Category: Black Boys in Crisis

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  While the current U.S. economy continues to improve, there is one area that is still feeling the squeeze from the recession years: K-12 public school spending. Recently, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that 34 states are contributing less funding on a per student basis than they did before the recession years. Since states are responsible for 44 percent of total education funding in the …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: Poverty and School Funding”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the watermark Supreme Court decision cementing segregation in US law, ushered in a new era of “separate but equal,” which in practice was anything but. The half century between Plessy and Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which abolished segregation in schools, was coincidentally a time of dramatic expansion in US public education. This fact should not go unnoticed: Even as educational services …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: Dismantling “Separate but Equal””

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  Two figures loom large over the early stages of African-American education: Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Washington, who was born into slavery in 1856, became the leader of the above-mentioned Tuskegee Institute. He advocated for accommodation and encouraged blacks to bolster themselves through educational and business opportunities, rather than by defying the Jim Crow laws that were taking effect at the time. Though …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: Washington and Du Bois Are Turning Over In Their Graves”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  Though African Americans have achieved remarkable gains—exemplified by the election in 2008 of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land—our progress remains stymied by endemic racism, political barriers, and a legal and policing system still heavily biased against African Americans. In this article, we will look at one of the most important strands of the African-American struggle for freedom: the quest for education, which was …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: The Quest for a Chance to Learn”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  In 1619, at the ironically named Point Comfort, Virginia, “twenty and odd” Africans were taken off an English warship, The White Lion, and exchanged for food. Most of their names have long been forgotten. What we do know is that the Africans were probably from what is now Angola, on the southwest coast of Africa. They were in transit to Mexico on the Portuguese São João Bautista …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: A Grim Beginning and a Bleak Future”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Southern Mississippi, I had the pleasure of taking a class under Dr. John Koeppel entitled “The History of Psychology.” He was a superb professor and encouraged his students to maximize their potential. For one of our class research papers, a classmate and I decided to study the subject of race and intelligence. We uncovered startling studies funded by …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: Completing the Journey”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  One of the most influential teachers I had was my high school biology teacher, Mrs. Minor. She was the wife of my former elementary school principal, and mother to one of my classmates. Mrs. Minor approached her job as a teacher from the standpoint of love and caring. She recognized that, for many of us, her smile was the only one we would see each day. She …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: Teachers, the Good and the Appalling”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis.  My understanding of the black male crisis is deeply personal. In the articles in this series, I will tell a few stories from my past that illustrate what life is like for the average black male growing up in America. At the elementary school, I attended, most of the students came from families with incomes at or below the poverty line. Our neighborhoods provided us with few …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: The Intersection of Poverty and Education”

In this series, appropriately titled “Black Boys in Crisis,” I highlight the problems facing black boys in education today, as well as provide clear steps that will lead us out of the crisis. When I was in elementary school (the mid-1980’s) one of my teachers periodically brought professionals from the area to our class to talk about their careers. On one occasion, she brought in a black male doctor from a local hospital. He spoke for about fifteen minutes and then opened up the floor for questions. One of my friends (also a black male) raised his hand. “Are you …

Continue reading “Black Boys in Crisis: “Black People Can’t Be Doctors””