Results of a recent academic evaluation of minority students at Evanston Township High School which shows that their achievement levels are well below those of white students, are sobering indeed.
While the figures themselves ought not to be particularly surprising since they reflect the national norm, they are at the very least disheartening, coming as they do from one of the most progressive districts in the state, perhaps in the country in providing for the special needs of minority students.
Though the high school has spent millions of dollars on a variety of programs aimed at helping underachieving students, the great majority of them African-American, results have been disappointing. African-American students fail courses at more than five times the rate of white students, and their median score on the National Merit Qualifying standardized exam (known as the PSAT) is in the 10th percentile, compared to the 64th percentile for white students.
What is the school doing wrong? Not much. In fact the minority student achievement report, despite its findings, is a testament to the district’s sincere efforts to help minority students, who make up 55 percent of the student population, overcome socio-economic handicaps and succeed academically.
But education is a task that must extend beyond the schoolhouse door. Evanston High School district Supt. Allan Alson says it’s a three-way responsibility involving the student, the parents and the school. And he’s right.
Like a three-legged stool, if all three are not doing their part, the whole thing will collapse. It is telling that in interviews with minority students at Evanston, those who are typically high achievers attribute their academic success to “family expectations and parents who push them to succeed,” while lower-achieving students report “less parental involvement in their academic lives.”
The high achievers also accepted greater responsibility for their successes and failures than did the low-scoring students, an attitude that is far better taught in the home starting at birth than in the classroom starting with teenagers.
It is not easy for parents who were themselves poorly educated, who may be intimidated by school administrators and teachers no matter how well-meaning and who are coping with the grinding day-to-day effects of poverty to actively participate in the learning process of their children.
But participate they must. until they do, all the money in the world will not buy enough programs to close the academic gap between the children of poverty and the children of plenty. Not in Evanston, not anywhere.
