Sunday, November 16, 2008
Churches need to educate our youth
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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
Shanna Flowers
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Roanoke School Board Chairman David Carson recently called out black churches without realizing it.
Carson wrote a compelling commentary in this newspaper last month pointing out how everyone can do more to help improve the city's abysmal graduation rate.
About halfway into his piece, Carson acknowledged the three-year contribution of "diverse places of worship such as Second Presbyterian, Christ Episcopal, Central Church of the Brethren, Beth Israel, First Christian, Greene Memorial, St. Mark's Lutheran and Jesus Is Lord Assembly."
With the exception of Jesus Is Lord, the places that Carson acknowledged for providing a steady flow of volunteers, supplies and weekend snacks to disadvantaged children are predominantly white.
Carson's list inadvertently highlighted a conspicuous absence from Roanoke education I noticed a year ago.
Where are the black churches?
A few days after Carson's commentary, the Roanoke school division invited a cross section of nearly two dozen churches to a "faith breakfast" to plead for their involvement with the school system.
Among the guests were representatives of many black churches, including prominent congregations.
The question now is: What are you going to do?
Black churches have long been the centers of communities, particularly in moments of crisis. Roanoke's graduation rate is a crisis.
Some of you are making efforts here and there. But Roanoke's children deserve more than splintered fits and starts.
They need a collective show of support to help turn back this wave of anti-intellectualism that has blinded a generation to the value of education and the possibilities it brings.
The school system isn't asking for anything extraordinary. It is asking Roanokers -- black, white, old, young -- to care.
It wants us to care that fewer than six of every 10 students who start high school in Roanoke finish with a diploma. And that more than four of every 10 kids leave high school more likely to be unemployed, in poor health, living in poverty and on welfare.
It wants us to care that too many of Roanoke's students don't care and are throwing their lives away.
What churches can do is provide encouragement when students are young, talk up education as the way to self-sufficiency. Feed them, clothe them, buy them pencils, shoes and coats if they need it. Commit to assigning mentors and tutors -- that's free.
If children aren't getting the support they need at home, then it falls to the community to pick up the slack.
You can do it, because it's already being done.
The churches that Carson referred to have come together to form Congregations in Action. They work closely with schools, including Highland Park Elementary. At Highland Park, congregations send home weekend snacks with some students at the school where more than 60 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
(Some readers will smear free and reduced-price lunch as another government giveaway, but if the program wasn't there, some of these kids wouldn't eat. Ask an educator. Better yet, ask an impoverished child.)
Each church in the coalition pays $300 a year to purchase food through the Southwestern Virginia Second Harvest Food Bank. Food Lion donated 2 tons of food worth $10,400.
That's what organization and structure bring -- the attention and support of others who want to help, who can help.
When Congregations in Action began three years ago, they sent home 36 care packages each weekend. Last year it jumped to 64, and this year the number is 110 youngsters.
Sure, the purpose of the church is to spread the Gospel. But as my sister occasionally says, some of us are so heavenly bound that we're no earthly good.
Some churches may say they don't raise enough money to sustain a program. But each week, the paper is loaded with announcements for church and pastor anniversaries. We're showering gifts and accolades on the pastor and the first lady, but what's being done to help the impoverished and hopeless children in the pews? In the neighborhood just outside the church doors?
At the faith breakfast last month, school Superintendent Rita Bishop challenged church leaders.
"You have to be a broker of hope," she admonished.
Again, on behalf of our schoolchildren I ask, what are you going to do?
Shanna Flowers' column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
