SALLY HEMMINGS WANTS A RING (via Mike Daley):

More black families choose homeschooling for their kids (KRISTA PIERCE, 8/31/03, The Item)

The fastest growing demographic of homeschoolers is the number of families, where black children are five times more likely to be homeschooled than they were five years ago.

“There’s really a shift in the African-American community,” said Jennifer James, a homeschooling mother in Chapel Hill, N.C., who founded the National African American Homeschoolers Alliance in January. “Parents are taking hold of their child’s education. They’re saying ‘I’ve got to do it because nobody else is going to do it.’” In South Carolina, homeschool associations report an increase in the number of black families choosing to homeschool, though it’s not as dramatic as in urban areas like Atlanta. [...]

Noted homeschool researcher Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Research Institute estimates about 80,000 to 100,000 black children are homeschooled today. That represents a dramatic increase over the past few years.

In turn, the number of state and national support groups for black homeschoolers has grown as well. “People are now more aware that schools are failing,” said Andrea Williams, director of communication and education for the Black Alliance for Educational Options, an advocacy group that supports alternative educational options like homeschooling.

“Parents are saying, ‘Wow, my child isn’t getting an adequate education.’”

Williams said the era of school accountability has ushered in a new way of thinking for many black parents. “Before the national and state accountability and standards, people were wary of tinkering with the system,” she said. “Now that the school system itself is being examined, parents are saying ‘maybe my child isn’t getting the best education.’”

The Democrats have their entire future invested in the idea that blacks will be content to ride on the back of the bus while teachers' unions ride at the front. But as No Child Left Behind begins to show folks just how inadequate is the education that black kids are receiving, as parents develop this kind of social network, and as even the District of Columbia, long-time bastion of Mau-Mau, turns to vouchers, they run the risk that their most important constituency will start to look out for itself instead of the Party.

As the Reverend Al warned recently:

The Rev. Al Sharpton was the only Democratic candidate to miss the first debate, and during a dinner for the Central Virginia Business Construction Association in Richmond on Saturday criticized his party for treating black voters like a "mistress."

"A mistress is where they take you out to have fun but they can't take you home to Mama and Daddy.

Either we're going to get married in 2004, or we're going to find some folks who ain't ashamed to be seen with us," he said.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 10, 2003 8:32 AM