Educational Conference focuses on solutions

By Melissa Muhammad

The statistics regarding the educational status of America are both staggering and unequivocally show a downturn, but the educational status of Black youth is frightening.

To reiterate a few of the statistics shared by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan recently,
Black youth graduate from high school at a rate of 50 percent, compared to White youth that are graduating at 75 percent—a 25 percent difference.

In some regions of the country, graduation rates are as low as 20 percent. A mere 12 percent of Black high school seniors are proficient readers.

Outside of the classroom, it is estimated that 40 to 44 percent of Black adults are functionally illiterate. With these statistics in mind, the forecast for Black education is bleak.

But as America prepared to address the struggles and ailments of a typical school year, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Muhammad University of Islam (M.U.I.) embarked on
the dissemination of educational solutions for the benefit of the entire Black community.

An educational conference that took place the weekend of July 31, at the Salaam Restaurant and M.U.I., were a part of what Min. Farrakhan referred to as a “new beginning.”

M.U.I., located in Chicago, was reopened by Minister Farrakhan in 1989; since then dozens of schools under the M.U.I. banner have been established on a foundation of scripture and
with the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad at the core the curriculum.

It is a known fact that private schools—many of which have a faith-based curriculum, as does
Muhammad University of Islam—have continued to show better results academically and socially than schools that function under the policy of the separation of church and state. Read more...