What is Ebonics? Is it a language or not? Should it be used as a tool to teach Ebonic speaking students "standard" English or not? These issues recently came under fire when an Oakland, California school board unanimously voted that Ebonics, which is also referred to as black English, is a language with clearly evident African American roots. They concluded that any student who speaks Ebonics should be given the necessary help to master standard English (Harris 25). This controversy was sparked when the problem of low standard achievement of black youth in schools was being discussed. Because of this problem, the Oakland school board made the incorrect assessment that Ebonics is a language which it is not, while at the same time, trying to reach out to these students they actually hold them back, and they also fail to recognize that the responsibility of answering this problem lies squarely on the educator's shoulders. .

             First of all, the problem is basically to improve low achievement levels of African-American students. In Oakland, for instance, 53 percent of the students are black. These students only earned a combined grade point average of 1.8 on a 4.0 scale. While only 37 percent are honors students, and about 71 out of 100 special education students are African-American. Also, 80 percent of the students who are suspended are blacks (Haynes 5).

             This problem led the Oakland school board to unanimously vote that Ebonics is a language which it is not, it is a dialect. Random House defines Ebonics as "a variety of a language distinguished from other varieties by features of phonology, grammar and vocabulary, and by its use by a group of speakers set off from others geographically or socially" (Qtd. in Kilpatrick 22). In Random House's definition, Ebonics is not a separate language, but a slightly different form of another language which is English. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley representing the Clinton Administration said that the administration also agrees that Ebonics is not a separate language, but a nonstandard variety of English (Qtd in Harris 25).