Early Education Counts

I like this article because it strikes a familiar note. There are few differences among children as they come out of the two year old narcissism and begin the three year old year eager and willing to learn.

Few children are not willing to learn. Their eyes are bright, their faces interested, their excitement is across the board equal - like runners in a race at the starting line. It's only after years of defeat and sadness and the idea that they can't keep up, that somehow they are not as able as the child next to them does a child begin to "be left behind."

Not all children come from homes where mom and dad have the time or the intelligence to help a child with his homework. Yet, it's an interesting thing to see how even the child in the dust can be tutored and brought up to par with a little loving help.

Mostly, children who don't understand their schoolwork are children who have big holes in the big picture. It's not easy to patch the holes, but the loving attention of an adult who is interested in patching those holes can help. Trust is a big factor, and desire is another. Sometimes desire is left behind as well. When the desire to learn is traded for a hostile attitude toward brain work, a child becomes "at risk."

Going back to the beginning is hard, it's rigorous, it's a full time job, but it's essential. Starting out right is another essential. Learning to play with words and numbers before kindergarten is a head start any child can use.

Police Tests Reveal Education Failure

The Virginian-Pilot © February 11, 2006

Recruitment tests for the Virginia Beach Police Department find that minorities, particularly blacks, fare poorly in simple math. This is attributable to:

A) racial discrimination.

B) inability of blacks to comprehend math.

C) lack of rigorous learning for too many blacks in grades K-12.

If you’re honest, the most accurate answer is C. If you want to inflame the public, you’ll pick A or B.

The dismal results should send out a 911 to parents, educators and to students in classes throughout the region. Are black students receiving enough scrutiny when it comes to math?

Are they given up on too quickly when they falter? Are their parents promoting the importance of education by overseeing their children’s lessons and homework? Are they seeking tutors when their kids come up short?

That’s the real emergency, not the inability of the police department to recruit black applicants. The tragedy is that it’s not new. The police academy test has simply thrown a harsh light on one of our community’s greatest shames, the huge number of children who aren’t learning.

In that way, at least, the police tests might have done some good, although we believe the U.S. Justice Department, in castigating the Beach, unfairly blames the test-givers, instead of the test-takers.

It contends that the Beach “is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics” in hiring entry-level officers.

Yet, sample questions can be answered by most people without using paper and pencil. The questions deal with basic addition and subtraction — not calculus, not geometry, not trigonometry.

It’s embarrassing that only 59 percent of African Americans in our community passed the math portion between 2002 and mid-2005, according to the Justice Department figures. Some 66 percent of Hispanics passed, and 85 percent of whites did. All police officers — in fact all adults — shouldn’t require more than a few minutes to correctly complete the questions. The reaction of Carl Wright, a Beach NAACP official, is misdirected and unhelpful. Said Wright: “It is a shame that the Department of Justice had to come in here and say that we see discrimination. Ray Charles could have seen it.”

Where’s the finger-pointing at the parents, families and schools that let down these police recruits years ago? And toward the applicants themselves? That’s where the biggest responsibility lies.

There are plenty of reasons for hope in the local schools, which are closing the learning gap between whites and the upcoming generation of blacks and Hispanic students. Early childhood education, perhaps the best answer, has strong political champions for the first time.

Organizations like United Way have begun installing effective literacy lessons into dozens of day care programs, for 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds.

All of which begs the essential question: Are we doing enough to make sure that all of our children have a chance to succeed? That’s a test question we can’t afford to fail.