Success for Black Boys

Written by Claudio E. Cabrera
NEW YORK — U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan elicited a collective gasp from an audience at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network convention today when he revealed that less than two percent of the nation’s schoolteachers were Black and male. “And we wonder why our boys are struggling,” Duncan said. “We need more Latino and African American male teachers. We need to show these kids that they can also educate people just like them when they grow up.” Duncan used the convention to promote the federal TEACH campaign that persuades male minorities to enter education.
 The program was launched in the Fall 2010.

Duncan recounted a story from the days after he was appointed to President Obama’s cabinet in 2008, when he sat down with Sharpton and professed that the civil rights issue of the 21st century was no longer race.

“The issue is education,” Duncan told Sharpton. “We have to do whatever it takes to educate our children and we’re currently failing,” said Duncan.



View original story @ NewsOne

OAKLAND -- Amir Ealy is bright and motivated. He tears around the yard with his friends before school, but when he walks into the classroom, he is ready to learn.

So his teachers were proud, but not surprised, to learn the 8-year-old earned a perfect score on the state math test last spring.

"It goes with him," said Michelle Ramos-Stokes, who was Amir's first- and second-grade teacher at Sobrante Park Elementary School in East Oakland. "He works really hard, and he causes everyone who's around him to work hard."

A recent school district analysis revealed that about 400 elementary schoolchildren in Oakland Unified tested perfectly in math or reading on the 2010 California Standards Test. Twenty-three of them were African-American boys.
Read more @ The Oakland Tribune

By Mary Ann Zehr
KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from, but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8, says a new nationwide study by researchers at Western Michigan University.

“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist, but not all who come.”

With 99 charter schools across the country, most of which serve grades 5 to 8, the Knowledge Is Power Program network has built a national reputation for success in enabling low-income minority students to do well academically. And some studies show that KIPP charter schools have succeeded in significantly narrowing race-based and income-based achievement gaps between students over time. While not disputing that track record, the new study attempts to probe some of the more unexplored factors that might play into KIPP’s success.
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When Malcolm Marshall and several other Black and Latino students were sent letters excluding them from a Harvard University information session at their public high school in Georgia, Marshall’s outraged mother called the university. Recruiters assured her that it was not their policy to exclude students and that all those who had been banned from attending were allowed to join in. Marshall, now a junior at Rutgers University, remembers the vice principal of his high school telling him, “It’s so hard to get in. You probably won’t get in anyway.”

Marshall credits his mother for helping him reach his educational goals, saying she never took no for an answer. He is now in the process of applying to graduate programs in education, with the goal of promoting access to higher education for students of all backgrounds. He hopes to work as a college administrator or in the U.S. Department of Education.

“I guess I was always preoccupied with that burning question: Why was I more successful than some of my … peers in school that look like me and came from similar backgrounds?” he says.

While surfing the Web, Marshall came across an initiative that is probing that same issue. Dr. Shaun Harper, a professor of higher education, Africana studies and gender studies at the University of Pennsylvania, launched the Grad Prep Academy in 2009 to create a pipeline of Black males for graduate programs in education. Marshall applied to the Academy and is now part of its second class. The initiative prepares eight to 10 Black men every year to enter master’s and/or doctorate programs in education by providing funding for a GRE class, mentorship, and guidance through the admissions process.
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By Stephen Henderson Detroit Free Press
Like the self-congratulatory folks in Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above average," we're fooling ourselves.

Are as many as 97% of Michigan students really achieving at above-average levels?

That the latest MEAP scores say so is one of the cardinal troubles with education in our state: We've lowered standards, gradually but consistently. We've also refused to hold schools accountable, even to those lower standards. And we have yet to develop a concrete plan for consistent, statewide school improvement.

As a result, we're blowing our own horn and thinking the flat notes sound just fine while other states and countries are developing full symphonies.

Sometime this spring, Gov. Rick Snyder has promised to lay out his plans for education reform in Michigan. As a prelude to that, I'll address in this and subsequent columns several key areas that badly need revamping:

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We are inundated daily with messages about the challenges and disparities facing African-American males. From educational outcomes, to economic and health indicators, to criminal justice involvement, we are constantly reminded of the bleak statistics and associated decreased future possibilities for African-American males. Decades of scholarly research has sought to examine the complex interplay between race, gender, identity, socioeconomic status, social structure, oppression, and opportunity, and the development of African-American males within this reality. Within education, the field has moved forward dramatically in understanding the outcomes of African-American males, thanks in part to researchers looking beyond the blame of individuals and instead examining systemic influences.
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I was introduced to the work of Roszalyn Akins at a conference being held by the Mississippi Learning Institute. Roz (that's her nickname) was giving a presentation about her program called "Black Males Working." I was immediately impressed with the vigor and passion with which Roz approached the important task of mentoring and educating young black boys. Without having the funding or the fanfare that her program truly deserves, Roz has taken the "worst" kids in her district and turned them into academic champions. She reminds us that there is nothing that our kids can't do when they are given an opportunity and a little bit of encouragement. Saving the black male is not just something just that helps black men. It is important to any woman who cares about her son, husband, brother or father. In fact, saving the black male is critical to protecting the black family in America. It is for her never-ending commitment to empowering black boys that Roszalyn Akins is today's Dr. Boyce Watkins Spotlight on AOL Black Voices:

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