For many, many years we’ve heard the rallying cry about education and how it’s important to a child’s future. We’ve all seen the panels filled with experts to give their opinions on how to fix our broken educational system and seen the studies on the exact cause of the problem.
We know that high school drop outs are more likely to enter the federal prison system than a college graduate and we know that 10 percent of African-American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are behind bars.
Since we know all of that what are we doing to stop it?
As our state’s economy continues to diversify so must our approach to education and fighting crime. The drop out rate for African-Americans in the Orange County in 2007 was 2.6 percent. While that number may seem low it is what’s imbedded within the number that’s important. The state of Florida had more white students drop out of school but African-Americans had a much higher drop out rate. For all drop outs reported to the state in 2007 35.3 percent of those students who chose to leave school were black.
As we continue to look at the numbers they continue to get worse. Young black men who have dropped out of school have a 22 percent daily jailing rate.
We have to expand the opportunities for our kids so that we can stop the process of seeing our children leave school just to enter a jail cell.
For district 39 that opportunity may stand with the brand new Evans High School. When the new Evans is completed it will offer services including medical, dental, after-school courses and many varied chances for the community to take advantage of what the school has to offer.
Evans will open from 7am and will not close until 9pm at night so that it may stand to service the entire Pine Hills community.
This represents a grand prospect to start the change of transforming how we view education and using it properly as a tool to steer our kids out of harms way.
Due to the economic plight of so many who live, work and shop in this community we have to look at different ways of aiding those who live within the areas we serve. By offering vocational services as a means to a new job and new financial chances for some we can start the process of changing a slowly fading light bulb to that of an incandescent beacon of hope for others.
We must become the change that we want. If we truly want to modify our community the change has to come from within. The pride that we have, the sense of value and worth that we hold on to so dearly for the street, town or neighborhood that we occupy is real and deserves our full respect and attention.
Let’s invest our time and resources in education by way of school, mentoring, parenting, and friendship.
Be the change that you want to see and I can guarantee, you will not be disappointed by the results. Our time is now and the stage is set for us either to take-off or stumble out of the gate. Let’s outfit ourselves with the right equipment so that we can attack the issues we face head-on.
