How do we help kids succeed in school?
It’s a question that plenty of college administrators have been asking themselves lately.
For all of the rejiggering of admissions policies to admit more poor and minority kids, a good portion of them don’t seem to graduate.
The black college graduation rate, for instance, is 42%, 20 points lower than the white one.
No doubt some underprivileged kids are simply underqualified. But what if it is not just their academic bona fides that make a difference?
For several years now, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, an engineering school in Indiana, has been administering a test to its freshman that measures how much these students feel they are in control of their futures.
It asks them to what extent they agree with statements like: “Grades most often reflect the effort you put into classes.”
Or “I have largely determined my own career goals.”
Or, on the other hand, do they believe “There are some subjects in which I could never do well” and “I sometimes feel that there is nothing I can do to improve my situation”?
The school tracked grades and retention rates, and found a clear correlation between higher locus of control attitudes and successful academic performance, Jim Goecker, vice president for enrollment management and strategic communications, told the website Inside Higher Ed.
Which makes you wonder — what messages make young people feel as if they are in control of their future?
Well here’s what doesn’t: The constant chatter about institutional racism and sexism that pervade our educational institutions and media outlets.
If you want to give a kid the sense that he has some modicum of control over his destiny, that his efforts will be rewarded with success, it’s probably best not to tell him the decks are stacked against him.
We don’t have to pretend racism doesn’t exist, but race is not destiny.
But that’s exactly what we do.
Ebony Magazine recently published an article by a white man married to a black woman called “I Hope My Son Stays White.” In it, the author lays out the bleak future for his 3-year-old son if his skin gets darker.
“I want my son’s skin color not to matter, but the truth is that it does…There will be consequences for him. People will fear him. Not everyone, but plenty of people, and he’ll never know who until it’s too late. It will only be worse if he wears a hoodie and sags his jeans…”
The author imagines cops harassing his son for jaywalking, convenience store owners following him around, women watching him in fear.
It’s hard to think of anyone but a 19th century slave-holder believing that race is destiny as much as this guy does.
But of course he’s not alone. Take Jennifer Cramblett, the Ohio woman suing a sperm bank for accidentally giving her the sperm of a black man instead of the white one should had picked out.
She and her lesbian partner want the sperm bank to pay millions of dollars for her to move to a new town, one she believes will be more hospitable to her mixed-race child.
Mind you, Cramblett has offered no evidence of any difficulties she has experienced so far, but she believes that her daughter will suffer all sorts of undefined abuse from strangers and even her own extended family as a result of her skin color. Racism is going to doom her child’s chances for a happy life.
“This isn’t LA or New York. We’re not on the coasts. We’re in farm country,” Cramblett said.
Oh, well, in that case the girl’s obviously in for a lifetime of bullying.
Cramblett’s case is no doubt more about money than anything else. (And it’s odd to think that these farm country folks would be fine with lesbians have a baby, but draw the line at them having a mixed race baby).
But ultimately she is offering her child the message that her family and community will never accept her, that they have to leave town to get away from the racism embedded in the culture.
This is not about viewing the world with rose-colored glasses. But this is not 1950. We don’t have to pretend racism doesn’t exist, but race is not destiny.
Telling kids that it is, though, may be a self-fulfilling prophesy.