I recently ran across this vintage photo of a one-room schoolhouse in Florida (St. John’s County) for Black children. My mind immediately flashed to my deceased parents who often told stories of walking barefoot to their one-room schoolhouse in the Piney Woods of Jefferson County near Tallahassee.
Then I thought of Gainesville For All’s ongoing effort to open a high-quality early learning center at Metcalfe Elementary School that would serve mostly poor and Black children who live nearby. I was saddened.
It seems that so much of the progress made by African Americans in past generations has been lost. Since the Jim Crow days of my parents’ youth notable gains were made, including those by my baby boomer generation. We narrowed the achievement gap between black and white students sharply in the 1970s and the first half of the ‘80s.