Education
If one topic has dominated The State of Black South Carolina, it is education -- and rightfully so. Articles in the early editions documented the failure of schools in rural, poor, primarily African American areas to provide quality education (Hayes, 1988; 1989). In the 1990s, rural school districts sued the state for failure to provide a “minimally adequate education,” as required by the state Constitution. The school districts won a partial victory as documented in the current edition by Attorney Stephen Morrison (2007), who represented the districts in their case. The trial court ruled that the schools failed to provide adequate early childhood education “to address the impact of poverty on their educational abilities and achievements,” but the court did not find that the education was inadequate in upper grades.
Several authors have also documented the failure of school systems across the state, urban and rural, to adequately educate a significant portion of African American students, resulting in their lack of preparation to pass the state-required grade-level tests and the high school exit exam, or to do well on the SAT, which determines the kind of college they can attend (Pigford, 1990; Boutte, 1996; Morrison & Holmes, 1996; Frazier, 2000; Marshall-Bradley & Bradley, 2000; Wiggins, 2000a; Bradley & Marshall-Bradley, 2007). “The data suggest that African American students are learning less and less as they move up in grades,” Dr. Tina Marshall-Bradley and Dr. George Bradley (2000) noted in one study. The most devastating consequence is the spiraling dropout rate that reaches 50% among African American students in some school districts. Students who drop out have a greater likelihood of being unemployed or becoming involved with the criminal justice system.
A number of solutions have been offered for eliminating the problems in education. Many of them are consistent with Dr. Hayes’ (1988) emphatic statement in our first edition that “education is a social product that is rooted out of and which emanates from a cultural environment” (p. 28). He went on to state, “A school exists within a cultural environment, and in performing its assigned function, a school cannot raise children much above the level of that cultural environment without extra efforts and resources” (p.31). In the current publication, Dr. Gloria Swindler Boutte (2007) describes a teacher-training program that positively addresses inadequate achievement by African American students. The program develops culturally competent teachers. Having a supportive home and school environment is a theme that runs through many of the education recommendations, as is having adequate facilities and appropriate programs (Thompson & Thompson, 1996; Poulson, 1990). In addition, Dr. Burnett Gallman (1991) recommends Africancentric education.
Connected to issues of education are the challenges of adult illiteracy and the digital divide, both of which are largely due to poverty. “In South Carolina,” which is among the states with the second highest illiteracy rate, “there is a correlation between literacy and poverty,” according to Dr. Elizabeth Peterson, a USC education professor at the time (Peterson, 1996, p. 91). Additionally, there is a connection between literacy and criminal activity. Youth incarcerated by the Department of Juvenile Justice generally have not done well in school and most prison inmates in South Carolina do not have a high school education. Illiterate residents also generally do not participate in civic affairs nor are they able to help their children with homework. Solutions suggested by Dr. Peterson include greater involvement in literacy programs by African Americans because Blacks are the majority of clients.
The digital divide, or access to computers and the Internet, is a great concern in the African American community throughout the country. It is more troublesome in our state “(b)ecause the poverty in South Carolina is even more endemic in her African American communities” (Suber, 2000, p.70). The ramifications created by the digital divide are considerable, including our youth not having the same computer skills as their counterparts and being less prepared for good jobs.