Sidetracked by pundocracy: speaking of education - Ebonics controversy of bilingualism in Oakland, California

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 23, 1997 by Julianne Malveaux

To let the commentators tell it, educators in the city of Oakland have gone mad. They are teaching Black English as a second language and are seeking federal funds to do so, and depending on which "Black leader" you quote, this is a "bad joke" or a "cruel hoax" on the African American community. Coming a few days before Christmas, and a few weeks after affirmative action stumbled with the passage of Proposition 209, all one could say was, "Bah, humbug."

The real comment is, "Bah, homework." If those who are commenting would do as much reading as the children they want to protect are asked to, they'd know that Oakland never said it would teach Black English to youngsters. Indeed, on December 18, the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education approved a policy affirming Standard American English language development for all students. In other words, they aren't suggesting that, "We be teaching dis and dat and dese and dose." (The quote marks appear because I don't ever, ever, ever want to be accused of an inability to deal with the so-called Queen's English).

It seems that, without a lot of information, key African American leaders are condemning the Oakland approach to teaching standard English. But then if you believe everything you read, you'd have to doubt the Oakland approach, too. After all, it seems that conventionally educated African Americans are asking that their children and grandchildren get something different than a conventional education. But then, isn't this what the school-choice, school-chance, school-circumstance advocates are saying. Students aren't like T-shirts. One size one schedule, one curriculum simply does not fit ail. Oakland actually ought to be commended for seven years of experimentation in a Standard English Proficiency Program that has demonstrated success in retention, achievement, and graduation. It requires understanding, though, in order to commend them.

Oakland is trying to balance two concepts, language deficiency and English proficiency. Too many African American students in Oakland are viewed as "language deficient" because they don't speak the Queen's English. "They be tripping and be trying," but the command of the English language is highly correlated with family income, education, and exposure. Too many students in Oakland come from families where there is unemployment, poverty, and a side track, not the mainstream. Should these students be welcomed into classrooms, or shunned? Should they be judged deficient, or offered a bridge to proficiency? The focus on Ebonics is an Oakland School District focus on teachers, not students. It teaches teachers sensitivity, understanding, and a way to build a bridge. Only a combination of press ignorance and raw cynicism would turn an effort to increase sensitivity into an effort to glorify non-standard English.

English proficiency has always been the goal of the Oakland Board of Education. But when they asked each other how to get to proficiency, they found that little discussion had taken place about the teaching and treatment of African American students in the classroom. Toni Cook, former chair of the Oakland Board of Education, and a current member, said she saw the key issue as the education of the Black child. She noted that 71 percent of those in Oakland's special education courses are African American, and 64 percent of those held back are African American-both numbers out of proportion with the 53 percent representation of African Americans in Oakland's schools. How can we fix it, Cook fretted, wearing her hat as a former college professor and motivator? The data show that one way to fix it is to use Ebonics as a bridge to standard English.

By now, though, the discussion has been skewed by reporters who find fun and fury in Oakland's decision. The discussion has been fractured by those African American leaders who have used their prestige to suggest that the Oakland decision is wrong. The discussion about learning has been sidetracked by the pundocracy, the people who get paid to say what they think no matter how much or how little they know. Bah, homework.

Indeed, a second story in the histrionics about Ebonics is the way the media works its way into overdrive when race is part of an issue. Thirty years ago "new math" was a curriculum change that was hotly debated. But it wasn't, as Newsweek Magazine's January 13 cover touts, a "war" -- as in the "war over Black English." Curricular changes have done everything from introduce economics education to change history requirements. When race matters are introduced, though, rationality seems to go out of the window.

Let's be clear about my biases. My skin crawls when I hear the word "ax" instead of "ask," and it takes all my worldly self control to sit still when someone says, "I likes-es greens." I am less repelled by the language of the streets, seeing in it a bilinguality that speaks to the street in all of us -- for example, "I've been hanging with my homies in the hoopdie" instead of "I've been spending time with my friends in their less than traditionally maintained car." That's how I talk some of the time, but it's not the commercially viable language that I take to editorial meetings and business deals. Or if I do, believe me, it is not for lack of knowing better.