Mary Sylvia Harrison of the Rhode Island Children's Crusade says that if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive, he would focus on closing the education gap.

09:13 AM EST on Tuesday, January 20, 2004

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

CRANSTON -- The bottom line was bleak. More minorities than ever are finishing high school and attending college, but current achievement data "show that the education system has failed most of our nation's poor and minority children," said Mary Sylvia Harrison.

"There is a tremendous achievement gap, that indicates that though we gained access, our [minority] kids have been denied a real opportunity to learn," said Harrison, president and executive director of the Rhode Island Children's Crusade, and yesterday's keynote speaker at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. gathering.

The Rhode Island Ministers' Alliance's 20th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast drew a sellout audience of close to 700 to Rhodes on the Pawtuxet. People were turned away at the door.

Over eggs, coffee and pastry, attendees heard speeches on the theme of "Student Success is Everybody's Business." They also heard from a Boston preacher, the Rev. Zina Jacque, whose stirring sermon brought the vibrancy of the Black Church to a Cranston function hall.

"Martin would say, 'I need some dreamers and some doers for this age. . . . Don't look back 40 some-odd years at me -- Look forward,' " said Jacque, the former executive director of the Boston TenPoint Coalition -- 60 churches that galvanized around the issue of at-risk youth.

In her speech, Harrison said, "I believe that if Doctor King were alive today, he would preach that education -- especially of the nation's minorities and poor -- is the single-most urgent civil-rights issue of the 21st century. He would call on us to be stewards of closing the achievement gap in education."

She sees much room for hope. The federal No Child Left Behind mandate signals a positive shift in public will, Harrison said. Rhode Island leadership is moving in the right direction, "even if the pace is slow."

But the disturbing trends in education for the poor and minorities make a compelling case for community mobilization, she said.

Time to join forces, "in the manner we were taught in the struggle to obtain the civil rights we all cherish today," Harrison said.

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski HARMONY: Linda Walter-Barrie, center, and Dearme Sirleaf, right, members of the Shouts of Praise, from Pond Street Baptist Church, in Providence, perform yesterday at the opening of the Rhode Island Ministers' Alliance 20th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast, at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, In Cranston.

OTHER ATTENDEES and speakers: Governor Carcieri; Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty; Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch; U.S. Sen. Jack Reed; Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey; Providence Mayor David N. Ciccilline; local NAACP president Clifford R. Montiero; Urban League executive director Dennis B. Langley; the Rev. E. John Holt, executive minister, Rhode Island State Council of Churches; the Rev. Reginald Turner, president of the Minister's Alliance; and the Rev. Virgil A. Wood, education chair of the alliance and the event's host.

Harrison introduced herself by saying, "I'm black, I'm a mother, from a large family with an expectation to be responsible for kids. I grew up and still live in South Providence, attended public schools, was not on a path to college but was mentored and have both a college and law degree."

She is a former member of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education who has worked for the past 15 years "to create college pathways for disadvantaged young people," and former executive director of Times Squared. Her husband, lawyer Casby Harrison, gave a previous keynote speech at the annual breakfast.

Harrison stressed the urgency of addressing the educational needs of poor and minority children, adding, "I'm impatient with those who don't agree."

Data she cited include "that average black and Hispanic 17-year-old children have math, science, reading and writing scores . . . equivalent to the scores of average white 13-year-old children."

A "culture of low expectations" has pushed poor kids into dead-end tracks, she said. More and more children live in poverty, including in Providence, which has "the third-highest poverty rate for chldren in America."

Financing for education is decreasing, while across the country, spending on corrections keeps rising, Harrison said.

"In Rhode Island, between 1985 and 2000, state spending on corrections went up 188 percent, while spending on higher education went down 2 percent. And in keeping with the trend, plans are now under way to build a new training school at the cost of $54 million, just as we brace ourselves for cuts in next year's education budget."

According to Harrison, the Minister's Alliance interprets that policy as saying to kids, "We're preparing you for the jail trail. We are preparing you a room at the ACI. You will not have a room at URI!"

Black men bear the brunt of that policy direction, she said. On any given day, "one in three black males are under the control of the criminal justice system; black males have a one in four chance of spending time in prison in their lifetime; and there are more black males in U.S. prisons than colleges -- and this is rising."

Despite this bleak report, Harrison said it is "absolutely the case that we can feel hopeful." She bases some of that hope on "a compelling body of evidence that dispels the myth of low expectations"; that if taught more and challenged more, minority students "absolutely learn more."

No Child Left Behind has sent the message that "it is no longer acceptable for schools to succeed with some of their students -- schools must be successful with all the students they serve," she said.

Hopeful signs in Rhode Island include Providence's strategic plan for comprehensive change; the Central Falls district-wide "efficacy" effort; the Rhode Island State Scholars Initiative, and the Regents' regulations requiring high school graduation requirements, she said.

Harrison also credited the leadership of Education Commissioner Peter McWalters and Providence Schools Supt. Melody Johnson, and thanked Providence Mayor Cicilline "for bringing children to the forefront" as he began his term of office.