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Guilford County Schools is making an effort to close the "achievement gap" between black males and other students. As observers of public education have known for years, black males consistently score lower than their counterparts on standardized tests, drop out of school at higher rates, and get suspended more often. The system's willingness to address the problem is laudable, but for several reasons, GCS is likely to fail.

Two weeks ago we learned that short-term suspensions declined slightly in the last academic year, "but the percentage of suspensions among black students remained about the same as the previous two years."

According to the district's hearing officer, Chessely Robinson, the establishment is bewildered by the fact that the racial breakdown of suspensions remained the same: "The true question to answer is, why is that number not more equitable? We're not really getting an answer on that."

To begin with, there is no reason to expect suspensions to be "equitable." (If they were, we should suspect some sort of foul play.) Secondly, we must acknowledge what is obvious to everyone except professional educators: Black males misbehave more often than other students.

The fact that educators are standing around, wringing their hands in confusion over such a no-brainer, does not bode well for the resolution of complicated issues. The achievement gap is a minefield of uncomfortable truths, and this is one of them: The establishment is hobbled by a combination of ignorance and skullduggery brought on by obedience to political correctness. The achievement gap is too nuanced and controversial for teachers, principals and school boards.

Another illustration of the system's ineffectiveness is a report on the achievement gap that was distributed to school board members last month. A problem must be properly defined, and its most likely causes traced, before we can proceed to solutions. Unfortunately, the report is not a useful assessment.

The document is voluminous and contains several chapters by various authors, but I was compelled to read it. The report is even worse than I had anticipated.

A chapter penned by liberal activist Ed Whitfield, for instance, asserts that the achievement gap "will go away when racism goes away or when the differences between European American children and African American children go away." Struggling black males (and their parents) will find that reassuring, no doubt. Whitfield, an outsider who prefers to call the gap the "community racism index," dutifully adheres to the establishment's line in vehement opposition to objective measures of student performance. Standards are racist. Whitfield's contribution is a sophomoric misdiagnosis of the problem, and worse, a disservice to young black males. In the real world, standards and merit matter. Students should not be taught otherwise.

Equally ineffective is the chapter written by Marnie Thompson, who, unlike some contributors, has credentials - or, what passes for credentials in public education. GCS, she writes, is hampered by "the problems of discrimination and unequal opportunity." Lest you doubt the claim, she writes that, "if we wanted to 'prove it' with our own studies, we could." If the problem is racism, and Thompson can prove it, isn't she obligated to come forward with those studies?

Despite the lack of evidence, Thompson feels free to insist, repeatedly, that racism pervades the school system. Furthermore, and equally predictably, she writes that standardized tests "and the culture around them over-emphasize individual performance at the expense of learning to collaborate on problem-solving." This is not the approach "that is needed to build strong communities ready to take on the challenges of peak oil and global warming." These are the same touchy-feely, liberal evasions of responsibility that we have been hearing for years.

Far more disturbing is the degree to which Thompson lionizes teachers. Teaching, she writes, "is a complex activity" that has "all the hallmarks of complex cognition that we see in scientists, champion chess players, and concert musicians." This is hyperbolic nonsense. Before we genuflect in the presence of these intellectual giants, consider another view of professional educators.

A few years ago, Martin Gross wrote a devastating analysis of public education called "The Conspiracy of Ignorance," which includes chapters on the academic credentials of professional educators: "The fact is that teachers occupy the lowest level of academe, and most of the nonperformance of our schoolchildren comes from two sources: the intellectual deficiency of their teachers and the wrongheadedness of their teachers' training and philosophy." Gross supports his claims with dozens of studies.

A couple of other books that should be mandatory reading on the subject are "Inside American Education" by Thomas Sowell and "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" by Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom.

If the school board is serious about educating black males, it will disregard misinformation and seek input from objective and authoritative (non-establishment) sources.

Charles Davenport Jr. (daisha99@msn.com) is a freelance columnist who appears alternate Sundays in the News & Record. His next column will look at causes of and possible solutions to the African American male achievement gap.