20 Jul 2005 Slang is No Ticket to Success

Project 21 members are saying that teaching ebonics in the public schools, as San Bernardino, California now proposes to do, is no way to give students a passport to personal fulfillment and professional success.

Says Project 21’s Michael King:

Teaching Ebonics, which is nothing more than urban slang, will not provide a means for an individual to acquire a job. It will not help someone maintain a living. It will not provide an individual with the skills necessary to compete in an academic setting, let alone a professional setting. It does absolutely nothing positive for those to whom it is taught. I don’t see professors trying to justify hacker geek-speak or online shorthand as their own separate language!

Says Project 21’s Kevin Martin:

There are some who would prefer the San Bernardino school system and other schools throughout the United States take the easy way out by sending our children into the world without a grasp of basic English skills. This is a disservice to the black community that will severely limit our children’s skills in the job market. This is a prime example of what people call ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations.’

Read Project 21’s entire press release here.