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Page 2...The Portland Observer...November 6,1991 p e r s p e c tiv e s Poorly Performing Schools Will Not Be Improved Without Increased Funding DR. WILBERT J. LEMELLE President of P helps-Stokes Fund sible to maintain even basic operations. Students in these inadequately finance d schools are, for the most part, the poor, the disabled, and disadvantaged m i norities. Schools and students cannot be expected to meet the standards set forth in America 2000 when their re sources are reduced to the level of underdeveloped countries. If American students are to meet what the government’s plan calls “ world class standards” the federal govern ment must see to it that every American student attends a “world class school. At present the majority of African American students attend sub-standard schools, which arc struggling under multiple handicaps. Help can only come if the federal governm ent adopts a strategy for emergency action. But the traditional mission of fed eral assistance has been abandoned by the Administration. America 2 0 0 0 sets educational goals such as national stan dards, tests, and new kinds o f school, but according to the newly established National Citizens Commission for African american Education, it fails to urge emergency relief for those schools most in need. Unless this is done the Adm inistration’s strategies tor educa tional improvement risk becoming no more than public relations ploys. The first communique on education policy issued by the Commission calls on the congressional Black Caucus to prepare a M aster-Plan for the Improvement of Education in A merica and specifies minimum emergency actions to be taken. In the current fiscal year, 1992, one billion dollars must be appropri ated and distributed to the one hundred poorestcongressional districts for labo ratory equipment, typewriters, comput “ A lthough better by a wide m ar gin than it was some three or four decades age, by nearly all objective m easures the status of blacks relative to whites has stagnated or regressed since th 1970s.” This was how Gerald Jay nes, Study Director lor “ A common Destiny: Blacks and American Soci ety ,” sum m arized his investigation of the state o f urban schools and their im pact on African American children to the Subcom m ittee on Select Educa tion two years ago. Among the factors contributing to the disparity between the educational achievement of blacks and w hites are differences in content and organization of school instruction and teacher expectation. But at the root o f the problem is money. Another witness. Dr. W omie Reed, Director of the Trotter Institute of Black Culture at the University of Massachusetts, joined Dr. Jaynes in the recognition that fiscal inequity is a major reason for educa tional disadvantage. It is now two years later. On Sep tem ber 31 of this year, the National Education Goals Panel issued a report assessing progress toward meeting educational goals of President Bush’s much touted plan for school reform, America 2000. The report concluded that at the rate the nation’s educational system is going it cannot possibly reach these goals. One reason the goals remain unat tainable is the failure of the govern m ent’s strategy to address the fact that the m ajority of A m erica’s children are served by public school systems whose budgets, even before the recession, have been cut to the point where it is im pos / ers, book, instructional films and vid eos, and emergency repair of facilities used chiefly by pupils or parents. Beginning in fiscal year 1993, the fed eral government should allocate no less than 230 million dollars annually to strenghten these schools through the support of an Institute for the Educa tion o f At-risk Students; the funding of a federal resource and technical assis tance entity in each one o f the one hundred poorest districts; and the launch ing of experimental new American schools in these district. No less than three billion dollars should be appropriated annually for distribution through a federal revenue sharing program. The funds from the program should be distributed on a per pupil basis with all school districts being eligible except those that do not have an enrollm ent with at least ten percent or more of their pupils eligible for the federal free lunch program. Important as it is, however, the more relevant use o f federal resources will short of dealing with the very “ clear and present danger” facing our stu dents unless parents and families in the African American community make a full com m itm ent o f time, energy and money to the education o f our children and ourselves. W e must aggressively seek ways to create an atm osphere for intellectual development and an envi ronment for learning. Our com m uni ties must become “ learning com m uni ties,” our neighborhoods “ neighbor hoods of students.” Our very survival depends on it. Dr. LeM elle was form er U.S. Ambassador to Kenya and is also Chair man o f the National Citizens Commis sion fo r African American Education BY REV. RON ROSS There is a storm clud brewing on the horizon o f African America today. It hangs heavy with the deep convic tions and morals of a leadership in an African America that has basically been silent. These new leaders have an agenda that will change the course of the tor turous voyage that Black America appears doomed to sail. W hen this storm hits it will wreak havoc on the system that has held Afri can Americans as a permanent under class for so long. It will take on the welfare state, support and bring about economic independence, and clear the African American agenda of dead weight like womens rights, gay rights, and other non essential issues. It m ust be realized that African America is making a stand today to no longer sit idly by and allow her people to be led down the paths of destruction by the tomism o f the liberal leadership. It is time that the toms who support the liberal agenda begin to seek shelter, for this is not a movement o f the upper echelon but rather of the grass-roots African American, whose power does not lie in his salary but in his ability to vote. Make no mistake about it-groups like the congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, Urban League, and other are in grave danger. Unless these groups get back to their grass-roots people, thier future looks very bleak. For quite some time Americans have been led to believe that because the leadership of Black America has been attaching every’ liberal issue to the civil rights movement, all African Americans are totally liberal. This is just not true. By tradition African American people tend to be conserva tive when it comes to morals and val ues, even though there have been con stant attempts to dispute this fact. As new and old issues that destroy the African American Community become more and more powerful (with no relief in sight) African American leaders who have been silent on the issue of conservative vs. liberal are beginning to speak o u t During the week o f September 10, 1991, Black Americans from all around the country came together to create a new leadership, a leadership that will not sell traditional Black values for Professor M c K in le y B u rt A Picture May Not Be Worth A Thousand Words As we wind up the current series on an examination of the Portland School Districts, “ Baseline Essays,” we may lake heart for just through the natural course of things the detractors arc being overcome by a wealth o f validating evidence developed and published by lop level researchers, universities and other scholars. The following case in point en ables me to get into the entire scheme of artist’s renditions of historical themes and personages being a clear exposi tion o f cultural and racial bias (quite natural, I suppose, though it seems rather ludricous to open a science publication and find what are obslensibly Scandi navians skipping across the African Veldt in ancient times). D on’t laugh! These people are quite serious about preserving a cultural one-up-man-ship and understand very well that “ one picture is worth a thousand w ords.” An exception is again found in the excellent material put out by Time Life Books. There is a current advertising package being mailed describing their new series on ancient history, “ Lost Civilizations, first publication, Egypt: Land o f the Pharoahs.” It promises to be as factual and authentic as the pub lisher’s 1965 series “ G reat Ages of Man, lead volume, Ancient E gypt.” The renditions of the artists seem valid representations of African peoples who lived in the contiguous areas o f Egypt, Ethiopia and the Sudan long before the incursions of Europeans and Asians. The new book has a chapter, ‘ ‘The Stories M ummies T ell,” and do they ever. In this advertising package you will find a photograph of the unwrapped mummy o f a thirteen-year-old Egyp tian girl. ( ‘‘W ith the new techniques of forensic anthropology, the face o f a Black Conservatives Surface Chairman. African American Comm. /b y thirty pieces of silver. These leaders came together in our nations capital to support Judge Clarence Thomas and to attend a Black genocide conference. The African American leaders who at tended these events were fed up with liberals pretending they knew what was best for Blacks and that they spoke for all African Americans. These leaders have vowed to bring down the institu tions that care nothing about the B lacks of this country and everything about themselves. The time has come for black poli ticians to stop spouting empty rhetoric and supporting unsound programs. The African America o f the future wants solid answers and proven solutions to herproblems. She wants it to be known that she will “ KEEP HOPE A LIV E” if she is given hope; she will fulfill ‘ ‘THE DREAM” if given the tools; she will know that she is “ SOM EBO D Y ” if she is empowered with true knowledge of an economic system that many have worked so hard to keep her ignorant of. She will believe that “ OUR TIME HAS CO M E” only when the clock chimes with true equality, not quotas. long-dead Egyptian comes alive again” ). How now, you racists? One can go right over to King School and find scores of look-alikes among the Afri can American children there; the very same with that famous visage of the young King Tut. And, of course, there is the equally noted sculpture of Queen Nefcrtiti (The original African rendi tion, not the later Greek-inspired ver sion reproduced ad nauscum in Ameri can publications). My, that girl had a long head just like my aunt Marjorie. You may obtain this preview packet for free by writing Time Life Books, 1450 E. Parham Road, Richmond, VA 23280. There will be subsequent vol umes, on Greeks, Rome, China, M a yas, Aztecs, etc. And try to find a copy o f that 1965 book ‘‘Ancient E gypt” at a secondhand bookstore, library, wher ever. Among the color photographs of 3000 year-old murals of African people, icons and every-day-life is a priceless rendition of a dozen sisters at a highly- anim ated cocktail party. Accompany ing the picutrc of the partying ladies in their cornrows is a translation o f the hieroglyphis beneath the mural, liter ally: “ Typical afternoon gathering on the veranda of Mr. and Mrs. X. Guests drink quantities of beer and wine, and feast on pigeon, duck, oxen and some o f E gypt’s 40 varieties o f breads and cakes.” There arc musicians and danc ers, and the elegant furniture would do justice to any found in a fine home today. Now, this was in Africa at a time before Homer and when the Greeks had not yet returned from Egyptian and Ethiopian Temple Schools to found their scientific community at M iletus— were mostly shivering in animal skins and getting hemorrhoids from sitting around on that stone furniture (For Afri- cans amenities of the same time period see “ Furniture In The A ncient W orld"; beautiful and comfortable African crafts manship as found in Tombs like King T ut’s utilized the dow el, mortise and tenon joints and the lathe-all still thought by many to modern European inven tions. Fortunately, Napoleon brought back many examples from his 1803 expedition to Africa; placed in the newly- founded Louvre Museum, this led to the still popular Empire style o f furniture and dress. So it is that the supposedly pure aesthetic of the artist can, in the wrong hands, be used to pervert history and tru th -a n d to disconnect a people from their heritage. Though the great black historian W.E.B. Dubois documented the early presence o f Africans all over the world, including the South Seas’, the renditions of American artists for texts and popular books give no hint that anybody vaguely resembling an A fri can was encountered in Captain C ook’s expeditions in the pacific: Cook Islands, Polynesia, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Ha waii, New Caledonia, M arquesas, etc. Fortunately, I and others have large collections of photographs taken last century, showing the obvious African ancestry o f peoples around the Pacific Rim. (Books and collections like “ The Secret Museum of M an-K ind,” M an hattan House, N.Y. 1925) The same holds true for Malaya, the Phillipines and parts of China and Japan. The past two centuries o f European discovery and the last century o f Asian entrepreneurship has all but destroyed most vestige of seminal African pres ence and culture. It would seem that the arti sts are employed to hide the remains. 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