Obstacles in Conventional Education Systems

Chicago’s Black Student Success Plan Wasn’t Just Ambitious — It Was Urgent. A reckoning with decades of systemic neglect, school closures, and targeted disinvestment in Black education. For generations, Black students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have navigated an education system that was never built to serve them equitably. From segregated classrooms to shuttered schools, the obstacles weren't incidental — they were engineered through policy and funding decisions that deprived entire communities. 📚 Historical Context In 1980, 82% of Black CPS students attended highly segregated schools. By 2012, that number remained at 70%. In 2013, CPS closed 50 schools, overwhelmingly in Black neighborhoods. 88% of affected students were Black. Redlining and discriminatory housing policies denied Black families access to stable housing and quality schools. 🛑 After decades of systemic neglect and targeted disinvestment in Black education — including the closure of 50 predominantly Black schools in 2013 alone — what outcomes did we honestly expect? This plan is not a luxury. It’s a corrective action. 🏫 The Black Student Success Plan CPS launched the plan to begin undoing this harm by: Implementing culturally responsive curricula. Recruiting and retaining Black educators, building trust and representation. Offering wrap-around services and community partnerships. Ensuring equitable—not just equal—resource allocation and facility improvements. 📈 Early Results Show Promise Black student graduation rates have risen to 79.7% Five majority-Black schools are now rated “Exemplary” — showing that when students receive the right support, outcomes change. Yet today, this progress is under federal investigation. The current administration’s challenge to the plan suggests equity is being mistaken for favoritism. But this isn't about exclusion — it's about REPAIR. 🏘️ It’s Not Just About Schools Equity in education doesn’t begin at the schoolhouse door. It starts at home. Housing insecurity, neighborhood disinvestment, and generational poverty directly affect academic performance. Sustainable homeownership is a key factor in student success. When families have secure housing, students thrive — emotionally, academically, and socially. Sustainable homeownership isn’t just about property — it’s about permanence, stability, and the generational platform students need to focus on learning instead of surviving. ✅ This is about justice, not charity. Correction, not concession. Elizabeth Leiba Gillian Marcelle, PhD Paul Ladipo Samantha Katz Mike Green L C D D Nicol Turner Lee Shari Dunn Christian Ortiz ✊🏽Richard Venegar  https://lnkd.in/e6H3TkX5 #BlackStudentSuccess #EducationEquity #CPS #Disinvestment #Redlining #HousingJustice

A Woman in the Dark – The Woes of Being One! In a world that prides itself on progress, it’s shocking how fear still grips young girls in higher education. Her story is one of resilience. From the start, the odds were against her. 📌 Primary school? Dad barely paid attention—why invest when "she’ll end up in the kitchen"? She was constantly sent home for unpaid fees during exams. 📌 High school? She made it into Holy Child School, Cape Coast—her dream! But Dad refused to pay. "Your brothers need the fees; they are destined for greater things." She ended up in a school barely on the map. 📌 Scholarship? She won one! But Dad wouldn’t sign the consent forms. Because someone will marry her eventually and take the glory! An academic advisor had to step in. 📌 University? Dad refused to support her—"What if she gets pregnant?" She deferred, sold on the streets, and hustled her way to pay application and admission fees. And then came the unthinkable… 🔥 An uncle attempted to rape her—twice. 🔥 3 lecturers—from Level 100 to 400—demanded sex for grades. Papers were torn before her eyes, scores erased. 🔥 When she sought help? "You cannot fight a lecturer. No one will support you here." 🔥 Postgraduate studies? More harassment. Senior figures tarnished her reputation, threatening her career. 🔥 Even today, as a PhD holder and expert in her field, the threats have not stopped. She was told to stay silent. But girls made of gold cannot😂. This is the untold story of one of my mentees! As I speak on this in Washington DC, share your thoughts on: 💡 The obstacles women face in education. 💡 How she (and many others) can overcome these challenges. 💡 The progress (and gaps) in women’s education in Ghana & Africa. 💡 The critical support needed to break these cycles. Education really, should be a tool for breaking barriers, not creating them.🤛 Let’s break the silence. Let’s build a system that protects, uplifts, and empowers. 👊 ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ #WomenInEducation #BreakingBarriers #HigherEducation #GenderEquality #Africa #internationalwomensday International Women's Day 2025 International Women's Forum International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) International Women Summit Women on Boards #WorldTradeOrganization (WTO), #AGI, #GIZ, #InternationalTradeCentre (ITC), #InternationalMonetaryFund (IMF), #WorldBank, #AfricanContinentalFreeTradeArea (AfCFTA), #EuropeanUnion (EU), #AssociationofSoutheastAsianNations (ASEAN), #Asia-PacificEconomicCooperation (APEC), #MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market), #Export-ImportBank (EXIM Bank), #TradePromotionOrganizations (TPOs), #UKDepartmentforBusinessandTrade (DBT), #linkedIn #BrandnBloom #U.S.CommercialService, #JapanExternalTradeOrganization (JETRO), #InternationalChamberofCommerce (ICC), #GlobalAllianceforTradeFacilitation, #ECOWAS, #CanadaChamberofCommerce, #UNIDO, #UNDP, #USAID, #ACDI-VOCA #TIGARA #APILE, #U.S.AfricanDevelopmentFoundation (USADF), Travis Adkins, Ify Afe Ify Ogo, PhD #Market

Most education systems prioritize compliance over curiosity 👨🏼🎓 We assume they teach critical thinking, but mostly they train memorization and conformity. The evidence is everywhere: standardized tests that punish original thinking, students asking "will this be on the exam?" instead of engaging with ideas, degrees and grades are valued more than skills. This creates a hidden curriculum where students master the art of educational performance rather than genuine inquiry. They learn to decode what teachers want to hear, to structure arguments in approved formats, to ask questions that won't disrupt lesson plans. The most "successful" students often become expert test-takers and rule-followers rather than innovative thinkers. Teachers who try fostering genuine curiosity face pressure to "cover material." This disconnect becomes especially visible in how we treat "failure" in formal versus informal learning. In schools, failure means poor grades and closed doors. ❌ Outside formal education, failure often serves as the most effective teacher - entrepreneurs learn from failed startups, artists develop through rejected works, scientists advance through disproven hypotheses. Yet educational systems rarely create space for productive failure. 💡 The truth is real learning happens outside classrooms - in garages, online communities, through failures and experiments. A teenager taking apart old computers in their garage develops deeper understanding of technology than many computer science courses provide. Online communities form around obscure interests where people teach each other through genuine enthusiasm rather than credentialing. Apprenticeships, internships, and hands-on failures often provide education that formal schooling struggles to match. 🎓 The credentialing function of education further complicates this dynamic. Employers use degrees as filtering mechanisms, forcing people to participate in formal education regardless of its actual learning value. This creates a feedback loop where institutions focus on maintaining their gatekeeping role rather than optimizing for curiosity and growth. The piece of paper becomes more important than the transformation it supposedly represents. The system perpetuates itself while everyone inside and outside knows it's broken.

In K-12 education, we are addicted to sweeping problems under the rug and trying to solve them with an endless number of bandaids. If you take a look at the average student’s academic career, you will find that pretty early on in their learning journey, they “fell behind.” You don’t need to look far to see that. Just take a peak at the NAEP data. From then on, their core instructional experience does not really change to meet their needs. Meaning they go from grade to grade and class to class, with the expectation that they should be learning the same exact content as their peers at the exact same pace. This leaves the student feeling frustrated and makes it difficult for them to master content. Likely widening the gap between where they are and where they “should” be. We then flood the space with an endless number of after-school and supplemental programs to catch kids up, leaving the bulk of their learning experience day-to-day untouched. These programs are useful, but they should not replace trying to optimize how we use time and space during tier 1 instruction. If we want outcomes to improve at scale, we need to ensure that students spend most of their day in classroom environments that meet their needs.

Our mainstream education systems are obsessed with measurement, but they suffer from measuring the wrong things. Schools track test scores, attendance, and graduation rates as if these numbers define learning. They do not. The focus on high-stakes testing does not improve education; it distorts it. Students are taught to perform rather than to understand. Teachers are pressured to cover material instead of cultivating curiosity and creativity. Policymakers equate test results with progress while ignoring whether students can think critically, solve problems, or apply knowledge in real-world contexts.