Page 8 - Florida Sentinel 1-25-19

Feature
TOBA Breakfast Speaker Says ‘Educational Excellence’ Should Be Available To All
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
In his fight for social jus- tice, Martin Luther King, Jr. centered civil rights and economic equality. While those things continue to be important today, there’s an- other critical issue that may overshadow the others: uni-
versal access to educational excellence.
The above is crucial be- cause it is the pathway to po- litical power and economic liberation, Spelman College president Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., told an audience of about 800 at the 39th Annual TOBA Dr. Mar- tin Luther King, Jr., Leader-
ship Breakfast.
The advancement of an-
other technological shift – which will center Artificial Intelligence, biotechnology, and robotics – will render some 80 million unskilled jobs obsolete. This makes it imperative that access to ed- ucational excellence is avail- able to all, Dr. Campbell said.
Attainment of a college education is one way to pre- pare, she said.
“We know that a four- year college ed is an engine of social mobility and indi- cator of future wealth,” she said.
But college completion rate among African-Ameri- cans are lagging compared
components – including lit- eracy – were once a top pri- ority of state governments. But that has been replaced with prisons, Dr. Camp- bell said.
The flip, she said, is “sin- ful.”
Lifelong learning must be exalted, as well as teach- ers, who inspire the “love of lifelong learning,” Dr. Campbell said.
Spelman has deployed its students into local schools to offer reading and math tu- toring to help boost literacy rates, she said.
“It’s important that com- munities be of a “common purpose” and support insti- tutions that are succeeding, she said.
Ultimately, the onus is on us to continue King’s work and expand it to include ac- cess to educational excel- lence, Dr. Campbell said.
“King left us this vision of the beloved commu- nity...and it is this vision we are still striving for,” she said. “Do everything in our power to make that dream a reality for us now and in the future.”
Mary Schmidt Campbell addressed the audience at the 39th Annual TOBA Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Breakfast. (Photograph by Lomax McIntyre)
to their white and Hispanic counterparts. Reversing that trend requires schools and communities to invest in boosting literacy rates among students, Dr. Campbell said.
“We have to make sure we have 100 percent liter- acy,” she said. “Every com- munity should champion 100 percent literacy.”
Education and all of its
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