Poor Scores Leave an Afrocentric School in Chicago Vulnerable

When I started reading this article, I was expecting something along the lines of racial injustice making a school close its doors because of its focus on black pride. And although I could sense the writer John Eligon tried to stay somewhat neutral, the message was more or less that instilling confidence into socially-disadvantaged black kids is a good thing, which I think we can all agree on. It's just when I saw they were in the 14th percentile in read and 8th percentile in math, my eyes fucking flew out of their sockets. Yeah, we all complain about standardized tests and how classes are geared more toward them than learning, but at the end of the day you gain something from it. You have a grasp of algebra or how to read an article critically. And apparently they can't achieve even that.

Listen, you can learn about all the cruelties your community has suffered, but even if you have a sense of self-worth, if you start off at a young age significantly behind everyone else, you're remain that way. Education is still fucking important. You can scream all you want about how the African continent was screwed over by the world and still is, but ultimately if your kids aren't getting into good colleges and don't have the skills to take on that course load, they're not going to get anywhere. The community will still be in the same state it's been. Let's imagine a similar situation for me. If there were a girls' school that focused on the patriarchy, and how women have contributed to society yet have been belittled and silenced for millennia, but had terrible fucking test scores, I would never send my daughters there. They would just not succeed in life.

My problem with the article is it spends so much time talking about the benefits of the curriculum without addressing the problems. It can't be that the kids come from an impoverished area. There are lots of students who come from shitty backgrounds and still shine academically. So what exactly is the school doing wrong? I don't know because I don't have enough information. Really, you should close the institution because that shit is just unacceptable, but then the alternative is probably just as bad: Put the kids into other schools and increase the classroom sizes. Still, I'm worried because that place has been open for a decade and children could've attended there from kindergarten all the way to sophomore year in that environment. I really hope they'll be OK when it's time for the SATs.