If a system graduates students who can protest but cannot read, it’s not education- it’s indoctrination. Black students are being failed by a system that teaches grievance instead of grammar. Despite record funding, reading and math scores are plummeting—especially in urban, majority-Black districts (U.S. DoE, Nation’s Report Card, 2022). Public schools are producing more activists than achievers—and it is hurting our children. Activism is replacing academics, and it is setting our children up for failure. Public education has become a school-to-failure pipeline, not a path to opportunity.

Public Education Has Betrayed Black Students

For generations, Black Americans built schools, fought illiteracy, and prized education as a pathway to freedom; grounded not in grievance, but in gratitude and grit.

After Brown v. Board of Education, education was seen as the key to Black advancement. The fight for equal access to quality education was a fight for dignity and opportunity.

Today’s reality tells a different story. Woke ideology saturates classrooms while basic literacy and numeracy have been neglected. In Baltimore, not a single student in 23 schools tested proficient in math in 2022 (Project Baltimore, FOX45 News, 2023). In cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles, Black student proficiency rates hover at catastrophic lows.

Public schools have abandoned their mission. They condition minds for activism instead of preparing minds for achievement.

From Classrooms to Picket Lines

Critical Race Theory, DEI training, and political activism have replaced rigorous academics (Heritage Foundation). Students are now taught to identify oppression before they can even craft a coherent sentence.

Children graduate ready to chant slogans but not ready to manage personal finances, read technical documents, think critically, or build businesses or strong families.

Instead of equipping future leaders, public schools are creating a generation of professional victims.

How Lowered Standards Hurt the Very Students They Claim to Help

Under the banner of “equity,” school districts are eliminating honors programs, removing standardized tests, and watering down curricula. Excellence is being sacrificed on the altar of “inclusion.”

True compassion demands higher expectations. Lowering the bar tells Black students they are not capable. It traps them in cycles of mediocrity and missed opportunities.

When schools fail to demand excellence, they are not helping—they’re betraying the very students they claim to serve.

The Biblical and Historical Model for Education

Historically, the Black church led education efforts after slavery, emphasizing:

Literacy, especially the ability to read Scripture.
Discipline and moral development.
Hard work and responsibility

Scripture commands us to diligently instruct our children. True education produces wisdom, virtue, and a readiness to serve God and neighbor—not grievance, entitlement, and dependency.

Real Solutions: Exit and Build

The answer is not to “fix” a broken system- it is to leave it.

Homeschooling must be revived.
Classical Christian schools must be supported.
Churches must reclaim their historic role in education.

Parents must reclaim responsibility for their children’s minds. Excellence—not activism—must become the new standard.

Call to Action:

Public schools are not preparing Black children for success—they are preparing them for servitude. It is time to leave the plantation of public miseducation and build institutions that teach truth, excellence, and freedom. Every year we delay is another generation lost.

Sources:

U.S. Department of Education, Nation’s Report Card (2022)
Project Baltimore, FOX45 News, 23 Baltimore Schools Have Zero Students Proficient in Math (2023)
Thomas Sowell, Charter Schools and Their Enemies
Heritage Foundation, How Critical Race Theory Is Embedded in Public Schools