Achievement in African-American inner city schools
falls far behind suburban schools and middle-class
communities. The dropout rates for African-American
youth is higher, standardized test scores lower, and
attendance poorer. A Chicago Sun-Times article (October
20, 1988:4) indicated that the participating high
schools had between 31.5% and 55.5% of their students
finishing high school within 4 years.
Kunjufu, in his discussion of the conspiracy to
destroy black boys, draws a direct correlation between
age, school achievement, and "street time."12 Street
time was measured as the number of unsupervised
hours youths spend in activities outside of the home,
school, or community organizations. The older black
boys became more disinterested or uninvolved in
academic pursuits, resulting in lower achievement test
scores as they got older. Street time and poor
achievement tend to exacerbate the problems of
delinquency and truancy, which influences students to
dropout, thus having more"street time."
Research conducted by Eth and Pynoos on psychic
trauma in childhood identifies "deleterious effects on
cognition, memory, school performance and learning."2
These problems are identified as possible results
of co-victimization in childhood. It is possible that the
measures of violence and co-victimization in youth are
not just measures of violence, but also may correlate
with poor school performance and learning, which are
symptoms of psychic trauma in youth.