The Rapid Decline of Education in America

In this week's podcast, Dr. Ricky Jones calls out modern efforts to roll back Civil Rights gains. The discussion highlights the systematic underfunding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and the use of anti-affirmative action and anti-DEI movements to restrict Black student access and support at predominantly white institutions. 

We discuss how the real value of education is not economic profit, but rather its power to create critically thinking individuals who are capable of examining and challenging the society in which they live. 

The segment concludes with a consensus that the current lack of critical thinking, fueled by miseducation, is allowing the media to manipulate the masses.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:03

Hello, world, and welcome to Shelley's online. Truthful topic and tough topics, hosted online Dr. Shelley Stewart. Shelley started broadcasting in 1949, and he has been on a journey to discover the truth for humanity ever since. And at 91 years of age, Shelley still sits down before the microphone as he pursues answers to tough topics, challenging us to change the experience of being human and our outlook on humanity. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to present the newest member of the Radio Hall of Fame and the oldest podcaster in the world. Get ready. Here comes gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Yes, indeed, my side kicks, front runners, quarterbacks, white receivers, opponent returners, Ricky Jones, Dr. Ricky Jones over there, and Mark Jammer is over there. Welcome, guys. How are you guys doing today?

SPEAKER_05 1:36

I'm doing great, Shelley. Good to be back.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

I think he just picked on me, don't you? You think he just picked on me just to be picked up? I thought we were pretty nice to him last week.

SPEAKER_05 1:49

I'm pretty nice to him. So me. Y'all are never nice to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:53

Y'all are never nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

Well, you said what did I do wrong? So I did.

SPEAKER_06 1:59

He mistreats his son weekly. That's what he does wrong.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

But the most important thing is that the thing is. Weekly. Going back to everything, the reason is I'm you know best dude, the guy that comes out the streets and uh comes up and comes becomes who I am today. I'm a child of God. And uh being able to contribute to the society of the world. And I think that I didn't I didn't know exactly where I was going. About my reading books and studying about Negro and how I learned about the Negro struggle. Uh and I was very well aware of it. Uh I didn't have the opportunity to go to college, which I've told you that I don't hold that against me. But I wanted to go and I thrived and I studied and I studied and I had read so many books, and I told you about the times. And I was before I was 13, I read there's one book I read three times, twice, probably once backwards. That was not not the entire Bible, but I read the New Testament you know, three times twice almost backwards. So I was very well aware of those things. Uh so education was that thing I'd been out for. I didn't know how to get there uh on some things. But of course, uh did think and did it a few months back Ricky talking to me, and we're gonna talk about education. Yeah, education assault education. And I did not know that I didn't be on the regular point. I was communicating in my own way. And then I'm liking to appreciate that's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

I went up and uh I tried to put together uh organizations in the communities, in the black communities. Uh and uh here's a I'm gonna give an example before I turn it all to work, but I wanted to put together a business thing for black in the community in the communities in every city in the United States of America, whether it be North, Kentucky, North Carolina, whether it be Los Angeles, California, Atlanta, George, Birmingham, Alabama, whatever. Uh I'll the articles of a corporation that I put together. Here's what I want to acquire by purchase. The purpose of this incorporation is in the black community, in the black community throughout the country. I want it to file in every state, every group of men and women, to acquire by purchase, lease or otherwise, and to improve and develop real estate property, to erect dwellings, apartment houses, and other buildings, private and public, all kinds, and to sell or rent the same, to lay out gray paved, dedicated roads, streets, avenues, highways, alleys, courts, paths, walks, parks, and playgrounds, to buy, to sell, uh, and to mortgage exchange lease that holds for investment are improved or unimproved, and right interest therein and to provide the consulting services and acquisition of real properties. I want to form this organization in every state group of men and women to go in business, to do education and the like. So it's beyond that, and from that particular piece that I wrote that in 1994 here. But uh, they looked at me and said, Boy, you crazy. We're talking about big business. I didn't stop there because the guys give me talking to the man, Ricky and the granddaughter, they're gonna be able to do these things education. And so today, um with the uh I'm gonna say Ricky, you mentioned last week that education is in danger in the country anymore, right?

SPEAKER_06 6:51

Yes. I mean, what what we're really seeing, we hear a lot of stuff, and over the last few years, we've we've heard movements coming from the conservative uh political side of the country, and they've masked a movement in the anti-Black Lives Matter movement, anti-critical race theory movement, CRT, and now the anti-DEI movement. But what these people are really doing is they're trying to roll back the gains um from the civil rights movement. I mean, that's that's really what's happening. And a part of that plan is to recapture the universities, to one, recapture the predominantly white institutions and to weaken the historically black colleges and universities to the point where they're no longer really effective. And so what we've seen at the predominantly white schools with the um anti-affirmative action ruling coming out of the Supreme Court a few years ago, they've shunted admissions to these schools for many black kids that uh had racial set asides. And remember, these kids are already woefully underrepresented at these schools. In Kentucky, for instance, Kentucky is the eighth where I am right now, so that's why I use it as an example. It's the eighth whitest state in the country. When you talk about the major public white universities in the state of Kentucky, there are fewer than 10,000 black students combined at all of the white universities, but they feel like they need to push back against black students being admitted to the schools. They've also shut down scholarships for black students that are based on race because students were underrepresented, and some of the schools have tried to push up their representation with scholarships. Many black students will leave school because of financial problems, not because their grades suffer, but but because they have financial problems. So the scholarships will aid students in that. The top-tier scholarship at the University of Louisville was named after a former Black Border Trustee member named Woodford Porter. And the Porter scholarships were 95 to 100% black up until the anti-DEI legislation was pushed through in the state of Kentucky. The incoming class next year is 18% black. So what folks are doing, they're one, restricting the number of black kids who can get into the predominantly white schools, and then they're shutting down the support structures, whether that be diversity offices, multicultural centers, black studies programs, all of these things, the support structures for these kids are being shut down. So it's making it very, very hard for black kids and black faculty to survive at predominantly white institutions, and that is not unique to Kentucky. Now, to the HBCUs, we're seeing legislation that's attacking them too. And as folks talk about HBCUs struggling and being mismanaged and all of this, what they fail to talk about is the funding of public HBCUs in the country has been woefully lacking compared to the state funding of predominantly white institutions. Before Donald Trump was elected for the second time, a report came out in 2023 under the Biden administration that looked longitudinally back over the last almost four decades and found that HBCUs have been underfunded by states to the tune of almost$13 billion. I didn't say million, and I did not misspeak, to the tune of almost$13 billion. The letters were sent to 16 states, including your great state of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. All these states had underfunded their HBCUs to an incredible amount, crippled them, and then blame them for limping.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

So I believe are these referred to as red states before we are some are red, some are blue, some are red, some are blue, but most are blue.

SPEAKER_06 10:54

Please understand most HBCUs certainly are located in the south. So, you know, in in southern states are disproportionately red. So you know, there's there's no way for for black children and black families to get around that. I mean, so some of the schools that have been impacted by this, and I'll give you a short list: Alabama AM, University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, Florida AM, Florida Fort Valley State, Kentucky State University, that has basically been turned into a glorified trade school just a month or so ago. Uh, Southern University, down in Louisiana, University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, Alcorn State, Mississippi, Lincoln University, Missouri, Langston, South Carolina State, Tennessee State, Prairie View, Virginia State, North Carolina AT. The list goes on and on and on. And so what what we're seeing is a restriction of Black access to higher education, to the likes that we have not seen since the 1960s. And I don't think folk understand exactly what's happening, and that's why you know it's so frustrating to hear black people say what I believe are stupid things like college ain't for everybody. Well, you better make doggone sure that college is accessible to everybody because getting education and getting higher education is the path to social stability, it is the path to path to political empowerment, and it is the power to economic empowerment. You know, this this the days of getting a high school diploma and going working in a factory somewhere and then retiring after 40 years and getting a pension, that's over. So if you're not if you're not getting educated, you got problems, and there's a move to keep as many black folk as possible out of higher education.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

You know, education is the key, but over and over and over, and you just said that, but son, I've been saying this and hearing it for 25, 30, maybe 40 years. What you said that uh so and so did all right, they didn't get no college degree. Uh Sciental did this, they didn't get no college degree. I've been saying that and been going downhill over and over and over, and I've been saying it over and over and over. Every state in this in this country, I've gone into those states and said, get an education, come on, and uh this is and many of those things I've got and the educator would say, Why are you in here telling people to go to school? Why are you in here enhancing education? You're not you're not uh college of you, and I said academic common sense, you understand. But uh there was those people who uh say no, we don't need that kind. We don't need that kind in our schools. I mean, these are black people, so yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:05

I mean, you're right, pop, but but what what's so what's so stupid again, and I'm and I'm and I'm using that word because we already established a week or two ago that I'm the mean one, right? I'm the mean one, you're nice, Mark is super nice, I'm mean. People who asked you that question, well, what school did you go to? You were born in 1934, and so you were set up in a situation where you did not have access to education to the degree that black people should have had access to education, and very much like my grandmother told me, she said, I don't know what you can do with an education, but I know what you can't do without one. So every generation of black people has tried to expand access to education for the next generation. There is a reason running all the way back to the 19th century that black people have fought so hard for access to education, and white opponents to that have fought so hard to keep them out. If it wasn't that important, we wouldn't have had the white folk who hate black folk try to keep them out of educational systems. And so, right now, people who are asking those types of silly questions or engaging in the restriction of access to education within black communities, those people are dangerous. Aren't racist structures in white America doing enough to us? Why we got these coonish black people feel like they got to help them? That that's that's my belief.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Well, that's uh that's some people would say that's harsh, harsh. But uh it's true, true.

SPEAKER_05 15:40

Well, don't worry, I don't think this is just a black problem, Ricky.

SPEAKER_06 15:44

Or I mean it it and and well, I mean you better be careful where you go now, Mark Jamrod. You better be careful, you better translate it. I'm waiting for what you say here.

SPEAKER_05 15:57

You're right about the access element, all the facts you stated are 100% true. But what what I see overall, even you know, I I've looked up enrollment, has gone down by two million students since 2010. There is just a general lack of interest in education beyond you know what what is already truly happening, as you said, with the TEI, with it with all the other changes that are going on on the other side, and you know, the rest of folks are like thinking, well, I don't need college, and it's too expensive, and I'm not getting an you know, I'm not getting anything out of it. I won't get a job out of it, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, you know, who's in charge of the Department of Education, but an ex-wrestling executive. So I don't think experts is interested in education either. Yeah, Linda McMahon. Don't tell me, like, oh, well, she runs it like a business. I don't think it matters if you run education like a business, because that is not what it's about. It is about becoming educated, it is about learning about the world. It isn't about, oh, are we making a profit on it?

SPEAKER_06 17:02

You know, so well, Mark, Mark, I'm I'm I'm trying to keep track of the all the points you made. One, you're right, educational enrollment has gone down, but the point that I'm making is education, access to education is not being restricted to whites, but people are setting up barriers where it's being restrictive to black. Yeah, okay. So so that's that's the first point. The second point, you're right overall, Americans are not interested in education because Americans are stupid, Americans are anti-intellectual, they're encouraged to be anti-intellectual. They want to sit and scroll on Facebook and Instagram all day and watch reality television and worry about what's going on in the relationship of Clay Thompson and Megan the Stallion, that what they together they're bringing up.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

The final board to her brain is gonna be AI, right?

SPEAKER_06 17:49

And nobody's engaged in these relationships. So this is stupid. We got young people talking about they're gonna become influencers and all of this foolishness. You know, it's it's just misguided. The third point when you talk about folk who um who say, well, they're not getting anything out of education. Actually, when you look at longitudinal studies, study after study after study, say this. And I'm not a capitalist, okay? But all of these money-grubbing people who think everything is about the acquisition of capital at every stage. If you got a high school diploma, you make more money over your lifetime than people who don't have a high school diploma. If you have an associate's degree, you get make more money than the high school diploma holders. If you have a bachelor's degree, you make more money than the associates, master's more than the bachelor's, terminal degree, but J D, M D, PhD, EDD, you make more money than the people who have masters. So when you actually look at the numbers, right? When you actually look at the facts, I know facts don't matter. The more educated you are, the more money you make. So when these people make this argument, well, you don't get anything out of education. Nobody says that foolishness except the people who don't have a damn education. I'll go from there. Go ahead, pop.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Now, I am so excited now, boy. I can understand now. Putting the capital to the capital with a seat I'm talking about now. Yes, uh make more money and more education. Yeah, and it's uh common sense tell me that now. Yeah, I mean, come on. Uh I've seen well, scientists are mechanic, yeah. So he's a mechanic. Uh but what's that gotta do with uh somebody who wants to be a uh scientist and moon? Uh but but my friend's a mechanic. You're locked on that right there. Uh my friend, that's mine and a friend that's that. And we're locked in so many ways. But I think that'll been locked in through the centuries that you don't need an education. Yeah, you don't need it's worse now than uh it's ever been. Yeah, but I'm telling you, what I'm saying is uh it can't be well, yes, it's worse now because more than people out here now. But uh but I can tell you right now, I've never seen nothing in my life uh as I've seen in recent years. We don't need education, we don't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

We just don't need it. Yeah, man. That's wrapping up. And pop, I want pop and mark. I know y'all think I'm the mean one, and I want to be nice, okay, before anybody says I want to be mean because you said I'm super nice, so well, well, they they they'll say, Oh, well, bourgeois Dr. Ricky Jones got on a podcast with his bourgeois father and his white friend, and he said bad things about mechanics. I mean, so this is just classism on his part because he's bourgeois. This is this is a problem. I don't have any problem with people engaging in the trades, I got no problem with mechanics, I got no problem with carpenters, I got no problem with HVAC service people. The society needs those people. I got no problems with garbage men. Can you imagine what would happen if there was nobody picking up garbage, right? I got respect for those people, but why is it that disproportionately this society wants certain people who look a certain way occupying the lower strata service industry jobs? That's the problem that I have with that theory. Why we always got to be the garbage men?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Okay, that's what we've taught. I mean, as far as I can remember back in as a kid, that's a white person's job. Uh the system, I mean, this is a white man's job. Uh if there was no you specifically said, but this is your job only. Now, uh, you can be a mechanic, but you cannot be the chief mechanic. You cannot be the head mechanic.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

right no you you cannot be the hip anymore uh i mean i i don't let me don't start really talking on that i've seen people uh go through or come in and uh bring this grandson in uh uh and get talked about this guy with the black who'd been there for years and he teached him how to do the whole damn thing and the grandson became the CEO of the company the man who was actually teaching him how he was called the black man taught that never got promoted out of old sample but but that is the way hell that's the way it works has been and and out it's a white and it got to the point where when the white women got a little that there's a white woman job white women got married them black women taking our job now so women fight because women become color so I'm telling you uh it goes back to education or the lack of education uh miseducation look worse than that um job or no job that doesn't matter to me what what's really concerning to me is that you know lack of education lack of critical thinking has allowed a media to manipulate a mass there you go Mark Jamrod there you go anything don't question anything are buying into conspiracy theories and all kinds of nonsense that is affecting us all go go my white brother come on mark jamrod all right I win come on man come on and you know even even those that are going to school now are using ai to write their papers for them so they're not even learning how to write so we're in trouble I mean this this we the the generation of I mean we're just this the next generation is going to decline so fast it's it's mind blowing to be honest it's right now see oh man oh man mark just hit the nail right on the head right there all right this is this is the problem when people talk about education they just talk about money that's their whole thing we got some states now that want to push through legislation to say that we we need to get the rid of majors at universities that don't yield profitable uh uh uh degrees like how are you measuring that the key thing about education is not really about making money this is what people miss the key thing about education is that it creates intelligent critically thinking individuals it changes the citizenry now as James Baldwin said James Baldwin said this about education and consciousness he said the paradox of education is precisely this that as one begins to become educated and conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated yes that's why they don't want us to be educated because they don't want us to think you're not supposed to think they gotta think for you yeah and there you go and there you go and when I say us I'm talking Americans now right I'm talking Americans now because contrary to popular belief people can talk all the trash they want to Donald Trump can like and retweet pictures of the Obamas as monkeys and they can say all that they want to say about black folk and try to demean us and dehumanize us and break down our concept of self but the reality of this thing is there are a whole lot of dumb white people in this country and the problem is some of those dumb white people like the secretary of education are running the damn country and they wonder why it's a problem yeah I said it and as an OG back in the day said before I take it back I will add more to it well ladies and gentlemen I tell you right now the truth shows Mickey free now those things that uh I said I said on the last part that was saying wrong that's people saying he's saying wrong he's saying wrong I was saying what what he just said that okay what he just said 55 60 70 years ago and they said Shelley Stewart was wrong yeah I was maybe you're wrong now pop and I don't want to get you in trouble I don't want to get you in trouble no no no I don't want to get you in trouble I don't want to get mark jamros in trouble so listeners to Shelly's Plumb Line the most conscious father son podcast in the world I am Dr. Ricky Jones and my neither my father nor Mark Jamroz approve my message don't think what I said exactly not even not he wasn't even going this guy wasn't even going to microphones uh throughout this country and singing and ruin go through any writings and shelly still been saying that Shelly still wrong instead of all these years so I just want to say how wrong have I been how can you be wrong the only thing you were wrong about pop the only thing you were wrong about I don't think that your generation anticipated the dogish determination of white supremacy I think your generation thought that progress would be linear as we continue to move along and I don't think that folks anticipated that generation after generation of white people would still be motivated by three basic things by geographic displacement they think people gonna take this land that they stole by political disempowerment they feel like they should be able to make every decision about everything and nobody else has any right to any input and they fear genetic and cultural annihilation they really fear that they fear those things and everything pushes them along based upon those fears and you would think that after all these years they would sit back as we talked about last week where we went wrong you would think that these people not all because we love people like Mark Jamrod's people like well you know you hate all white people no there's some white people that I love I love humane white people but you would think after all of these years the folk on the far right would sit back and be like man you know what we were wrong about this stuff these people won't never say they wrong never because they don't know any better yeah they and will continue but believe me who well maybe this is the next episode and it's about the people that don't know they're racist yeah we can do that by gosh I'm not a racist I don't use the n-word i'm not a racist yeah now now now you boys now you boys are going a little bit too far now now we uh we let niggers come in y'all got a podcast and everything and we let you niggas come in the back door and get you some dinner and then you're gonna talk bad about us I gotta color you gotta color that come with sales once a year yeah Clarence Thomas is my friend uh uh that girl conde leaser rice is that you know Condoleezza Rice by God you're right by God you're right you gotta be wrong them good old southern bubbles boys we lost another great time here uh at Shannon Flam line the academy of common sense but Ricky Mark we always enjoy ourselves we sit here and have fun hopefully you have fun as well uh from some he invites you better than I do we're gonna write him back next week tell them how good we are working tell them how good we are listening this i this is a fun thing we educate and we entertain y'all get up on here you push that like button you spread it to your friends and if you don't send it to your friends and you don't give us a a doggone great great rating I'm about like my man said on a on another podcast I'm gonna be inclined to believe that you're a hater so don't don't be a hater don't be a hater don't be a hater ladies and gentlemen we're gonna see it love y'all bye bye now good friends of mine with me and you cry told me your story I know you had to cry with a man this episode of Shelly's Plumb Line was written produced and edited by Dr.

SPEAKER_05 31:27

Shelly Stewart, Mark Chairman and Dr. Link John. It was produced by Stewart Production at the Plumb Line Studios in Starrett, Alabama. If you are a fan of Shelly's Plumb Line and you like what we are doing here, please remember to subscribe on your podcast platform of toys give us a review and share this podcast with others. Follow us and continue the conversation on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn This is Mark Jamra and Steve Electric and on all those drama dependent