‘All-Out Effort’ in Education of Blacks Urged

The president of the National Urban League has called for “an all-out effort” on the part of the black community to bring its children a better education.

John E. Jacobs said Friday that “it is obvious that black kids, when you look at the data, are performing at the bottom of all other young people participating in the educational systems.”

“We happen to believe that need not be. It will take an all-out effort of organizations like ours, all-out leadership coming from the black community to turn that around.

Demand Performance

“We have to demand better performance from the schools and from the children in those schools. We have to demand that the kids take the right courses. We cannot let the black kids decide what courses they want to take. We have to decide what they need to take. And we have to see that they take them, so that science becomes important, math becomes important, English becomes important.”

Jacobs was in San Francisco for today’s opening of the league’s annual convention. He said the conclave would draw about 16,000 participants, making it “America’s largest forum on race relations.”

He said the league has made family life and education its special target for an intensive five-year program.

Jacobs said that while he agrees with President Reagan that there are “plenty of jobs in America going unfilled, I disagree with him on how to fill them.

‘Being Mis-Educated’

“One thing for sure, America is running out of white males. Otherwise those jobs would be filled. Given the shrinking number of white males, the work force of tomorrow will come from those kids who are being mis-educated today.”

Jacobs said the Urban League recognizes that the problems of education, hunger, the homeless, “and even the problem of racism,” are national problems and not minority problems.

For the next five years, he said, “We have committed ourselves to engage in an educational initiative designed to raise the performance level of black kids in public schools in the 113 cities in which we operate.”