SOME CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS HAVE IT WRONG MOST VITAL ISSUE FOR BLACK AMERICANS TODAY IS BRIDGING THE LEARNING GAP.

Byline: Joe R. Hicks Local View

MUCH of today's civil-rights movement continues to concentrate on eradicating racism, driven by the predominant belief that a form of hostile white bigotry continues to be the No. 1 problem for black Americans. Some black writers and intellectuals, like Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree or Derrick Bell, a professor of law at New York University, argue that America has gone backward since the civil rights era.

Are they wrong? I certainly think they are.

As someone deeply involved in America's struggles for racial equality - during the early 1990s, I was the head of Los Angeles' chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the group founded by Martin Luther King Jr. - I believe the real story of black Americans is not about regression but is about the steady march forward. Evidence of this progress can be seen everywhere, unless the viewing of history is skewed by selective memory.

None of this matters, however, if there is a determination to defend theories of black victimization.

For example, a common argument is that America's schools have become resegregated. While true, in part, this claim misdiagnoses the problem. In 1935, W.E.B Du Bois said correctly that ``the Negro needs neither segregated schools or mixed schools. What he needs is Education.'' Who sits next to a black kid in class is far less important than the critical question: Is learning taking place?

The astounding fact of today's public schools is that a shockingly large racial learning gap shadows black students from kindergarten all the way to the steps of the nation's best universities. Latino students appear to fare only slightly better.

This learning gap is largely unaffected by the socioeconomic status of these students. In 1995, among black students whose parents made $70,000 a year or more and had at least one master's degree, SAT scores were on average lower than the scores of children from white families earning no more than $10,000.

Shockingly, by the 12th grade, black and Latino students are, on average, four years behind their white or Asian peers. In the 12th grade, blacks perform slightly worse in reading and history than white eighth-graders, and much worse in geography and math.

Much of this information comes from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which was created by Congress in 1969 to regularly test nationally representative samples of fourth-, eighth-, and 12th- graders. According to the NEAP data, a majority of black students perform ``below basic'' in overall scoring, while in math, that figure is nearly 7 out of 10, and in science more than 3 out of 4.

As can be expected, this gap perpetuates itself at the university level, making racial preference programs a prerequisite for the admission of all too many black students. A 1998 study at University of California, Berkeley, showed that the average combined SAT score of black undergraduates was 852, well below the university's average of 1232 for white students and 1254 for Asian-American students. Studies at institutions like MIT and the University of Texas show similar gaps in SAT scores.

Why does this gap exist?

The traditional explanation is that racism, biased testing, crowded classrooms and bad teachers are at the core of the problem. However, some of these claims are, at best, simply wrong or not a primary cause of black and brown educational ``underachievement.''

The U.S. Department of Education has released a study on the learning gap, showing that it has barely budged in two decades. Largely because black and brown children are, on average, three months behind the national average in reading and math skills when they start kindergarten and never catch up. The study also found that black and brown children are read to by parents less than Asian or white children, do not attend preschools at the same rates, visit public libraries less and watch far more television.

Meanwhile, public school funding will reach $41 billion in 2004, double what was spent in 1990. When spending from state and local governments are calculated, the figure rises to a record half-trillion dollars, a third more than the $375 billion the U.S. will spend on defense this year.

But if not money, what factors affect the ability of black students to learn?

In addition to those influences previously mentioned, it is, in part, black students ridiculing peers who read a lot or get good grades as ``acting white.'' Then there's school districts' inability to fire incompetent teachers or offer performance-based teacher pay, because of the political clout of teachers' unions and an unwillingness among politicians and school officials to challenge that strength.

The good news is the racial learning gap is not based on innate traits that cannot be changed. Obviously, like any other students, black and Latino children can learn at the same levels as others - if only we would address ourselves to the real issues and not offer explanations for the gap that serve narrow political or racial agendas.

The learning gap is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and it requires our full attention and a clear-headed approach. But that may be hard to do if many of those claiming to be the arbiters of today's civil rights agenda continue to misplace the blame, all the while refusing to look in the mirror.