One of the questions asked is, if the Baltimore riots are a result of 400 years of oppression, then why are the youth rioting? I submit that the reason lies in the hopelessness that many of them feel as a result of what they see and hear on a daily basis. It is not enough to consider the tragic death of Freddie Gray in a vacuum. This is part of a systematic pattern of police violence against their own people.
If the authorities are serious about stopping the youth from rioting, then they need to address the problem of high school dropouts. Around 21% of youth in Baltimore as of 2012 drop out of high school compared to 13% for the country and 11% for the state. The total crime risk for Baltimore is almost 1.5 times the national average. Quality of life is similar to the national average. Baltimore is one of the leaders in the US in dealing with the lead pollution problem, which has been linked to crime; they are better than the national average overall in pollution.
The other factor that can be linked to crime is poverty. Around 19% of people in Baltimore make less than $15,000 per year, or less than the Federal Minimum Wage assuming 40 hours a week; that is substantially higher than the national average of 12% and the state average of 8%. The Median Household Income in Baltimore is $48,000, compared to $58,000 in the country and $76,000 in the state.
These figures show that our politicians have failed Baltimore when it comes to lifting people out of poverty and getting our young people through school. Instead of figuring out ways to solve these problems, our politicians have obsessed over more and more standardized testing while failing to address the real problems confronting our kids. Tests are useful for collecting data regarding how our students are learning. But when they become high-stakes exercises which threaten the existence of our schools, forcing teachers to pump kids full of rote learning instead of teaching them as individuals, then we have a serious problem on our hands.
The problem is that nearly half of our teachers have considered leaving public school teaching because of standardized testing. So, since standardized testing is so bad for teacher morale, if a teacher is considering leaving the profession over it, then how do you expect teachers in Baltimore or any other city to reach out to students when they are not happy in their jobs? In the same link, only 38% of the American people and only 31% of parents with kids in school want teachers to be evaluated using standardized tests. The American people have spoken -- these tests are bad for teacher morale, they have a negative effect on student learning, and they contribute to the disillusionment that is being felt in places like Baltimore.
We need to take what is good about our families and our schools and focus on how people like Robert Valentine or Rashid Staton are produced. People like that are much more effective in stopping our youth from rioting than hundreds of police dressed in military gear and rioting in the streets. People like Mr. Valentine and Mr. Staton have the sort of character that the youth of Baltimore can instinctively respect. The youth of Baltimore can be led -- the goal should be to find more people like Mr. Valentine or Mr. Staton who are willing to reach out to our youth in these sorts of crises. Given the unrest that has broken out, there are not enough people who can be a calming influence to prevent these riots from happening to begin with.
Instead, who benefits from the hysteria regarding our kids supposedly not being competitive with the rest of the world? Pearson and other such multibillion dollar companies, who extract billions of dollars from schools by ever-changing and ever-increasing testing requirements. Standardized testing as devised by No Child Left Behind and Common Core is designed to benefit the 1%. The 1% makes the rules and writes the tests, then changes the rules every few years so that schools have to shell out even more money for even more testing materials. This is money that could have been used to hire better quality teachers to keep our kids in schools to begin with. As a corporate welfare program, these sorts of standardized testing programs need to be made voluntary.
Dan Diamond of Forbes notes that Baltimore has some of the biggest problems with inequality in the country. For example, some neighborhoods just a few miles away are vastly different as far as providing opportunities for its people. West Baltimore, where the riots were, has a median income of $24,735 with 33% of its citizens on food stamps and 34.5% living below poverty level. In North Baltimore, just a few miles away, the median income is $92,625 with 1.6% of its citizens on food stamps and 10% living below poverty level. He writes:
When the Baltimore riots broke out, I was flying back to D.C., sitting next to one of America’s leading public health experts.
We talked about what went wrong in Baltimore, and what needs to change.
The city needs better schooling, the expert said, given the inescapable link between education and opportunity. And better nutrition, in light of the city’s vast food deserts.
More focus on social determinants of health. More culturally competent policing. Better housing. And so on.
He notes that in Cleveland, 35% live below the poverty line; in Detroit, 39% live below the poverty line. This means that unless our politicians take the lead in stopping the factors that are causing this violence, there will be more riots, possibly coming to a city near you.