Just when we might start to doubt whether change is possible, 107 young boys defy the odds prove to the world that struggle can lead to triumph. Last month the Chicago Tribune reported that 100% of the first senior class at Urban Prep – an all male, all African-American public charter school in Chicago – have been accepted to four-year colleges. These 12 boys, most of which did not read at grade level upon entering the school, have shown critics, their peers, and more importantly themselves, that young black men in the U.S can succeed.
Urban Prep, a charter school that enrolls all comers in one of Chicago's most beleaguered neighborhoods, was designed to help African-American youth use education to lift themselves out of poverty and despair, and forge ways of being in the world that transcend cultural stereotypes and the dominating institutions that enforce them. "Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low graduation rates, teen pregnancy — you name it, Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the school's director of college counseling, who was born and raised in Englewood. Every day, before attending advanced placement biology classes and lectures on changing the world, students have to pass through the neighborhood, then metal detectors.
Tim King, the school's founder and CEO, told reporters,
"There were those who told me that you can't defy the data. Black boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to jail. Black boys don't go to college. Black boys don't graduate from college. They were wrong.”Yes they were!
Below is footage of the public ceremony:
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36 comments:
College isn't a panacea for ANYTHING... yet the Left pushes it as a "universal" solution to the world's problem.
When half of the nation is by definition "of below average intelligence" you need solutions that don't "require" it for success.
A better case for "success" would have been acieved had all the members of this school joined the USMC or entered into a plumbing apprenticeship. After all, a survey of these graduates four years from now will uncover the sad fact that only 5% of these kids will actually graduate within 4 years, and at most 20% graduate with a degree of ANY kind (inluding Associates).
LOL. The mission of the school is to prepare boys to GRADUATE from four year colleges, yet they don't anywhere state how many actually achieve that goal. Instead, they simply state that 100% get "accepted" into four year colleges.
Just like liberals. It's always "good intentions" that count, actual results be damned!
This is the first graduating class, so they don't know how many will actually graduate from college yet. Also it was 112 students, not 12. Check your fucking facts.
You want to assign them a future by forcing them in to a trade school or the army? These kids could do a lot better than your white, suburban brats who, guess what, don't all graduate from high school, and will develop a coke addiction with your money while you're too busy spewing conservative, hateful bullshit.
You want to assign them a future by forcing them in to a trade school or the army?
At least they'll likely SUCCEED in those occupations instead of a GUARANTEED 95% FAIL. Do you think it's "compassionate" to set these kids up for FAILURE like the bleeding hearts who created this program have? They've been sold three magic beans, and likely gone into DEBT bigtime for the priviledge.
Oh that's right, it's all about "good intentions", results be DAMNED!
...guess what, don't all graduate from high school, and will develop a coke addiction with your money while you're too busy spewing
...and what do you think will happen to THESE kids when they drop out of college $30,000 in debt?
Here's a bit of "reality" from their Annual Report...
On the ACT exam, Urban Prep students achieved an average composite score of 16.5, which is 3 points higher than the average composite score at the neighborhood school and one point above the average for African-American boys across the district. On average, 12% of our students met the college readiness benchmark in reading and 36% met the benchmark in English...
Only one in eight "graduates" reads at the minimum reading level required to be considered "prepared" for college admission, but they're ALL going to college... and the "college readiness benchmark score for math is a 22.
Does anyone here really believe that a tyranny of "overly high" expectations is somehow less insidious than a tyranny of "overly low" expectations"?
Those poor unprepared kids at Urban Prep that actually borrow money to go to college will pay one heck of a price so that guilty white liberals can feel good about themselves pretending that disadvantaged black kids have just as good a chance of graduating from college as white kids.
from the Tribune article...
While college acceptance is an enormous hurdle to jump, school leaders said they know their job isn't done; they want to make sure the students actually attend.
To that aim, King said, staff made sure that every student has completed the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid, lest the red tape deter them.
Later in the year, the school plans to hold a college signing day where every student is to sign a promise to go to college, he said. Staff will stay in touch through the summer and hopefully in the first years of school.
Now bend over and sign the college loan applications!
No wonder the Fed's took over the student loan program. Sallie Mae is about to become twice as insolvent as her cousins, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae...
Actually it was 107 seniors. I thought it was 112, but i triple checked and its 107.... AMAZING!
Only 30% of my graduating class of 120 went to college.
"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high."
~ HENRY DAVID THOREAU
"THE LEFT!", Like the bogeyman, probably has a lot of different views on education. But I know, you are not good with nuances and difference, other than binaries.
Those pesky Evil Leftians vs, the righteous Good Rightians! Sounds like an epic battle of mythic proportions...
Your worldview is so very impoverished Yul, I feel so sorry for you.
My world view is "impoverished"?
I'm not the one who's conning low income minorities, the majority of which don't have a prayer of achieving their "educational" targets, into going deeply into debt and then failing out of college so that a few magic bean selling tenured white liberal leftist professors can spend labour-free summers in the Hamptons drinking Long Island iced teas and patting themselves on the backs for having "helped" so many disadvantaged minorities get into programs they're completely unsuited for.
It's only your personal belief (bias) that they are incapable of succeeding. I imagine among those 107 kids at least some of them will go on to graduate and succeed – eventually contributing in ways that you would not even imagine.
Or do you think black kids are inherently stupid and should all just be steered towards jobs and McDonalds?
I thought you were a self-proscribed Rightous Rightian? Don’t you believe in “liberty”, or allowing people to pull themselves out of poverty with hard work? Where are all those fancy ideals now? Do they apply to black people too or just white, rich, republicans?
Or is it that you still base everything off the writings of 4000 year old Athenian aristocratic treatise? Each according to their metals huh?
Do you also advocate the state taking all children away from their mothers to be placed in state-owned gymnasiums, like Plato did?
Bottom-line, these kids deserve the chance to get an education at the very least, and without schools like this they would never get that chance – so I applaud any school or program that offers people opportunity to rise above.
Or do you think black kids are inherently stupid and should all just be steered towards jobs and McDonalds?
Black kids can do anything that white kids can do. But I would NEVER advocate sending every white kid to college. Especially if I tested them and found them as grossly unprepared to meet the education challenge that a four year college curriculum entails as these particular black kids are.
And so it's not my "personal belief" that these kids are unprepared at all. It's the consensus opinion of education experts who believe that a combined ACT score of 18 (not 16.5)represents the college readiness benchmark for a minimally prepared college student.
Most of these kids are in the bottom quintile of ACT test takers. Encouraging them to spend thousands of dollars that neither they nor their families can afford to pay and subsequently lose is not only a "bad" idea, but one I would classify as tatamount to criminally negligent.
The 12% of Urban Prep's students who meet the college prep benchmark should be afforded every opportunity to attend college, should they so desire.
But encouraging the remaining 88% to embarck on a similiar four year endeavor, IMHO, is the height of left-wing politically correct hubris.
As far as competency scores, I hear you. And guess what, I agree (somewhat). If they are not prepared setting them up for failure is a huge mistake. Fair enough. But scores on a culturally bias test is not the only indicator of readiness.
Remember, these kids had to catch-up, as they have only been at that school for 4 years. Before going to Urban Prep High they were still at grade 4 level. I imagine that many of those that fall below the test scores will catch up and graduate from college.
But your objections do make sense. And it’s important to keep what you say in mind. Don’t set people up for failure based on some ideological hope.
But it’s not like they are forcing these kids to go to college. If they don’t want to go, or think they can’t do it many will just not register when summer rolls around.
It’s a fuzzy line, as some who YOU might not think are able to make it will, and some who I think will make it won’t – but we NEED to give these kids the opportunity to make that attempt and prove both you and I wrong. Who are you or I to decide who gets to make that attempt?
Can you at least see give credit where credit is due?
Urban Prep takes kids who have NO CHANCE based on the situations they are born in and gives them at least SOME CHANCE.
And what about my question to you:
Do you also advocate the state taking all children away from their mothers to be placed in state-owned gymnasiums, like Plato did?
Is Plato still all that?
Yul wants to decide who can catch up or who is worthy or not worthy, isn't that obvious?
philosopher-king yul, yes sir, he decides what stuff people are made of...
I imagine that many of those that fall below the test scores will catch up and graduate from college.
"Don't Bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me..."
but we NEED to give these kids the opportunity to make that attempt and prove both you and I wrong. Who are you or I to decide who gets to make that attempt?
Can you at least see give credit where credit is due?
Funny you should put it that way...
We're the people who will lend them the money... just like those so called "greedy bankers" that destroyed the housing and "subprime" banking markets by lending to unqualified and over-leveraged minority buyers...
Remember, as of Obamacare's passing, YOU and I are the "greedy" student loan bankers du jour.
Credit where credit is due, fine. Credit where credit is insane... now THAT is a completely different animal.
Urban Prep takes kids who have NO CHANCE based on the situations they are born in and gives them at least SOME CHANCE.
Indeed, I applaud the 12% they've succeeded with. So stretch it and encourage 20% to go. But 100%? That's just CRAZY.
And people (especially young and impressionable kids) shouldn't be told that they've "failed" if they don't get four year college degrees. There are far too many other honorable trades...
Do you also advocate the state taking all children away from their mothers to be placed in state-owned gymnasiums, like Plato did?
You mean you think our forced American public school educations qualify as "gymnasiums"? Hardly. After all, Plato would have taught the subject of "gymnastics"... the kind of exercises one performs in full armour ("Laws")...
I may have attended a military academy, but I'm only one of an elite few...
As for the Spartan agoge, I think it was Xenophon who favored just such an education, not Plato. After all, just look what the agoge did for Pericle's nephew, Socrate's favorite student, Alcibiades.
Yul wants to decide who can catch up or who is worthy or not worthy, isn't that obvious?
Nope, I was perfectly willing to leave those difficult decisions up to the professional "evil capitalist banker guys" lending the money... but as of last month... you MADE ME, the American taxpayer, THAT GUY, isn't THAT obvious? I just don't want you coming back four years from now and blaming me for making all the crazy loans that defaulted over at Sallie Mae.
You wonder why the "housing bubble" developed? Now we get to experience both a "student loan/ education loan" bubble AND a "health care cost bubble", simulataneously... go team Obama!
lmao @ yul, etc, etc, etc...
Obamacare, lol. I know, healthcare for the poor is such a problem for Canada and Sweden, poor bankrupt countries... LOLlololololol.
you are way too funny...
And if you actually read Plato you would know that in the republic he advocated for the state, the Republic, the state ran by the philokings, to take kids from their mothers and raise them and educate them in public institutions without any contact with their families, so that nobody has any attachment to specific kids, and then the state decides who is worthy of being rulers or workers.
That is the Real Plato. That is your hero.
think outside the box Yul, things change...
Wow... you really haven't read Plato's Republic. Plato doesn't advocate taking children away from their mothers. He advocates having them join their parents in battle.
"Third time's a charm," I always say.
Yul,
Plato is explicit about the state’s control over child-rearing in the Republic. Plato abolishes the family for the guardians, to avoid nepotism and amassing of private wealth (bk. 5, 464). Children will be held in common and will not know who their real parents are. –"provided it can be done" (bk. 5, 457). These children will also not be randomly conceived. They will be bred deliberately to produce the best offspring, as though the Guardians were a pack of hunting dogs. Plato proposed that the process be kept secret from most of them.
Every year, after the breeding committee, or whatever, secretly makes its choices, there is to be a kind of fertility festival. Everyone chooses names by lot, and the name they draw, or no name, is the choice of the gods for them. This is the kind of thing that Plato calls a "noble lie"; for the lottery is to be rigged by the breeding committee. Even at the beginning of Book V, Adeimantus talks to Socrates's about how wives and children will be held in common by the Guardians.
Plato saw the state primarily as an educational entity. Education will be compulsory for youths, lasting upwards of 30 years, and their progress will be watched and tested throughout their development – and those who resolutely hold onto the convictions instilled in them by education will be chosen as guardians and those who rebel against the city's ideology will be rejected. (413d-414a).
In cases where there is more than one child, the head of the family should marry off the females and the males he must present for adoption to those citizens who have no children of their own–"priority given to personal preferences as far as possible." If too many children are being born, measures should be taken to check the increase in population; and in the opposite case, a high birth-rate can be encouraged and stimulated (Laws, bk. 5, 740).
Plato also thought that excessive attention to fictional contexts may lead to a kind of self-deception, in which individuals are ignorant of the truth about their own natures as human beings. (382b) Thus, on Plato's view, it is vital for a society to exercise strict control over the content of everything that children read, see, hear or think.
Plato goes on to realize that even with his breeding program, there will be children born to the Guardians who do not belong there. That is especially likely when we realize that it is not intelligence that distinguishes Plato's philosophers but the dominance of a particular kind of interest. Anyone dominated by desire, however intelligent, belongs among the commoners. There will also be children born to the commoners who belong among the Guardians, and so there must be some way for state officials to sort everyone out. That will be a mandatory universal system of state education.
A very large part of the Republic is about education. Those who go all the way in that system and will be qualified to be the philosopher rulers will actually be nearly fifty before they have finished all the requirements.
Even the brutal Leo Strauss has recognized the totalitarian and statist elements in Plato, and has consequently argued that Plato's theory of the state is not meant to be taken “seriously”, but is only a “device of argumentation”.
You need to go back to school Yul and learn to read closely the texts you worship.
Wow! Your ignorance of Plato is truely astounding. You claim that the "republic" described in Plato's "Republic" represents Plato's "ideal" educational system. It was, however, his "ideal example" of a "luxurious" state in a "fevered heat"... concocted so as to highlight the inherent "injustices" one must formulate when attempting to craft a luxurious "just" society with ordinary citizens who exude "temperance", guardians who exude "courage" and rulers excelling in "wisdom".
Plato's "actual" societal ideal is "Magnesia" and described in Plato's "Laws".
How can you tell, you ask? The main protagonist in Plato's "Republic" is Socrates. In "The Laws", it's an Athenian Stranger. As Plato's philosophy evolves, he goes from giving voice to Socrates (in younger and elder forms) to a "Stranger" and eventually an "Athenian Stranger".
But then, if you actually had read anything by Leo Strauss, you might actually know some of this stuff...
from the Jowett summary of Plato's "Republic"...
Here follows a rustic picture of their way of life. They spend their days in houses which they have built for themselves; they make their own clothes and produce their own corn and wine. Their principal food is meal and flour, and they drink in moderation. They live on the best of terms with each other, and take care not to have too many children. 'But,' said Glaucon, interposing, 'are they not to have a relish?' Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ''Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.' Why, I replied, what do you want more? 'Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.' I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice. Then the fine arts must go to work—every conceivable instrument and ornament of luxury will be wanted. There will be dancers, painters, sculptors, musicians, cooks, barbers, tire-women, nurses, artists; swineherds and neatherds too for the animals, and physicians to cure the disorders of which luxury is the source. To feed all these superfluous mouths we shall need a part of our neighbour's land, and they will want a part of ours. And this is the origin of war, which may be traced to the same causes as other political evils. Our city will now require the slight addition of a camp, and the citizen will be converted into a soldier. But then again our old doctrine of the division of labour must not be forgotten. The art of war cannot be learned in a day, and there must be a natural aptitude for military duties. There will be some warlike natures who have this aptitude—dogs keen of scent, swift of foot to pursue, and strong of limb to fight. And as spirit is the foundation of courage, such natures, whether of men or animals, will be full of spirit. But these spirited natures are apt to bite and devour one another; the union of gentleness to friends and fierceness against enemies appears to be an impossibility, and the guardian of a State requires both qualities. Who then can be a guardian? The image of the dog suggests an answer. For dogs are gentle to friends and fierce to strangers. Your dog is a philosopher who judges by the rule of knowing or not knowing; and philosophy, whether in man or beast, is the parent of gentleness. The human watchdogs must be philosophers or lovers of learning which will make them gentle. And how are they to be learned without education?
Q.E.D.
Speaking of dogs, you should learn when to take Plato siriusly, and when NOT to. ;-)
lmaoay~
I even provide direct citations and you still argue and spew out irrelevant distractions? LOLOLOL
OK.
I provided book and section numbers, go do your homework...
At least google-scolar 'Plato Education Republic' and see what you get...
You don't think Jowett is capable of summarizing Plato's words? How about directly translating him? lol!
Plato, "Republic"
Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war.
But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.
True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them.
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?
But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.
Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.
True, he said.
Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music—poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them.
(cont)
Certainly.
And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?
Much greater.
And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?
Quite true.
Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?
That, Socrates, will be inevitable.
And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?
Most certainly, he replied.
Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.
Undoubtedly.
And our State must once more enlarge; and this time the enlargement will be nothing short of a whole army, which will have to go out and fight with the invaders for all that we have, as well as for the things and persons whom we were describing above.
Why? he said; are they not capable of defending themselves?
No, I said; not if we were right in the principle which was acknowledged by all of us when we were framing the State: the principle, as you will remember, was that one man cannot practise many arts with success.
Very true, he said.
But is not war an art?
Certainly.
And an art requiring as much attention as shoemaking?
Quite true.
And the shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder—in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else? No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them. How then will he who takes up a shield or other implement of war become a good fighter all in a day, whether with heavy-armed or any other kind of troops?
Yes, he said, the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.
(cont. 2)
And the higher the duties of the guardian, I said, the more time, and skill, and art, and application will be needed by him?
No doubt, he replied.
Will he not also require natural aptitude for his calling?
Certainly.
Then it will be our duty to select, if we can, natures which are fitted for the task of guarding the city?
It will.
And the selection will be no easy matter, I said; but we must be brave and do our best.
We must.
Is not the noble youth very like a well-bred dog in respect of guarding and watching?
What do you mean?
I mean that both of them ought to be quick to see, and swift to overtake the enemy when they see him; and strong too if, when they have caught him, they have to fight with him.
All these qualities, he replied, will certainly be required by them.
Well, and your guardian must be brave if he is to fight well?
Certainly.
And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?
I have.
Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian.
Plato goes on, from this point, in describing the part of the "Republic" which you quoted.
But face facts. The "Republic" described subsequently is a "state in a fevered heat", a "luxurious" state... and NOT the state either Socrates nor Plato envisioned as an "ideal".
The Republic speaks for itself... You can argue, "but he really didn't mean what he said", and dodge it all you want, but his words speak louder than you apologetics.
Plato is terribly boring, mostly inconsistent and utterly misguided...Yawn.
I like arguing about Plato about as much as I like watching TeaBaggers hold up racist signs and spit on politicians...
And if you actually read Plato you would know that in the republic he advocated for the state, the Republic, the state ran by the philokings...
LOL!
When you say something outrageous, like... "Huxley advocated for the society he depicted in his Brave New World," what would you expect for a response? BNW was OBVIOUSLY Huxley's Dystopia... but few realize that "Island" represented Huxley's utopic vision. The "Republic" does speak for itself, but it defintely doesn't represent Plato's first OR last word.
Oh, and as for the now "infamous" spitting incident... let your readers decide for themselves.
Next time, say it, don't spray it!
Somebody need to arrest the admistrators at Urban Prep... as it turns out, they're breaking the law in signing these unprepared kids up w/FAFSA for college loans. The US Dept. of Ed should be named as a co-conspirator:
190.65 Scheme to defraud in the first degree.
1. A person is guilty of a scheme to defraud in the first degree when he: (a) engages in a scheme constituting a systematic ongoing course of conduct with intent to defraud ten or more persons or to obtain property from ten or more persons by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, and so obtains property from one or more of
such persons; or (b) engages in a scheme constituting a systematic ongoing course of conduct with intent to defraud more than one person or to obtain property from more than one person by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises, and so obtains property with a value in excess of one thousand dollars from one or more such persons. Scheme to defraud in the first degree is a class E felony.
A note to bleeding hearts: Educational Debt cannot be discharged by a judge EVEN if you declare bankruptcy. The unpaid debt sticks with you for LIFE!
Just say no to education loans unless you're positive you can graduate AND get a job!
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