**WHITE IS RIGHT!!!!! YEA, I SAID IT!**

This was my assignment for ENGL1100 on persuasive writing and controversy. (i woulda posted this in the Education room but,like i said, yall don't read it unless its on the YARD. Viva el verano 2003) Race Matters....or does it? Two Black sisters i know who are in their school's Top Twenty have 4.2's, take all honors classes, but only scored a 15 on their ACT assesment, and 890 on their SAT. I have a 3.5, take all honors classes, but scored a 29 on the ACT assessment and a 1210 on SAT. We both grew up in the inner-city. The difference between us? I attend a predominantly White high school out of our district, while they attend our district's all-Black high school. I used to hate it, since the majority of my friends went to their school. Whenever I'd meet new people and we'd get around to the "what school do you go to" part of the conversation, I endured the gratuitous eyerolls and sucked teeth. Jokes about my "selling out" and "trying to be White" were commonplace, since Scott High is located less than 5 blocks from my house. Not to mention football and basketball season, since I am a band member. At halftime, I longed to be high-stepping and dancing with them playing contemporary radio hits instead roll-stepping like tin soldiers while playing "Spinning Wheel." So I spent the greater amount of my underclassmen years in futile attempt at convincing my mother to let me go there, instead of waking up an hour earlier to catch the bus to uncool Start High School. I appealed on the basis of scholarships. "Scott's graduating class was awarded $1,200,000 in scholarships last year.They can't be doing that bad." She didn't budge. I appealed on the basis of my major, music education. "If I want to be a music teacher, shouldn't I attend the school with the best band? That will prepare me better for the college curriculum." She didn't budge. I appealed on the basis on multiculturalism. "It's hard being one of a handfull of Black students in my classes, Momma! If I went to Scott, I would feel more comfortable. You're a sellout if you think it's bad just because its a Black school." She rolled her eyes. Finally, I made my final appeal. "Have you seen their GPA and standardized test scores of their valedictorian? If I go to Scott, I would definitely make Top Twenty. Matter of fact, I could be the valedictorian!" She stopped reading the paper, and gave me that all-knowing mother look. And I understood. Now that I am a senior, I'm glad I attended Start. Sad to say, inner-city high schools, in general, have worse academic performances than predominantly White ones. And most inner-city schools are predominantly Black. So its true, Black high schools perform worse than White high schools. It’s a vicious cycle. Blacks compose the majority of inner-city (“the ghetto”) inhabitants. These are usually crowded areas with the lowest per capita income. Chronic unemployment and unstable single-parent families are rampant. Every expert in the world will emphasize the importance of parents having an active role in the education of their children, and that a child’s scholastic performance is directly related to his home life. Its hard for parent to help their children with homework if they are stressed with these other things. With home conditions like these, it is easy to understand why crime is rampant. A neighborhood’s crime level directly affects its property value. School funding is based on the property value of the houses in the district, and the attendance record of its students. So if the school is located in the inner-city, where crime has depreciated the real estate and stressful conditions make children not even want to go to school, it has a smaller budget to work with. Budget cuts mean teacher cuts, supply cuts, curriculum downsizing, overcrowding of classes, so there are less teachers to give personal attention to students who feel no one cares about them in the first place. If all a teenager experiences, day in and day out, is crime, poverty, mediocrity, and apathy, and that teenager has no role model to show them that a proper education can get you out of that lifestyle and environment, they will grow to not value education either. To paraphrase Malcolm X, with a poor education, you can only get a poor job with a poor-paying wage that allows you to live in a poor house in a poor neighborhood. And the cycle continues. In Black high schools, there is less impetus to push a challenging curriculum on students they don’t believe will attend college, and less preparation for success on standardized tests. Thus, bright students who WANT to go to college don’t have the academic background needed to score high on the tests that get you into college. Which would explain why my friends have 4.2’s but only scored a 15 on the ACT. Which would explain why a student from Woodward, who took all honors classes, transferred to Start and had to go back to average classes because of the curriculum disparity. I do not feel the same way about Black colleges. Black colleges and universities offer just as challenging a curriculum as a predominantly White institution of the same tier. But when it comes to high schools laying the educational foundation to get you there, White is right. comments?[/b]