Sense on Cents

Has there ever been a time when increased skills and education have not been vitally important to furthering one’s well being? As we move forward in developing our ‘new’ economy, education and advanced skills will be increasingly more important.

I would only wish that the dirty little secrets embedded in urban education were more widely disseminated so that ‘real’ progress can be made. I see evidence of these secrets again this morning in reading the New York Times. The lead article in the right hand column of the front page highlights, Black-White Gap in Jobless Rate Widens in City:

Unemployment among blacks in New York City has increased much faster than for whites, and the gap appears to be widening at an accelerating pace, new studies of jobless data have found.

While unemployment rose steadily for white New Yorkers from the first quarter of 2008 through the first three months of this year, the number of unemployed blacks in the city rose four times as fast, according to a report to be released on Monday by the city comptroller’s office. By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

Across the nation, the surge in unemployment has cut across all demographic lines, and the gap between blacks and whites has risen, but at a much slower rate than in New York.

Economists said they were not certain why so many more blacks were losing their jobs in New York...(LD’s highlight)

What? Not certain? Once again, economists and public policy analysts are not being honest on the disastrous state of urban education. I highlighted this point the other day in my call for total transparency and honesty on this topic. In writing Warren Buffett: “Wall Street Owes the American People”, I called for:

1. honesty on where we currently stand across all aspects of our economy and society. Publicize our successes and, more importantly, our failures so we can properly address them.

Do not allow urban education dropout rates of 50% to be swept under the rug. Promote the correlation between those figures, single parent birth rates, income levels, and criminal behaviors. BE HONEST ON THESE TOPICS!!!

While economists and the New York Times itself may not want to publicize education statistics, the fact is New York City’s public schools, like most major urban schools, are disproportionately filled with minority students.

For New York City, that breakdown is: (more…)