Unexpected...

Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected

Give me a break.

"Than expected"? That's rich. Who was it, exactly, that was so delusional as to actually think black males were performing at anything close to grade level? The failure there is massive, pervasive, and enduring, and everybody knows it. It is, by far, the preeminent scandal of American society, our national shame. What it has done to black family and community life is all too obvious.

Second, where is the condemnation of the disastrous inner-city school systems that so many of these kids are trapped in? Trapped by the granite intransigence of teachers unions who find it their number one priority to kill any hint of school choice.

Third, The policy directions suggested are worse than pathetic, basically to throw yet more money into the rotten, failed maw. What is specifically NOT discussed, the gutless report admits, "are policy reponses identified with a robust school reform movement." Well, of course not, because that would implicate the teachers unions and the Democrat political machines identified with the big-city public school bureaucracies that have stood by and allowed, or worse, enabled, this pattern of failure for decades. Obama's Chicago is the perfect example of that, the model.

Fourth, where is any sign of interest in any of this on the part of our First Black President and his fashion-plate wife? The rarest of opportunities squandered. Nothing but silence, with not a word of criticism from the lap-dog media or "black leaders." A conspiracy of silence for the purpose of mollifying big-money Democrat supporters, primarily the teachers unions, selling generations of black kids down the river, all the while shouting "Racist!" at the opposition. It's contemptible, ludicrous.

Fifth, isn't it obvious that nothing is going to change as long as blacks continue to vote 90% Democrat? Reform will come when black voters start defecting to the GOP in large numbers, when they finally recognize who it is that's keeping them where they are.

Byron

Where the Obamas could do some good

Blacks struggle with 72 percent unwed mothers rate.

Barack and Michelle, who enjoy posturing as moral leaders, are uniquely positioned to make a difference here. Maybe less time could be spent on the golf course or cavorting in Marbella, a little time and eloquence spent on this instead. The problem is, of course, that the black vote is already securely in the Democrat pocket, so why bother? Man of high principle? It's a sad, sick joke.

Obama started out as a "community organizer," so maybe it would help to put the problem in terms that might even penetrate his narcissistic fog: You cannot make an organized community out of disorganized neighborhoods, and you cannot make an organized neighborhood out of disorganized families. Not exactly rocket surgery. The black family is a catastrophe, the legacy of a toxic combination of (1) inattention to the critical problem of black male unemployment and (2) disastrously misguided social programs that encourage dependency and mitigate against family formation.

But the Obamas are AWOL on this, just as they're AWOL on the related and monumentally tragic debacle of inner-city school systems -- the problem being, of course, the political necessity to kow-tow to the urban teachers unions, a miserably immoral stance if there ever was one. As far as I can see, the only principle Obama operates on is unalloyed political self-interest.

Liberals love to play the race card, and I'd like to see it played one more time, hard. I'd like to see some black individuals of stature make a public statement denouncing the Obamas for the race traitors they are. What else can you call people who, for one example, have their daughters in a top-flight private school, then stand by and allow unions to kill the one program that allowed less well-positioned black kids the same opportunity? What other name for that is there?

The Obamas combine the worst traits of the traditional Black Bourgeoisie and political arrivistes of any race. Someone of color needs to stand up and call these people out, loudly and publicly; denounce the soaring, moralistic rhetoric for the unmitigated crap it is.

THEN we'll get that "dialog on race" so many on the left claim to want.

Byron