminate options. School started to decline when vocational instruction was removed and turned into a pipeline for colleges.
The problem is these kids aren’t learning critical thinking or problem-solving skills. On top of that, having an addiction to one’s phone diminishes one’s attention span and increases irritability because their brains are wired for constant dopamine hits. Having an entire generation of people with an inability to focus on the physical world around them is going to have some very drastic consequences, especially with AI on the rise.
Kids unable to tell what time it is when looking at a clock with hands is hilarious if true. The main problems are that we don’t know what world to prepare them for, because that world is always 13 years into the future for each kid, and gamification/curriculum choice doesn’t overcome timeless problems with attention and perseverance. The world is difficult to predict but moves so slowly that it’s still boring, like school, and unlike a social media feed.
It’s one thing to meet students where they’re at to a certain degree, it’s another if the solution doesn’t lead to them becoming better informed or more capable of critical thinking isn’t encouraged, nor are students prompted to step outside their comfort zones. The most glaring example of this is the decline of reading among students; I would give up most of what we currently do in education just to see kids read for fun, let alone for information. Curricula need to be restructured to prioritize reading and writing. Additionally, designing education around the job market has historically been a losing strategy: the market isn’t very interested in critical thinking, especially when it results in workers who can advocate for themselves and their peers. This is a major reason why smaller liberal arts state colleges are struggling financially: they aren’t seen as sufficiently useful to corporations or donors, and so cutting their funding has become all too common.
Unfortunately, many students are being taught by teachers who were promoted regardless of what they learned; they go to college and are given degrees, and it’s a vicious circle of insanity. About 21% of Americans can not read, with 54% of Americans reading at a 6th-grade level. No child is left behind, because they get pushed through and find themselves behind the eight ball, they are in jail or knocked up, waiting for the check to come, living off the state. Kids who aren’t proficient should not be moved up to the next grade, but school systems continue to pass them on.
And don’t say this about the loot. American school funding is nearly the highest in the world. The average teacher salary in California is about $95,160 annually, with per-student spending of around $22,600 per year. The more money we allocate to education, the more administrators are hired and given raises. When you try to take action against this, you’re called anti-union or, humorously, anti-education—though that’s not a genuine stance—yet people buy into it.
If you complain about it being the teacher’s job or the school’s job, you are condemning your kids to a future of ignorance and failure. Parents have to take accountability for the success of their children because schools will continue to pass kids assembly line style. These classrooms have around 40 students. It is babysitting, not learning. And these kids’ votes will count just as much as yours one day. Let that sink in, because when you focus more on being a victim and pushing equity, don’t be surprised when kids are not up to standards.
I attended school in the 1960s and 1970s, when there were no such things as school shootings. Mom was part of the PTA, and my parents and other family members worked during the day and attended parent-teacher meetings for me at night (Back then, it was a social event). My experience showed me that good teachers can rarely overcome bad parenting, and good parents can always overcome bad teaching. The modern U.S. School system is designed to crush curiosity, because curious people question things. The system is flawed and needs reform so badly.
If we want to address this before it is too late, we have to end Teacher Unions. The Teacher Union is all about money and has nothing to do with teaching children.
Meanwhile, China is educating its children on geometry, Statistics, calculus, and physics starting from late primary school. We’re done, because kids without an education become adults in minimum wage jobs. At least U.S. public school students can tell you all about pride, racism, and gender issues, and can tell you all the lyrics of the rap-crap-rot music they hear 24-7.
Why are Black people not shouting about bad K-12 schools as loudly as they protest the end of Affirmative Action? The environment in the schools is out of control. The majority of students today are neglected by their parents, addicted to substances, and barely participate in class, yet the schools just push them through. They also get away with staying out of class, dressing inappropriately, and deplorable behavior. The root of the problem is a lack of accountability on both sides: the parents and the schools.
Sadly, people have been conditioned to not be ashamed of being dumb as a rock anymore. This is social engineering, and it makes it even worse because the average person doesn’t realize that the problem isn’t just smartphones, rather that schools teach kids what to think versus how to think. Everyone gets a trophy, am I right?
All teachers need to go back to oral exams, public presentations, and pencil-and-paper assessments. Teachers who fail to demand this fail as teachers and need to quit and find a safe space to cry about scary AI. Small changes are no longer effective because the world is changing faster than schools can keep up with, all while still having a fundamentally flawed system based on memorization of information that is now readily available with AI. They need to stay with the emphasis on the “three Rs” that educated all the baby boomers in the 50s and 60s, and at costs that we could afford. Teachers are teachers, not policemen, not disciplinarians. That’s on us, parents. Take your kid to a library for a real book. If you can’t even turn the page of a real book, there’s something wrong.
The appalling lack of discipline, unchecked bratty behavior, and indifference here have nothing to do with a broken system and everything to do with a culture obsessed with entertainment, instant gratification, and self-centeredness. There are no short-cuts to mastery, even with the help of technology.
I am a college professor. I have taught at the university level for approaching 40 years. Each year, the students coming into class are less able to do college-level work. To my surprise, the home-schooled students were better at studying, but not as informed about scientific methods.
So now in 2025, we are blaming lack of funding, inadequate resources, teacher burnout, and conspiracies, with few people questioning whether well-intentioned people brought about the demise of the education system and produced new generations of adults with poor literacy and numeracy skills, never mind the skills for critical thinking.
Mind you, they’re graduating these kids into society, and that is the school system’s fault. However, we cannot ignore the influence of the culture in which the students are raised and the low-quality parenting they receive. This has brought us to the point of creating (I think intentionally) a mindset, making children think that they “don’t need an education if I’m going to end up in prison anyway.”
One day in class, I passed out copies of the original versions of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Most of my students had trouble reading these founding documents because they are in cursive. Now you know why many schools no longer teach cursive. Remove the ability to read, and the ideas die. The quality of education has gone down so much.
We need to fix K-12 education with the quickness because it is designed and implemented to disable and warp the minds of all who enter its doors. There were few, if any, Aleysha Oritzs in my day who graduated from Hartford Public High School with honors and attended the University of Connecticut, despite not being able to read or write. Face it, anyone in their right mind would know a 15-year-old who can’t do basic arithmetic, but who will swear and argue that there are over 50 genders, is problematic. They teach kids that math is “racist” and then are surprised they can’t do math. This generation is growing up to be psychologically disturbed, emotionally fragile, academically challenged, and easy to manipulate. This is what happens when you do diversity hiring over merit-based hiring.
Education starts at home. If you’re not having conversations with your child and monitoring their TV and device time, they will not be ready to learn. Otherwise, bring azz whuppings back 2025.
Staff Writer; Torrance T. Stephens
Can also purchase any of his books over at; Amazon – TTS Books.
