Black students must close education gap

At a time when many poor African-American youth view professional sports and entertainment as their only ticket out of poverty, it's critical that we put the focus back on education.

That's a tall order when the majority of what young people see around them is consumption and excess, especially in a society where you're more apt to get noticed for your clothes than your smarts.

It's well-documented that urban kids are distracted by the stuff they see in the media, where it's all about the "bling-bling" and not about education and hard work, which undergirds success in the real world for all racial groups.

Black kids are hurt the most by the distorted view of reality they see in the media. Just look at the gap in high school graduation rates for black and white students in Wisconsin.

For 2004-'05, white Wisconsin students had a graduation rate of 92.6%, well ahead of the 62.9% rate for black students.

Which brings me to why we need to encourage African-American kids to pursue a college education.

A U.S. Department of Education study shows that a college degree eliminates much of the racial income gap.

According to the report, African-Americans who earned their bachelor's degree in the 1992-'93 academic year, who had a full-time job in 2003, had a median income that was 88% that of their white peers. In 2003, this group of African-Americans had a median income of $46,400, compared with $52,800 for full-time white workers who earned their bachelor's degrees during the same period.

What's more, black students who earn a four-year college degree have incomes that are substantially higher than blacks who have only some college experience but have not completed college, the Department of Education reports.

While this isn't news, the message is clear: One of the best ways to rise out of poverty is to get an education.

"There's the mind-set that there's nothing we can do about our circumstances and that the American dream is out of reach for us," says Bruce Slater, managing editor of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. "The key is to emphasize that if you work hard and get good grades that things can get better. It's important to keep publicizing how important a college education is to closing the racial income gap."

Racial inequality persists

Not everyone sees the data as encouraging.

The fact that a racial income gap persists for younger blacks a decade after completing college is troubling, says William Spriggs, an economist and chairman of the economics department at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

"There's still this gap in income. It still says that black kids have to get a college degree. But it means they still have to keep fighting for equality," he said.

African-Americans overwhelmingly are employed in non-profit and government jobs, Spriggs notes, which may be a big factor in why they earn less than their white counterparts after a decade out of college.

The Department of Education report shows that only 43% of African-Americans who received their bachelor's degrees in the 1992-'93 academic year were employed in the private sector, vs. 60% of whites.

"It's really dramatic, the percentage of blacks who work for non-profits, the military and the government. There is clearly less discrimination in hiring in those areas," says Spriggs.

Still, education has been one of the most persistent, long-term factors in blacks' economic progress in America and remains the cornerstone of wealth accumulation for African-Americans today, says Robert Margo, professor of economics and African-American studies at Boston University.

"Those African-Americans who go to college will find a labor market that's ready and willing to have them," said Margo, who has written extensively on black economic progress. "The message that's important is that education and skills is the ticket, although not a guarantee, that gives you the potential for a higher standard of living."

'My children will do better'

More than anybody, black males need to be encouraged to stick with education.

Several recent studies have found that more than half of all black males fail to graduate from inner-city schools. Among cities nationwide, Chicago stands out with an appallingly low high school graduation rate for black males of less than 40%.

Options are severely limited for a black man without an education.

"There's a cultural disconnect among certain segments of our community that education is not important," says Tyrone Dumas, a community activist and a Milwaukee Public Schools administrator. "Forty years ago, we had this fervor among our elders that, even if I didn't get my education, my children will do better."

This certainly was the case in my family. My adoptive parents, neither of whom finished high school, pushed me to excel in school so that I could take advantage of opportunities that they didn't have.

Now, as African-American parents, we need to persist in getting our children educated.

Don't get me wrong. Many young African-Americans realize a lot is riding on that college degree.

Consider Dimtri Mack, 38, who received his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 1992. Mack was the first in his family to graduate from college.

"I grew up in the inner city. I barely made it out," said Mack, a job developer for the Milwaukee County Private Industry Council. "My mother was a housekeeper. She really pushed me to go to college. She said, 'You don't want to be like me. I want you to do better.' "