The way out of the black poverty cycle
It is often argued that the low education achievement levels of African-Americans and Hispanics are caused by poverty. Looking at this premise is writer and researcher Michael Holzman, a consultant to the Schott Foundation for Public Education and the author most recently of “The Black Poverty Cycle and How to End It.”By Michael Holzman
W. E. B. Du Bois ended his account of the establishment of schooling for African-Americans during and immediately after Reconstruction with a paean to what we would today call African-American agency during Jim Crow:
Had it not been for the Negro school and college, the Negro would, to all intents and purposes, have been driven back to slavery. His economic foothold in land and capital was too slight in ten years of turmoil to effect any defense or stability … But already, through establishing public schools and private colleges, and by organizing the Negro church, the Negro had acquired enough leadership and knowledge to thwart the
