Rise in Unemployment Expected for H.S. Biology Teachers

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This just in, an at least 13% rise in unemployment is expected for H.S. biology teachers. This expected development can be tied directly to the view of the majority of high-school biology teachers not taking a solid stance on evolution with their students. 

While fewer than 30 percent of teachers take an adamant pro-evolutionary stance on the topic, a new study finds that 13 percent of teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms.

Another Fine Post from: No 2 Religion - Just Say No!

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Atheists of Florida Stop Graduation Prayer

The Atheists of Florida successfully negotiated with Alonso High School and the Hillsborough County School District to prevent a prayer from being said at the graduation ceremony scheduled to take place on June 3rd.

The Atheists of Florida were contacted when a parent learned that Alonso High School principal Louis Diaz had rejected her appeal to remove the prayer from her son’s graduation ceremony. On Thursday May 20th, an Atheists of Florida attorney met with school officials and Principal Diaz and it was agreed that even though the word invocation would remain on the program there would be no religious message and a non-religious poem would be read instead.

The parents (who wish to remain anonymous) appreciated the quick work of the Atheists of Florida stating, “we are now looking forward to our son’s upcoming graduation ceremony.”   John Keiffer, president of the Atheists of Florida, was equally pleased with the outcome saying, “I commend Mr. Diaz and school officials for acting promptly and professionally to acknowledge the civil rights of our community.”

Read more here.

Itawamba Teen's Rights Were Violated

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There is an update in the Itawamba County School District case. The judge said her rights were violated. Unfortunately, the prom is still off. How small of the school district to take away the prom for all just because they do not one person to attend.

Lesbian Prom Date Ban VIOLATED Constance McMillen's Rights, Judge Says

JACKSON, Miss. — The prom's still off at a Mississippi high school
that canceled it instead of letting a lesbian student bring her
girlfriend, but a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the district's
actions did violate the teen's constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson refused the American Civil
Liberties Union's demand to force the Itawamba County school district
to put on the April 2 prom. However, he said canceling it did violate
18-year-old Constance McMillen's rights and that he would hold a trial
on the issue.

That would come too late for the prom to be salvaged at Itawamba
Agricultural High School. Still, Kristy Bennett, ACLU Mississippi legal
director, called the decision a victory.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the district to force it to
put on the prom and allow McMillen to bring her girlfriend and wear a
tuxedo. School officials said in U.S. District Court this week that
they decided to cancel it because McMillen's challenge to the rules had
caused disruptions.

The judge noted that McMillen has been openly gay since she was in
the eighth grade and that she intended to communicate a message by
wearing a tuxedo and escorting a same-sex date.

"The court finds this expression and communication falls squarely within the purview of the First Amendment," Davidson said.
As for McMillen, she said she was happy about the ruling but doesn't
know what to expect when she returns to school. She attended classes a
day after the March 10 decision to cancel the prom. But she said the
hostility and comments from other students led her to miss school. She
skipped class on Tuesday to go to the doctor and the fight is taking a
toll, she said. "My nerves are shot," she said.

District officials said in a statement that they were ready to get back to educating students.

Davidson said a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as a school-sponsored one. He wrote that "requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue."

McMillen isn't sure if she'll go to the dance.

"I'm going to school tomorrow (Wednesday) and will get a feel of how everybody feels about me. That will help me make my decision about whether I'm going to the private prom," McMillen said. "I want to go because all my junior and senior class will be there, but I don't want to be somewhere I'm not welcomed."

Ben Griffith, the school district's attorney, said his clients were pleased with the ruling.

"What we're looking at now is the fact that the case is still on the docket for a trial on the merits," Griffith said.

McMillen first approached school officials about bringing her girlfriend in December, and again in February. Same-sex prom dates had been banned in the past, but she had hoped school officials would grant her request.

"I thought maybe the policy had been in place for a different reason," McMillen testified at a hearing on the ACLU lawsuit. "I wanted to let them know how it made me feel. I felt like I couldn't go to the prom."
She was told two girls couldn't attend together and she wouldn't be allowed to wear a tuxedo, court documents show. The ACLU issued a demand letter earlier this month and the district responded by canceling the event. McMillen, who lives with her grandmother and has a 3.8 grade point average, has kept her 16-year-old girlfriend out of the spotlight at the request of the girl's parents.

District officials said they felt not hosting the prom was the best decision "after taking into consideration the education, safety and well being of our students." Superintendent Teresa McNeece said it was "a no-win situation."

The 715-student high school is located in Fulton, a town of about 4,000 in rural, north Mississippi. The entire county school district has 3,588 students.

The case is typical of what's happening in schools across the country, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar for The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.

"This case is different because this is not just dress, it is a higher claim of personal identity," Haynes said. "I think that if the student prevails in this case, it will send a message to school districts that they need to accommodate students now who are openly gay and lesbian and want to participate in student activities," Haynes said.

Her case has become a cause celebre.

She has appeared on the "The Early Show," "The Wanda Sykes Show" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" to talk about how she is fighting for tolerance. DeGeneres presented her with a $30,000 college scholarship from Tonic, a digital media company. A Facebook page set up by the ACLU for McMillen has over 400,000 fans.

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Gay Teen Can Take Date To Prom But Gets Booted From Home

First we have a school district that does the wrong thing and now we have a school district that does the right thing but the parents do the wrong thing (see bolded text below).

Gay-rights backers reach out to Bleckley senior

By JULIE HUBBARD - jhubbard@macon.com

Gay-rights supporters from across the country are offering to buy everything from boutonnieres to dinner for a Bleckley County High School senior who was granted permission to take his boyfriend to the prom.

At least two supporters have offered to rent a stretch limo for Derrick Martin and his boyfriend.

Martin asked his principal this year if he could take another male to his senior prom, set for April 17.

At first school officials told the 18-year-old that the town of Cochran, with a population of 5,200, wasn’t ready for it.

The high school only had a policy that barred bringing a date older than the age of 21, so school officials subsequently told Martin they granted his request.

Many gay-rights activists are now posting the story on their Facebook pages. And an Atlanta filmmaker said he hopes to document the story.
“I sent flowers to his high school,” said Randi Reitan, a resident of Eden Prairie, Minn., who sent a bouquet of yellow flowers with a rainbow-colored balloon to Bleckley County High on Tuesday to show her support.

“We have a gay son. I wish he could’ve danced with a young man at his prom,” Reitan said.

She also has offered to buy Martin and his date, who is from Tift County, boutonnieres to wear on prom night.

Drew Dowdell from Pittsburgh is setting up a link on his Web site for people to leave donations for Martin to help buy the 18-year-old a limo ride to the prom.

“I want to help Derrick have the best prom he can because I worry that anti-gay people in his school will be doing their best to ruin it for him,” Dowdell said. “I’m proud that he was willing to go to the school to make an issue about it.”

Martin said he got 54 messages Tuesday on Facebook.

“I appreciate it,” he said. “I was speechless that they said they would buy me dinner or buy me a tux in case someone messed mine up.”


But because of the media attention, Martin’s parents have kicked him out and the teen is staying with a friend, he said.

Martin said he pushed to take his boyfriend to the dance after hearing about a girl in Mississippi who asked to take her girlfriend to the prom.
Her school eventually canceled the dance rather than allow them to attend together.

“Maybe (other gay students) will think if Bleckley County will let them, maybe my school will,” Martin said.

School Superintendent Charlotte Pipkin said the move is a first for Bleckley County.

“I’m not aware of it having happened in the past,” she said.
School officials have said they have no plans to cancel or change plans for the prom.

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Yet More Prayer in Public Schools

This time we find ourselves in Alexandria, Alabama where a high school had morning prayers over the schools public address system. We join the the story over at the Anniston Star.

Alexandria HS stops morning prayers after student complains

by Laura Johnson, Star Staff Writer

 

ALEXANDRIA — The Christian influence at Alexandria High School is visible, but as of this week it’s a little less overt.

There, brightly colored flyers printed with Bible verses hang on the walls, weekly Bible studies are held before class begins and, until recently, prayers were spoken over the school’s intercom system. But that regular practice stopped this week when a student questioned the legality of the practice.

“Every day in the morning we would have student-led prayer over the PA system and I looked this up. It’s illegal,” the student said. “It wasn’t just me; there were a bunch of other students who wanted it stopped.”

He said he demanded it stop in a voicemail sent to Superintendent Judy Stiefel. He also contacted the American Civil Liberties Union by e-mail and by hand-written letter to complain about the issue.

The student requested he not be named in this story because he expected his classmates would not react well to his actions.

In response to the complaint Stiefel sent out an e-mail earlier this week to every school in the system. She said Wednesday the e-mail “reminded them of the law.” The morning prayers at Alexandria High stopped Tuesday.

Alexandria Principal Ronald Chambless declined to comment for this story.

Supreme Court decisions have set precedents prohibiting school-sponsored religious activity, based on the First Amendment, which states Congress may make no law “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has made it pretty clear that school officials cannot sponsor prayers,” said Bryan Fair, a University of Alabama law professor. “They control the PA system; the student doesn’t control the PA system. That is going to be considered government speech rather than private speech.”

However, the law does not prohibit all prayer. Private prayer and voluntary student prayer is permissible by the law and is allowed at Calhoun County Schools, according to school board attorney Robin Andrews.

“Each student is free to pray individually or with other students during non-instructional time, during lunch, before or after school; even during class, providing it’s private and doesn’t interfere with instruction,” Andrews said.

Allison Neal, legal director of the Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said these issues are common in the state and that they usually are resolved without taking any legal action. Neal said that her group normally handles such complaints by talking with school superintendents, but Stiefel said Wednesday the ACLU had not contacted her about the issue.

“I have only had one student to comment about this,” Stiefel said. “It has not been a major problem.”

The student said he was motivated to take action because he didn’t think it was fair for the student body, which he described as overwhelmingly “fundamentally Christian” to subject all students to Christian prayers and Bible verses.

“What bothered me about it is that it’s illegal and I don’t want the school breaking the law like that,” the student said. “I want to stand up for fairness. I’m a person that embraces all religion and I love everyone.”

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Indiana High School Sued Over Graduation Prayer

Image by alykat via Flickr

Sooner or later school districts will start paying attention and stop getting themselves into these un-winnable lawsuits. However, I think it is more apt to be later.

From the Indiana Star.

Greenwood High School faces suit over prayer
Greenwood High let seniors cast ballots on graduation practice
By Jon Murray Posted: March 12, 2010

Greenwood High School honor student who learned in class about court rulings striking down school prayer has found a real-world application -- his own graduation ceremony. Eric Workman's lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, challenges the high school's practice of allowing seniors to vote on whether to have a student-led prayer at graduation.

ACLU attorney Ken Falk said allowing the vote and even having the prayer run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found prayers at public school-sponsored events to violate the First Amendment.

"This is particularly egregious when it's coming from a student who's going to be sitting on the stage," Falk said.

Workman, 18, is ranked first in his class, the lawsuit says. He declined to be interviewed, but Falk said Workman approached the ACLU because he found the practice troubling in light of what he's learned in government classes.

Greenwood Schools Superintendent David Edds said a student-approved prayer has been a long-standing feature at graduation.

Controversy over school prayer has faded from the forefront since the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2000 that a Texas high school could not allow students to deliver prayers over the public address system at football games.

Eight years earlier, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that a public school could not offer a prayer at graduation.
Avon High School attracted attention in 2004 when it decided to forgo an invocation after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit.

The high court's decisions leave little wiggle room, but many schools have tried to accommodate prayer in other ways, often by allowing moments of silence.

According to the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, some schools, particularly in the South, are treading in murkier waters by allowing students to elect graduation speakers who can address nearly any topic, including religion, as long as the students don't vote on whether to have a prayer.

In Greenwood's case, the vote was about a prayer. Edds said the lawsuit was a surprise to him and that the school's principal, Jim Kaylor, has not yet announced the outcome or whether a prayer would be included this year.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, says the prayer question was on a ballot about several issues that school staff passed out during a mandatory senior assembly in September. Workman learned from an unnamed school employee that a majority of seniors had voted in favor of the prayer, the lawsuit says, though some students dissented.

"Through this election scheme," the suit says, "the defendants have established a forum, in the school itself, for religious debate and have subjected religious practice to a majority vote."The lawsuit names the school district and the school's principal as defendants.

The Rev. Shan Rutherford, pastor of Greenwood Christian Church for more than three decades, said he disagrees with the proposition that such a prayer would violate a student's rights.

"If I lived in a Muslim nation, a Hindu nation or anything else, I would expect to go along with the majority," Rutherford said. "He's trying to go with minority rule. To me, that's wrong in a democracy, one that was founded on Christian principles."

"If you don't agree, I don't think you should try to stop other people from exercising their rights."

Lesbian and ACLU Sue When School Says No Prom for You

Itawamba County School District board of education cancelled their high schools senior prom rather than letting Constance McMillen, a lesbian senior, bring her girl friend. There are so many things wrong with this I am not sure where to start.

This decision hurts all students, divides the community and shows the school board's bigotry and intolerance. But, more importantly it unfairly targets Constance McMillen for retaliation and continued discrimination in an obviously backwards community.


However, Constance McMillen and the ACLU of Mississippi are now suing the district to reinstate the prom.

You go girl!

**UPDATE** American Humanist Association offers to Hold LGBT-Inclusive Prom in Mississippi.

Debate Student Can't Wear "God is Dead" T-shirt For Yearbook Photo

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The Arlington High School Debate Club President wore a t-shirt with Friedrich Nietzsche's quote, “GOD IS DEAD” for his debate club's yearbook photo, but was later told he needed to reatke the photo without the shirt. 

The school district's lawyer said that the yearbook adviser and the yearbook staff could use their discretion to omit offensive and inappropriate content. So they did. What exactly is offensive or inappropriate about the t-shirt?

Arlington student's 'God is Dead' T-shirt prompts yearbook tussle

He believes it's a matter of freedom of speech, but the yearbook adviser apparently disagrees

By Gale Fiege
Herald Writer

ARLINGTON — As debate club president and a top student, Arlington High School senior Justin Surber has studied the constitutional rights of free speech.

Surber, 18, recently took a stand that will keep him from appearing in his club's yearbook photo.

Once a week, Surber wears a black T-shirt featuring the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's take on religion. In block letters, the shirt reads “GOD IS DEAD.”

Nobody has told him he can't wear the shirt to school. He wears it to provoke debate, he says, and that's why he wore the shirt the day the debate club photo was taken for the yearbook.

Now Surber believes his T-shirt prompted the school's yearbook adviser to ask for a retake of the photo, without the T-shirt.

“I feel I am a victim of censorship,” Surber said.

When a student yearbook staff member came to take a second photo of the debate club a few weeks ago, Surber's friend Reed Summerlin asked for an explanation.

The yearbook staffer indicated she had been asked by the yearbook adviser not to tell Surber the reason for the retake, Summerlin said. “She said it was about Justin's shirt.”

In protest, Surber and Summerlin chose not to be in the second photo.

“I support Justin and his opinions, but this is a touchy case,” Summerlin said. “The loopholes will allow the school to say the T-shirt can't be in the yearbook.”

The school district's lawyer advised school administrators that a student's First Amendment rights aren't violated if the yearbook staff decides not to run a photograph of that student, said district spokeswoman Misti Gilman.

The yearbook adviser's personal beliefs didn't play a part in the decision to have the debate club photo retaken, and she and the yearbook staff can exercise their discretion to omit offensive and inappropriate content, Gilman said.

Arlington's student handbook says that student publications sponsored by the school are not considered the private speech of students but are public activities of the school district, Gilman said.

The student handbook also protects student expression as long as it doesn't disrupt the educational environment, Surber argues.

“It seems the debate club photo was retaken because my beliefs are not respected by this institution,” Surber said. “Given that photos of students in clothing with Christian messages are allowed in yearbook, one has to wonder if they are taking too much power into their hands with the whole discretion thing.”

Some of the other students in the original debate club photo may not have wanted to be associated with Surber's T-shirt, and they may have expressed concern about being in the same photo with Surber, Principal Kurt Criscione said.

“The yearbook staff takes great pride in their work,” Criscione said. “They want to present the best possible snapshot of life at Arlington High School.”

Two weeks ago, Surber wrote e-mails to his principals and the school superintendent, expressing his concern about the retake of the debate club photo for the yearbook. He said he has yet to hear back from anyone.

Criscione said he decided that Surber's note was just an expression of opinion, not something that required any action on the part of the administration.

Instead, Surber should have gone directly to the yearbook adviser with his concerns, Criscione said. “Just think of the learning opportunities he and the yearbook staff could have had if they had discussed First Amendment rights.”

Surber said he did not want to create a personal problem with the yearbook adviser and decided instead to send a note to the principal and vice principals.

“Not one of them could even take the time to respond. To even tell me I should go talk to (the yearbook adviser), I didn't ask the principal for action as I didn't know what actions could actually be taken. This isn't your everyday issue,” Surber said.

Surber has a cumulative grade point average of 3.85 and works 30 hours a week at local fast-food restaurant. His goal is to graduate from law school and enter the political arena.

Surber said he loves his school.

“But I just can't sit back and let censorship happen. The yearbook is for students. I want to be remembered by my peers as someone who stood for what he believed in,” he said. “Whatever happens with this, the process has been an education.”

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.

Washington High School Discriminates Against Male Cheerleader

He wasn't allowed to move his legs or hips when cheering. It sounds like the 50's when Elvis Presley was censored.

PALOUSE, Wash., Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A male high school cheerleader in Washington state says administrators discriminated against him by not letting him perform the same routines as the girls.

Benjamin Grundy said he was told at the start of the year at Garfield-Palouse High School in Palouse that he would be able to participate in dance routines and other activities performed by the female cheerleaders, only to be pressured later to wear a mascot's uniform and barred from moving his legs or hips while cheering, Spokane's KXLY-TV reported Wednesday.

Grundy's mother, Suzanne, said her letters to state officials, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups -- including KXLY -- pressured the school to give her son an official cheer uniform and pompoms. However, she said she does not consider the case closed and she wants further measures taken, including seminars against discrimination and reprimands for involved school officials.

"I think the combination of a biracial, mentally challenged gay male may be too much for them," Suzanne Grundy said of school officials.

Tenn. SBoE Is Looking For A Fight

John Thomas Scopes
Image by Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

What is it that these states do not get, particularly Tennessee. Did they not learn anything in 1926? No matter how many times the law has gone against SBoE's they keep coming back for more. You have to admire their persistence and their stupidity.

Tenn. OKs guidelines for teaching Bible

Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The state Board of Education has approved guidelines on how to teach the Bible in public high schools even though there’s concern the curriculum could be challenged in court.

The guidelines approved this week are in response to 2008 legislation, which authorized the state to create a course for a “nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study of the Bible.”

State officials said they tried to develop principles that are safe from legal challenge. But some say a state-approved Bible course could violate church and state separation, depending on who is teaching it.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee responded to concerns about religious activities in state public schools by sending out its guide — Know Your Rights: Religion in Public Schools — to schools systems across the state.

Hedy Weinberg, the state’s ACLU director, told The Tennessean that the state seemed sensitive to concerns that the classes could be used to try to convert individuals. However, there are few details on how the classes will be run.

“Whether these classes are constitutional depends on who teaches them and how they are taught,” she said. “The devil is in the details.”

Board member Richard Ray voted in favor of the standards, but is concerned potential lawsuits could create a distraction for schools.

“We have so much that needs to be done to elevate our kids in math and science, the focus of education should be right there,” he said.

Kent Richards, Old Testament professor at Emory University and executive director of the Society for Biblical Literature, has spent five years developing guides for teaching the Bible in public schools. He worked with Tennessee on this course.

Richards and other state officials agree that the focus must shift to properly training educators who will teach the course.

“One of the important things is that teachers are teaching about the Bible and not professing some religion or professing that the Bible is the only road to take,” Richards said. “That’s what every school and every school attorney is concerned about: not crossing that line.”

The course — which will teach students about the content of the Bible and its historical context — is an elective, meaning high schools can choose whether to offer it to students as a social studies credit, and students can decide whether to take it.

Before the state-approved curriculum, school districts could develop and offer their own courses on the Bible, and some still do. State social studies specialist Brenda Ables said the legislation actually complicates the issue because it doesn’t require districts with existing Bible courses to convert to the state’s curriculum.

“We think we’ve gotten this curriculum written to meet all guidelines that would uphold court challenges,” she said. “Those schools who had their own curriculum and were already teaching it will continue to do so until somebody tells them they can’t.”

Is Science is Racist?

According to Berkeley High School, science is unfair to minorities. Apparently, minorities do not enroll in science as much as whites do. So, to better serve the minority students they want to cut science classes in favor of resources for struggling students.

While I believe it is important to help struggling students, I do not think cutting science or any core curriculum will serve the students in the long run.

Berkeley High May Cut Out Science Labs 

The proposal would trade labs seen as benefiting white students for resources to help struggling students.

By Eric Klein at East Bay Express

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.
Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.
Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

School district spokesman Mark Coplan directed inquiries about the redesign to Richard Ng, the principal's assistant at Berkeley High and member of the School Governance Council. Ng did not return repeated calls for comment.

They Need Real Hope, Not False Hope

Anthony B. Bradley, an assistant professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis and an Acton Institute research fellow, writes in an editorial at DetroitNews.com that due to high high school drop out rates of young black men in America that they may need to attend faith schools.

Bradley makes this suggestion based on a report published by England's Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. However, the report, "Independent Faith Schools," only looked at Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religious schools. In fact the Executive Summary states,

"The survey was conducted at the request of the Secretary of State to determine the fitness for purpose of the standard for pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and the five regulations which independent faith schools, registered by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), must meet."

In other words this was only a survey meant to gauge the compliance of faith schools on government regulations. It was not written to compare faith and public schools nor does it imply such as Bradley implies. Bradley offers no real solutions of his own but does site positive results at a New York City charter school, not a faith school, but an all male charter school.

There is no question that more needs to be done to help disadvantaged and minority males succeed in both school and life. But, these youth need real hope, not false hope.

Faith schools could prove virtuous for black students

Anthony B. Bradley

Do at-risk black males need to be emancipated from America's public school complex? A new study released about high school dropout and incarceration rates among blacks raises the question.
Nearly 23 percent of all American black men ages 16-24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution, according to a new report from the Center for Labor Markets at Northeastern University.
High school dropouts cost the nation severely. Not only are American taxpayers getting no return on the $8,701 we spend on average per student, each dropout costs us $292,000 over their lifetime in lost earnings, lower taxes paid and higher spending for social programs like incarceration, health care and welfare.
Since public schools are forbidden to teach virtue and often reduce children to receptacles of information, expanding private and faith-based options to black parents is the most compelling solution.
The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, England's chief education inspection agency, recently released a report lauding the attributes of faith schools. The report, "Independent Faith Schools," examined the quality of formation provided by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religious schools. The inspectors found "pupils demonstrating an excellent understanding of spiritual and moral attributes."
In all the schools visited, "pupils gained a strong sense of identity and of belonging to their faith, their school and to Britain." In other words, faith-based schools, by simply teaching about religion, are forming their students to be virtuous citizens.
In Britain's faith schools, "good citizenship was considered by all the schools visited to be the duty of a good believer because this honored the faith," the report says. In contrast, American public schools have become prisoner factories for many at-risk black males.
Because producing educated, virtuous citizens is unrelated to funding, the problem cannot be addressed by simply increasing government spending for education.
Even in the public sector, blacks are realizing that the current model fails black males. Kentucky State University President Mary Sias says the university is trying to find funding to open a boarding school for black male youth to get them into college.
The Eagle Academy for Young Men, a charter school in the Bronx, is the first all-male public school in New York City in 30 years. Eagle Academy has a high school graduation rate of 82 percent, compared with 51.4 percent of black and 48.7 percent of Hispanic students graduating from high schools citywide. This may explain why Eagle had 1,200 applications for this year's ninth-grade class of 80 students.
Americans cannot afford, financially or morally, to trap black males in criminal cultivators masquerading as schools. Even though charter schools, vouchers and tax-credit programs reflect some progress, black parents need radical new options that empower them to choose the best schools.