Carroll G. Robinson, president of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, has called for a Black Texas Students Education Success Summit in 2024 that will focus on the key issues affecting Black students in Texas.
The summit will include stakeholders like Black parents, students, teachers, legislators, and faith leaders.
“Black students have a right to succeed and they deserve and need the infrastructure to do so.The reality is that even in so-called good public schools, Black students are still struggling.”
carroll g. robinson
Discussions would comprise school vouchers, the recent takeover of the Texas Education Agency of the Houston Independent School District, and higher pay for public school teachers.
Robinson believes policy conversations exclude topics that affect Black students in Texas’ public, private, and charter schools. There is a lack of academic success, discipline, college graduation, access to lucrative jobs, and support for entrepreneurs and small business owners in terms of access to capital, contracting, partnerships, and mentoring, he wrote in a statement.
“Black students have a right to succeed and they deserve and need the infrastructure to do so,” Robinson said. “The reality is that even in so-called good public schools, Black students are still struggling.”
Cyclic nature of race-based educational discrepancies
He discussed in his statement the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Accelerated Plan for Closing the Gaps by 2015, a five-year plan that aimed to improve the success of Hispanic and African American students and their higher education outcomes. According to Robinson, “the gaps were not closed.”
He accused the board of “moving on” its new initiative called the 60x30TX as part of the Texas Higher Education Strategic Plan: 2015–2030. The gist of the program was that by 2030, at least 60% of Texans between the ages of 25-34 will have a certificate or degree. It will also aim to increase the number of Black and Hispanic college and higher education graduates in Texas.
“Experts have already started acknowledging that the State will not meet its goal of increasing the number of higher education graduates, in Texas, to 60% by 2030 because of the inability to increase academic success among Black and Hispanic high school and college students,” Robinson wrote. “This failure needs to be discussed and Black parents, students and leaders all need to be a part of finding solutions.”
He refers to the report, “A New Measure of Educational Success in Texas, Tracking the Success of 8th Graders into and through College” by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), which conducted a cohort analysis of students who started the 8th grade in a Texas public school in 1996, 1997, and 1998. They wanted to gauge what percentage of Texas’ eighth-grade students achieved any postsecondary certificate or degree within six years of their expected high school graduation date.
What they found was, indeed, alarming. One in five such eighth-grade students in Texas public schools completes any valid postsecondary certificate or degree within 11 years.
The data collected for this study also showed a disparity between white students and minority communities (Black, Hispanic, and Native American students), which exists for those students who enter postsecondary education. The disparity expands during the postsecondary years, as white students’ rates of earning a college credential are 2 – 2.5 times higher than that of Hispanic and Black students. Keeping in mind Texas’ increasing Hispanic population, the study says it will be impossible for the state to reach its goals of improving the community’s college-going and graduation rates.
It “raises serious questions about our public schools that have still not been fully investigated, explored, examined and resolved,” Robinson concluded. “It’s time for Black Texans to have a serious, independent, thoughtful and evidence-based discussion on what we need to do to improve education in Texas, at all levels, for us and our children, to increase academic success and grow wealth and prosperity.”
What are the solutions?
Robinson suggested a few topics for discussion at the summit, which he says should also be proposed as legislative solutions to the Texas legislature in 2025.
- A gradual remedial education fund transfer from Texas colleges to pre-K funding and programs to accommodate and aid more students in K-3rd grade to read and do math at or beyond grade level,
- Developing a sixth-grade Community College pre-admission program, which will guarantee students from the sixth-grade pre-admission into their local community college upon the condition that they graduate high school with a minimum GPA of 2.75 and receive a full scholarship to cover costs like tuition, fees, and books,
- Converting public and charter schools into early college high schools, where students can take dual credit courses and graduate from high school with a high school diploma and an associate degree to help them become ready for employment while simultaneously reducing the costs of earning a bachelor’s degree, and
- Conducting research and analysis on the funds needed for each student to increase Black students’ academic success, along with high school and college graduation rates and workforce readiness.
