HOPE EDUCATIONAL DISTRICT
What’s the goal: to EDUCATE or GRADUATE?
3015 NORTH MACGREGOR WAY I HOUSTON, TEXAS 77004 - PHONE: (713)524-6578
Dr. Cofield with some of the students and teachers from Global Learning Village Elementary School on Great Day Houston with Deborah Duncan.
By Dr. D. Z. Cofield, CEO Hope Educational District
The statistics are alarming.
African American youth are 2.5 times more likely to be in POVERTY than white youth.
Out of school suspension rates for serious offenses are twice as high (2x) among African American male youth compared to White male youth.
African American males are 6 times more likely to be arrested and charged than white youth.
African American males are 5 times more likely to be in the juvenile justice system because of misdemeanor offenses than the white youth.
As a professional in the juvenile justice system I dealt with these realities everyday, quickly learning the only chance the kids on my caseload would have to change their lives was to get a quality education. But they had one major problem: the public school system had given up on them. Over and over I had principals tell me my probationers must be removed from their schools and sent somewhere else. Where? They didn’t care, just as long as they were gone. They were given a child who was overage, under educated, and unprepared to be academically successful in their school. Their answer: push the child forward and let him/her be someone else’s problem. So I ended up with a caseload of children who were not only unable to read or write on grade level, but many of them were academically functioning 4-8 grade levels BELOW the grade they were actually in. How does a student, with no learning disabilities or neurological challenges, who is reading and writing at a 3rd grade level, end up in the 11th grade? How does a student who can’t do simple math have enough credits to be in a high school Algebra 1 class? The answer is we’ve pushed them thru our educational system by finding ways to graduate them without educating them. It may be hard to believe, but too many of our children have been over-graduated and under-educated. This epidemic of passing students who haven’t mastered subject matter, giving students grades they haven’t earned and socially promoting students are corrupt, systemic practices that have been taking place for years. According to a FOX 26 News report former HISD Trustee Carol Mims Galloway said the practice of social promotion is em-
Dr. D.Z. Cofield congratulating a student after she received her high school diploma.
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