#149. Accreditation

Black people have long enjoyed the idea of being "separate and extra-equal" - an idea that they get to have their own institutions, schools and organizations, yet Black people also get to continue to garner affirmative action, victim status and laws that codify "hate crimes" as only those committed by white people against them and not vice-versa.

"Separate and extra-equal" also implies to the idea that Black people do not live near white people, but still are given extra rights which place them above the law and those very white people who live nowhere near them, like the disingenuous white liberal.

However, in the long struggle to remain "separate and extra-equal", Black people have hit a major impediment: accreditation.

Accreditation is:

"Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of an educational institution or program are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met. If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the agency."

In the past two decades alone, seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the country have lost their accreditation:

“Historically black colleges represent only 4 percent of all higher-education institutions, but roughly 40 percent of all African-American students graduate from them,” said Dorothy Yancy, the president of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C.According to a study by Education Trust, 60 percent of the nation’s students complete their undergraduate studies in six years.

For an African-American student enrolled at a historically black college or university, where 70 percent of students are low income, the odds of completion are even lower, Sias said.

"Over the past two decades, at least seven historically black colleges have lost their accreditation. While some schools were able to regain their accreditation status, others, such as Knoxville College and Morris Brown College, remain open without regional accreditation.

So with 40 percent of Black people graduating from schools that are in jeopardy of losing their accreditation - schools no longer trusted to bestow a quality education to their students - what does that mean to the future of Black people everywhere?

There are not enough crusading white pedagogues to try and extirpate the racial gap in learning that exists between Black and white people and every other year another Historical Black College loses its accreditation.

Paul Quinn College, a Historically Black College in Texas, recently lost its accreditation:

"Paul Quinn College lost its accreditation on Thursday, one of several actions taken by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. "

The small, historically black Texas college had struggled for several years with financial and academic problems. The association’s Commission on Colleges had placed the institution on probation in 2007. "

“They had made progress … but they ran out of time before they could come into compliance on everything,” Belle S. Wheelan, president of the commission, told The Dallas Morning News.

Sadly, accreditation problems are not indigenous to Historically Black Colleges, as Clayton County Schools, in Clayton County, Georgia recently lost their accreditation:

"Clayton County schools are the first in the nation in the past 40 years to lose accreditation, failing to meet eight of nine improvement mandates...

That means that if Clayton meets the mandates by May, this year’s seniors could graduate with an accredited diploma...

A loss of accreditation means the 50,000 Clayton students could have trouble getting into some colleges and universities, or receiving scholarship money. High school juniors and seniors will be able to maintain Hope scholarship eligibility because of legislation signed earlier this year by Gov. Sonny Perdue."

Clayton County is a "suburb" of Atlanta and has a population that is 62 percent Black people and that number rises everyday. In almost every single way, shape and form possible, Black people run the local government, police department and Board of Education. And they obviously don't like accreditation as they were the first school system in 40 years in America to lose it.

Clayton County Public Schools are a beacon of hope to the rest of the increasingly non-white citizens of America of what the future will look educationally and how things will be run (pictures of Board of Education members can be found here... note the two crusading white pedagogues who are part of the Board) in the coming Black America.

Education is the foundation of any society and the ability or inability of preparing future generations of children to one day be civic leaders in society and take the reins of the nation and steer it into the future is becoming an increasingly shocking proposition and a conundrum to Black people, as evidenced by the loss of accreditation for so many of their schools.

Is it white racism that keeps these schools, full of Black people from performing? A lack of crusading white pedagogues?

Or, does Stuff Black People Don't Like include accreditation, because the assurance that the education an institution is providing through auditing and outside quality control mechanisms is really just a clever ploy of "The Man" to keep Black people and schools that are majority Black perpetually down?

Despite being "separate and extra-equal" Historically Black Colleges and school systems that are run by Black people are failing and this qualifies accreditation as the Stuff Black People Don't Like.