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Voices in Urban Education
Archives
Getting to Equity
VUE Number 11, Spring 2006
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
The Role of National Organizations and the Federal Government in Promoting Equity and Excellence
By Michael Holzman
Michael Holzman is a consultant and writer and is the author of the Schott Foundation for Public Education's forthcoming report Public Education and Black Male Students: A State Report Card.
> Complete bio
Data on disparities in graduation rates and special education placements clearly show
the inequities in American schooling for African American males. National organizations
and the federal government have an important role to play in addressing these disparities.
Education is among the most local of concerns. This local nature is epitomized in much of the country by the neighborhood school and by imagery ranging from parents walking hand in hand with their children to the first day of kindergarten to Saturday night football games.
Yet, education in the United States today is also national. Virtually every local organization – teacher and administrator associations, parent groups concerned with various matters affecting their children, citizen groups – has a national counterpart. And the federal government has, increasingly, played a strong role in education. The role of national organizations and the federal government is vital in the promotion of equity and excellence, particularly for the hardest case: male African American students.
Government's Failed Commitment to Education
The role of government in promoting equity and excellence was not in question in the thought of the founders. John Adams inscribed this role as an imperative in the Massachusetts Constitution, where he wrote of government's responsibility for the "spreading of the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people," which is an eighteenth-century version of our phrase "excellence and equity." (Although, of course, the "different orders" in the eighteenth century did not include slaves or women.)
On the federal level, this role of government in education is embodied in the mission of the United States Department of Education itself, which, under the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88 of October 1979), among other things, is to:
That is clear enough. The federal government is committed to assuring access to equal educational opportunity, and it has a mission to work with other governmental and nongovernmental entities to improve the quality of education.
Archives
Getting to Equity
VUE Number 11, Spring 2006
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
The Role of National Organizations and the Federal Government in Promoting Equity and Excellence
By Michael Holzman
Michael Holzman is a consultant and writer and is the author of the Schott Foundation for Public Education's forthcoming report Public Education and Black Male Students: A State Report Card.
> Complete bio
Data on disparities in graduation rates and special education placements clearly show
the inequities in American schooling for African American males. National organizations
and the federal government have an important role to play in addressing these disparities.
Education is among the most local of concerns. This local nature is epitomized in much of the country by the neighborhood school and by imagery ranging from parents walking hand in hand with their children to the first day of kindergarten to Saturday night football games.
Yet, education in the United States today is also national. Virtually every local organization – teacher and administrator associations, parent groups concerned with various matters affecting their children, citizen groups – has a national counterpart. And the federal government has, increasingly, played a strong role in education. The role of national organizations and the federal government is vital in the promotion of equity and excellence, particularly for the hardest case: male African American students.
Government's Failed Commitment to Education
The role of government in promoting equity and excellence was not in question in the thought of the founders. John Adams inscribed this role as an imperative in the Massachusetts Constitution, where he wrote of government's responsibility for the "spreading of the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people," which is an eighteenth-century version of our phrase "excellence and equity." (Although, of course, the "different orders" in the eighteenth century did not include slaves or women.)
On the federal level, this role of government in education is embodied in the mission of the United States Department of Education itself, which, under the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88 of October 1979), among other things, is to:
- strengthen the federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual;
- supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education.
That is clear enough. The federal government is committed to assuring access to equal educational opportunity, and it has a mission to work with other governmental and nongovernmental entities to improve the quality of education.
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