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Education boost for black youth: Home

James Klurfeld

June 19, 2008

One of the things that bugs me most about the coverage of campaigns these days is that almost everything is viewed through the prism of political tactics. E.J. Dionne Jr. made this point in his column Tuesday, discussing the substantive merits of Sen. Barack Obama's Father's Day speech.

Obama's theme was that too many black fathers are "missing from too many lives and too many homes." Political writers immediately placed these comments in the context of campaign strategy - Obama trying to win white voters - although it has long been a theme he has sounded.

While it would be naive to ignore strategy entirely, the news business has become obsessed with it at the expense of substance.

Obama hit on a point that I should have emphasized more in my column last week, which was about the praiseworthy but not particularly successful attempt of New York State Commissioner of Education Richard Mills to raise educational standards and performance, especially in the inner cities. The lesson to take from the Obama speech is that there's a limit to what government can do to solve deeply complex cultural and social problems.

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I'm not arguing that we shouldn't try to improve struggling schools or attract better teachers, principals and superintendents to them. We should. It's been demonstrated time and again that a principal, especially, can make a significant difference in how a school performs. And we're not just talking about schools in the inner cities. What Obama had to say applies to minority suburban districts such as Roosevelt and Wyandanch, too.

And I'm also not arguing that spending more money on minority education is not warranted. It is. Generally speaking, higher-spending school districts have better results than lower-spending ones. And students with more problems need more attention. The courts in New York State have, in fact, backed that concept. Money, however, is not a magic elixir that guarantees success.

Implicit in Obama's speech is that bureaucratic institutions cannot make up for what a family - a mother and a father - are supposed to inculcate in their children.

Study after study has shown that one of the most reliable predictors of problems in school for a child is family instability. Students from two-parent families tend to do better than children from one-parent families.

Not in every case, clearly. Obama himself pointed out that he was fortunate to have a mother who did her mightiest to play the role of both parents, and grandparents who stepped in and helped raise him after his father left when he was 2 years old.

I've often felt that the great debate between liberals and conservatives over education missed the important point that Obama is making. Liberals sometimes give the impression that just spending more will solve the problem. Conservatives say raise the standards or privatize the school systems (hence the push for charter schools and vouchers). But Obama's message Sunday on the importance of families staying together, of more African-American men meeting their responsibilities as fathers, could have a greater impact on improving education than either the liberal or conservative prescriptions.

Stories about the Obama speech were quick to point out that telling black fathers they have to take more responsibility for their children "adds to his family values credentials and lets voters see him delivering a stern message to black voters." True enough. There is a campaign going on, and the candidates are surrounded by high-priced political consultants.

But there's more to Obama's message than political calculation. There's important insight into what could make a difference in one of the longest existing sores in this country's racial history, the education of black children. Obama could be both a role model and a lead policymaker in trying to make a difference.

James Klurfeld is a professor of journalism at Stony Brook University. His e-mail address is james.klurfeld@stonybrook.edu