America's Black Students - Lost Opportunities

I'm in Carolina today speaking to the 66th annual civil rights conference of the South Carolina NAACP. This invitation has made me focus on how well our schools are preparing our young black students for college, for work and for life.

If the overall performance of America's schools is poor, their performance for black children is worse.


They face low expectations and their achievement meets those expectations. They face unequal opportunities and inexperienced teachers. They represent generations of lost opportunities.


We sometimes overdo it with statistics, but we believe in making our case with facts. Let me cite just three numbers here:

• Only 14 percent of black fourth graders are proficient in reading and 54 percent cannot perform at even a basic level. How can you succeed and not be able to read?


• Only about half of the nation's black students graduate from high school on time. A high school education is the barest minimum for finding a job.


• At current rates of college enrollment and completion, only 10 out of every 100 black kindergarteners will earn a bachelor's degree. We have to assume they are among the 14 percent who can read at a proficient level in fourth grade.

South Carolina has starting taking steps to improve its schools.


It has set proficiency standards for reading and math higher than most states in America.


It is using two federal grants to implement a variety of teacher incentive plans in 17 schools. But it will need as many as 10,000 teachers over the next decade, and those teacher pay programs will have to expand far beyond 17 schools.


It would be easy to get discouraged, but we have risen to challenges greater than this before. First, we must make ourselves aware; then we have to act.


It's time to act.