As California goes, so goes the nation

Journal of Negro Education, The, Spring 1996 by Michele Foster

Economic downsizing, the resurgence of unfounded racist theories of genetic inferiority, and right-wing posturing have undermined the political gains of the 1960s and 1970s, and have resulted in retrenchment that has seriously constrained the education of African Americans. Nowhere is this retrenchment more evident than in California. The Board of Regents' widely publicized decision to end affirmative action in hiring, student admissions and contracting at University of California (UC) system institutions (Lively, 1995b, 1995c); the recently passed anti-immigrant and anti-affirmative action initiatives, Proposition 187 and Proposition 209 (the latter being inaccurately dubbed the California Civil Rights Initiative or CCRI) (Fields,1997; Holding,1995; Schmidt,1996a,1996b); and the controversy over the Oakland School Board's recent "Ebonics resolution" are examples of this trend (Fields, 1997; Foster, 1997). So too are the less well-publicized legislative cuts on spending for programs that support the academic success of students of color at California's state universities and community colleges, a series of yearly tuition increases at public postsecondary institutions, and a recent court ruling upholding the use of a teacher test known to have an adverse impact on the number of Asian American, Latino, and African American candidates who enter the profession (Asimov, 1996: Burdman, 1996a; Jaschik, 1995; Lively, 1995a, 1995c, 1995e).

Bolstered by well-known African American neoconservatives like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell and less well-known ones like Ward Connerly, the businessman who shepherded both the Regents' decision and Proposition 209 to fruition (Lively, 1995d: Neumann, 1997), the forces of the Radical Right have cloaked their attacks on Californians of color in overworked cliches such as "family values," "back to basics," and "accountability." They have inveighed against bilingual education, Afrocentric curricula, multicultural education and outcome-based education. Surprisingly, however, all of these events, and the meteoric rise of the state's politically and culturally reactionary forces, have occurred at the same time that students of color have come to constitute the majority of students in California's public schools. Celebrations of diversity and claims of equality of opportunity notwithstanding, the economic, health, educational, and other indicators of the well-being of California's citizens, especially its citizens of African American ancestry, are grim.

California, the prototype of the American criminal justice system, has the nation's largest prison system and the largest number of prisoners on death row (Lively, 1994b). Despite the state's popular reputation as a haven for academic liberalism, freedom, and opportunity, its 1995 state prison budget exceeded that for education. Whereas rural communities in California once competed to become sites for state universities, they now vie for prisons to be located in or near their communities. But what, readers might ask, do prisons and information on prison-building rates have to do with education, specifically the education of African Americans in California? The data reveal stark and frightening conclusions: African American males constitute less than 5% of California's total popula

tion, yet they comprise 35% of its prison inmate population. More African American men are incarcerated in California than are enrolled in its colleges and universities statewide.

A five-year state-sponsored study by the Commission on the Status of the African American Male painted a bleak portrait of the educational, health, and economic wellbeing of African American men in California compared to men of other races and ethnic groups (Lucas, 1997). The Commission found that although African American men comprise 3.7% of the state's population, their unemployment rate is 13.1%, much larger than the 7.5% figure for all males in the state. Moreover, African American males living in California earn less than White, Latino, and Asian American males: 23% of single White California males over the age of 25 earn $15,000 or less compared to 38% of African American males, and the latter hold only 2.3% of executive, administrative, and managerial jobs in the state's private sector. The dropout rate for California's African American male population is 30%-three times that of White and Asian male Californians. Black males also score lower on standardized tests and have the lowest graduation rate of any group statewide.

What is happening with California's African American males at one end of the lifespan spectrum must be put into perspective with information of equally disparaging portent at the other. Of the approximately 5.5 million students in California's public schools, the largest number of students of any state in the nation, only 8.8%, or slightly less than half a million, are African American (Craig, 1997). With 59% students of color, up from 51% in 1991, the state's burgeoning enrollment is more diverse and more urban than that of nearly any other state. In 1997, one out of every two students in California attended a school in which no single ethnic group made up more than half of that school's student body. Eighty-two percent attend schools in districts classified as urban, suburban, or as large towns. Almost a quarter are poor, and 1.2 million are LEP (Limited-English-Proficent) students. By comparison, there are just under 12,000 African American teachers in the state, a number representing only 5.1% of all its teachers (California Department of Educational Statistics, 1995,1996; Craig, 1997). Although a great deal of variation can be found in the number of African American students who attend particular school districts, rarely does the percentage of African American teachers in a California school match the percentage of African American students.l