Most of us know the tragic state of black education today. We know that billions of dollars are spent on federal government programs such as the No Child Left Behind Act by state and local governments. If you were to ask an education “expert” to explain the tragedy, you’d get answers such as racial discrimination and underfunding. My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell has written volumes on black education. One of his articles definitely worth reading is one he wrote some years ago in The Public Interest (spring 1976) and reprinted in his book “Education: Assumptions Versus History.”
One black school that Sowell writes about is Washington, D.C.’s Paul Laurence Dunbar Senior High School. From 1870 to 1955, most of Dunbar’s graduates went off to college, earning degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Williams, Wesleyan and others. As early as 1899, Dunbar students had higher scores on citywide tests than students at any of the District of Columbia’s white schools. Dunbar’s attendance records were generally better than those of white schools, and its rate of tardiness was lower. Latin was taught throughout the period from 1870 to 1955, and in the early decades, Greek was taught as well.
