I remember when I was in high school none of the counselor’s pushed anyone to go to any big name or ivy colleges although most of us were of that caliber. They pushed all the community and local colleges where we were a shoe-in to get accepted so that the schools numbers would go up for students to college ratio.

My son is a year old and I am starting to look for nursery programs for him for next year. This is a lot of research so I can only image what I will be up against when he is in elementary and high school. But you can best believe I will be up in the crack of EVERYONE’S a** when it comes to his education. Those teachers will know me by name and see my face all the time, not just when ish goes down. I will be at every parent/teacher conference, volunteering for class trips, organizing fundraisers, etc. I want to know what the homework is, when it’s due, what books they are using. No one will be pulling the wool over my eyes. Institutions have a habit of streamlining black boys into “problem programs” and it’s not going down like that. That happened to my husband when he was in school in the 80s and it really scarred him.

[rant]in high school my counselor actually discouraged me from applying from 4 year colleges because she thought community college would be better for me (despite i was in the college-level Humanitas program, was talking AP english and wrote on the newspaper). i restrained myself from slapping her face - because i’d overheard her pushing a lackluster classmate of mine into all sorts of ivy schools - i ignored her, applied to the colleges and slowly spread all my UC and private school acceptance letters across her desk and watched as her pink face twitched. (yeah, i’m still angry about that bitch.)

sure, i eventually ended up going to community college, but for financial reasons since my dad was getting his degree and my family couldn’t take two college tuitions at once. i made sure i got into the honors curriculum that was built around the ucla undergrad curricula and was an easy transfer to ucla when i finished my gen ed requirements.

i ran into that counselor once, while i was visiting my family, and she asked how i was doing and i reminded her of what she told me back in 1987. “But I ended up at UCLA and now I’m getting my Ph.D at the University of Michigan.” at least she had the grace to blush. bitch![/rant]

I complained, and the director took me aside and suggested I should just be grateful because we were costing the school more money than we brought in. “How so,” I asked. “Well, she said, “we had to hire Jerome to serve as a positive male role model for your son.” I was a divorced mom. She continued, telling me some mess about some studies blahblah black boys growing up without their fathers blahblah no positive black role models blah blah primary cause of disfunction in black community blahblah. I said, “But Jerome is Jamaican. I have about as much culture in common with him as I do with the man in the moon.” She blinked and said, “The point is that he is around a strong black man, even though his own father isn’t around.” I said, “His father is white, so he wouldn’t be getting too much of this strong black manhood thing anyway.” She shook her head and said she was sorry I was so bitter. Ha!

As a teacher I see this every day. When parents come into my classroom I always encourage them to come in often, unannounced. Sadly, when I ask parents if they have any further questions aftering answering their initial concerns, they always reply, “no,” and are on their way.

Parents should inquire about the testing their children are taking, how the testing works (rankings, percentages, grades, and whatever else comes to mind). If you aren’t satisfied with the grades your child is getting, get busy and become proactive! Your child won’t know what to say, but be his/her advocate. Have the teacher explain exactly how your child received the grade, have the teacher show you the scale, look at all of your child’s grades, and with the teacher’s help, become aware of averaging.

Don’t ever settle if you aren’t satisfied. Sid is so right. Rock on!

I am loving your rants these days, lady! Rock. On.