Conservative scholars ponder K-12 education: conference highlights include discussions of public school reform, closing racial achievement gap

Black Issues in Higher Education, June 17, 2004 by Ronald Roach

NEW YORK

During the week the nation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Brown Board of Education school desegregation case, more than 200 conservative scholars and education officials gathered in New York City to consider the responsibility American higher education has toward helping improve the nation's K-12 public education system.

Meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan May 21-23, the scholars and education officials convened for the 11th national conference of the Princeton, N.J.-based National Association of Scholars (NAS). Scholars and education officials explored the conference theme "What Our Universities and Schools Owe Each Other," a topic conference organizers say was not chosen because of the anniversary of the Brown decision, but merely reflected the NAS' interest in examining the relationship between higher and K-12 education.

"We've been interested in looking at K-12 education for some time," said Dr. Bradford Wilson, executive director of the NAS.

With an estimated membership of 4,000, the NAS describes itself as "an organization of professors, graduate students, college administrators and trustees, and independent scholars committed to rational discourse as the foundation of academic life in a free and democratic society." The group and its local affiliates are best known for their opposition of the multiculturalism that seeks to supplant the primacy of the Western intellectual tradition; opposition to campus speech codes and political correctness; and opposition to race-conscious affirmative action in academic admissions.

With many Brown commemorations, public discussions and media attention focusing on the contention that American public schools are resegregating, the NAS panel speakers largely framed their critiques of K-12 and higher education, and of school reform ideas with little or no reference to the racial and ethnic demography of public schools. In fact, two speakers, referring to the Brown anniversary, took exception to the characterization that resegregation was taking place and touted the decision as an undiminished success.

Dr. Stephen Balch, president of the NAS, told a reporter that "the great triumph of Brown was that it said the American people are to be treated as individuals."

"That's what America is all about," he said.

HIGHLIGHTS

Dr. Diane Ravitch, the well-known New York University education researcher, gave a keynote talk that explored K-12 and higher education developments since the 1960s. The highlight panel discussion of the conference titled "Closing the Racial Gap in American Education" included Dr. Abigail Thernstrom and her Harvard University historian husband and No Excuses co-author, Dr. Stephan Thernstrom; Vanderbilt University political scientist Dr. Carol Swain; University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax; and public policy expert Dr. David J. Armor of George Mason University.

"Schooling has become the key to racial equality," proclaimed Abigail Thernstrom in her talk. "This is not an IQ story, but one of students needlessly left behind."

She told the NAS audience that the academic achievement gap between Blacks/Latinos and Whites/Asians represented "an American tragedy" and Americans should have a "sense of outrage" about its existence. Thernstrom referred to the U.S. Department of Education statistics cited in her recent book showing that Black and Latino high school seniors on average graduate with achievement scores equal to that of White eighth-graders. She said that while socioeconomic status accounts for a third of the learning gap between Blacks/Latinos and Whites/Asians, cultural factors explained two-thirds of the gap.

The only non-White person to speak at the conference, Dr. Carol Swain, who is African American, offered a highly personal perspective about the racial achievement gap. She told the audience about having grown up poor, being a school dropout, marrying at age 16, and later struggling as a single mother. Swain said she agreed with Abigail Thernstrom about the racial achievement gap stemming largely from cultural reasons, and credited the exposure to teachers and others for encouraging her to continue her education and pursue a doctorate.

Swain said that when considering the racial achievement gap it is important to distinguish between the position of middle- and upper-middle-class Blacks and that of poor Blacks. "When it comes to middle-class minorities, they don't exert themselves as they should ... I've encountered minority students who say they have to let us in," due to affirmative action programs, according to Swain.

Swain said she opposes race-conscious affirmative action because it benefits middle-class Blacks and Latinos, who have the family resources to be more academically competitive than they currently are. "We have to hold middle-class minority students to the same standards as Whites," she argued.

Swain said students from low-income backgrounds deserve intervention that can bring them quality education. "The situation for the poor like myself must depend upon others," providing guidance and steering them to quality schools, she said.