Healing the Black-White Education Gap: It's Really about the State of Marriage in America

Bishop Harry Jackson-Opinion : Sep 26, 2016
Charisma News

The Institute for Family Studies found that, "the share of married-parent families in a county is one of the strongest predictors of high-school graduation rates for Florida counties; indeed, it's a more powerful predictor than family income, race or ethnicity."

[Charisma News] “You're getting your inheritance early." Those were my father's words to me as he explained that he was taking money that he might have left me in his will and spending it on my private school tuition. My father's reasoning was that I would be able to create more wealth for his grandchildren if he invested in my education. Thanks to his wisdom, I would go on to graduate from Williams, one of (the) most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the nation and to obtain my MBA from Harvard. (Photo: Patrick Q/Flickr/CC/via Charisma News)

Besides my parents' willingness to sacrifice for my education—a decision my wife and I also made with our own two daughters—there was another key facet of my upbringing that a growing body of research has demonstrated to be extremely helpful to academic achievement. I was born to married parents, and they stayed married. This has turned out to be more important to long term success than both household income and race.
 
A recent study of Florida schools revealed a paradox: Highly ranked schools were producing only modest student achievement. But a deeper look turned up a likely explanation. The Institute for Family Studies found that, "the share of married-parent families in a county is one of the strongest predictors of high-school graduation rates for Florida counties; indeed, it's a more powerful predictor than family income, race or ethnicity."
 
It is not hard to imagine why children growing up in households headed by married couples generally have better educational outcomes. Married couples are typically able to provide more emotionally and financially stable environments for children, offering them more attention, supervision and opportunities than most single parents are able to provide. Naturally, the fact that far more black families are headed by single parents has implications for black educational achievement. (Photo via TheHopeConnection.org)
 
In short, to close the education gap, we need to work on closing the marriage gap, something which is widely…
 
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