Equity in education has long been an ideal. It’s an ideal celebrated in a variety of contexts, too. Even the Founding Fathers celebrated education as an ideal, something to which every citizen ought to be entitled. Unfortunately though, the practice of equity in education has been less than effective. That is, equity is a difficult ideal to maintain and many strategies attempting to maintain it have fallen far short in the implementation.
The most obvious and horrendous element, of course, is the No Child Left Behind Act. But even Obama has notably dabbled in an attempt to manage equity in education. A 2013 report called, “For Each and Every Child”, reported that “some young Americans – most of them white and affluent – are getting a world-class education” while those who “attend schools in high poverty neighborhoods are getting an education that more closely approximates schools in developing nations.”
With this apparently the situation, the problem of ensuring that every child in the United States receives a quality education is quite a substantial one. This basic hurdle has not even been overcome.
The steps recommended by the government report to remedy this included having states specifically identify and report on the teaching staff, programs, and services they deem necessary for a quality education; and adopting and implementing a school finance system to provide “equitable and sufficient funding” for all students essentially to meet learning standards.
Part of the problem with these proposed solutions, though, is that they assume states and ultimately also schools can figure out what it is they need or what it is they need to do to provide a quality education. The assumption, based on this report and no doubt many others, is that money – preferably money poured into schools – is enough to solve educational issues. That is, reassignment of resources to support schools in poorer areas will be sufficient, along with some reporting on considered needs, to balance the public education system.
This is problematic because the issue of equity, and perhaps equality, is far more complex than this scenario allows. There are many elements at play, not just the immediate financial. Students in certain affluent areas have the benefit of the best teachers, given that it is highly desirable to have a placement in this area. It is also decidedly competitive to even try.
The first step is really for some determination to be made about how, under general circumstances, education can be made equitable to all students. Above all, this assessment should not directly involve teachers or administrators, whose assessment may be skewed, but rather the assessment should be through observation.
Second, the states should provide feedback on those programs and strategies that are most effective for equity building.
Finally, to maintain equity, if it is ever achieved, school systems need to have an approach for analyzing findings about recommended shifts in learning approaches and objectives. These approaches should be designed to help teachers and administrators understand not what they have to avoid but also what it is that they can do to achieve optimal equity moving forward.
It’s no secret that Black boys are considered the trouble makers of society. In America’s prison systems, black citizens are incarcerated at six times the rates of white ones – and the NAACP predicts that one in three of this generation of Black boys will spend some time locked up. Do these numbers tell the true story though? Are Black boys inherently more dangerous than their white and Hispanic peers – or are they the products of racial profiling and a society that sets them up to fail?
In the first part of this series I looked at the connection between low reading ability and a lifetime of struggle for Black young men in the U.S., but today I want to focus on a non-academic area that impacts this group in childhood: punishment that begins in K-12 classrooms.
Troubling Stats in Schools
Nearly 75 percent of all schools in the U.S. report at least one violent incident in their schools each year, but that number rises to 82 percent for schools with a majority of Black students. Though Hispanic boys are the most likely to be involved with gang activity at school, it is certainly an issue for Black boys too – with 31 percent of students nationwide reporting seeing Black gang activity in their schools. Violence is just one part of the criminal side of K-12 hallways, though. There are also higher numbers of non-violent crimes, like theft, in schools where more students are Black than any other race.
All of that being said, there still IS violence in schools where Black students are the minority, and committed by non-Black students. Yet, over and over again statistics show that punishment for Black boys – even first-time offenders – in schools is harsher than any other demographic. Consider these facts:
• Black students make up just 18 percent of children in U.S. preschools, but make up half of those youngsters who are suspended.
• Black boys receive two-thirds of all school suspensions nationwide – all demographics and both genders considered.
• In Chicago, 75 percent of all students arrested in public schools are Black.
Also troubling is the fact that not all of the Black boys taken from their schools in handcuffs are violent, or even criminals. Increasingly, school-assigned law enforcement officers are leading these students from their schools hallways for minor offenses, including class disruption, tardiness and even non-violent arguments with other students. It seems that it is easier to remove these students from class through the stigma of suspension or arrest than to look for in-school solutions.
Minnesota civil rights attorney Nekima Levy-Pounds writes that “it is a continual affront to the human dignity of black boys to be treated as second class citizens within the public school system and made to feel as though they are not welcome in mainstream classroom settings.”
In Minneapolis, for example, an Office for Black Male Student Achievement has been created within the public schools to address the specific challenges that face young black males face when navigating the public school system. It appears that the effort may just be smoke and mirrors, however, as only $200,000 has been dedicated to it – which amounts to just $28 per African American boy.
School-to-Prison pipeline
School suspension, and certainly arrest, is just the beginning of a life considered on the wrong side of the law for many Black boys. By 18 years of age, 30 percent of Black males have been arrested at least once, compared to just 22 percent of white males. Those numbers rise to 49 percent for Black men by the age of 23, and 38 percent of white males. Researchers from several universities concluded earlier this year that arrests early in life often set the course for more crimes and incarceration throughout the rest of the offender’s lifetime.
Turning our backs on the misbehavior of our K-12 youth doesn’t teach them a lesson, or lead to lives that are changed for the better. It only simplifies the present, paving the way for a future of crime and other misbehavior. In order to change the troubling trends of Black men and crime, we first need to address the way Black boys are disciplined in K-12 schools and look for better solutions to suspensions and arrests.
The news comes as HBCUs are under scrutiny for effectiveness and if black students are better served by attending Predominately White Institutions (PWI).
Some HBCUs are struggling to survive due to debt but this report shows that the product being produced at America’s predominately black colleges and universities is pretty good. For anyone who has been lauding the relevancy of HBCUs for some time now (like me), this is music to our ears.
The study found that over 50 percent of HBCU graduates who were surveyed viewed their prospects after graduation as positive while just under 30 percent of black graduates from PWIs viewed them as positive.
Again–all good news for soon-to-be graduates and for the health of HBCUs. Of course, there is always a ‘but’ when studies are released.
“The report found that four in 10 black HBCU graduates are more likely to thrive financially while fewer than three in 10 black graduates of other schools can say the same.”
That news is likely tied to the overall health of the economy and how graduates may find their place in an ever changing workforce. I’m also not sure what the definition of “thrive” is in this case. There is a difference, I think, in being comfortable or being affluent.
Overall, though, this news is great for HBCUs and the students who attend them. The report found that graduates from HBCUs are better emotionally, have stronger relationships, and are more goal oriented as well.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
However, the reasons for black kids to be homeschooled may not be the same as white kids.My research shows that black parents homeschool their children due to white racism.
This may come as a surprise since, for many, we live in an age ofalleged color blindness and post-racialism, characterized by the declining significance of race and racism.
My research found strong evidence to suggest that racism is far from being a thing of the past.
I found covert institutional racism and individual racism still persist and are largely responsible for the persistence of profound racial disparities and inequalities in many social realms. Schools, of course, are no exception, which helps one understand why racism is such a powerful drive for black homeschoolers.
In the Spring and Fall 2010, I interviewed 74 African-American homeschooling families from around the US. While the size of my sample does not allow me to claim that it is representative of the whole African-American homeschooling population, it was nonetheless large enough to allow me to capture the main reasons why black parents tend to homeschool their children.
Eurocentric curriculum and teachers’ attitudes
When it comes to schools, there are at least two important areas of concern: the curriculum and teachers’ attitudes and behaviors.
School curricula continue to promote a worldview developed by Western civilization. This wholesale Eurocentric orientation of most schools’ curricula, in a society that, ironically, is becoming increasingly brown, speaks volumes about a pervasive European ethnocentrism, that is, the notion that every one in the world thinks and does or should think and do like Europeans.
Peggy McIntosh, an anti-racism activist, often cites a list of things she can take for granted as a white woman. Her list reflects the nature of the curriculum that students grow up being exposed to.
As she says: “When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I’m shown that people of my color made it what it is;” as well as “I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that attest to the existence of their race.”
As school curricula is Eurocentric, African-Americans find themselves quasi-excluded from the curriculum.Boy image via www.shutterstock.com
For black people, as I found, it is a totally different experience. Indeed, while European culture and thought are implicitly presented as universal and Europe as the only place from which great ideas and discoveries originated, Africa and African-descended people find themselves quasi-excluded from the curriculum.
As one of the fathers with whom I spoke in Atlanta succinctly articulated, “All we learn about is their stuff, and we know nothing about our stuff, our history, our culture.”
This results in a general school-sanctioned ignorance about Africa and its descendants and in a disdain for the black experience, as I found through my interviews. Eventually, this becomes a pervasive and potent form of institutional racism.
Racial stereotypes harm black kids
Furthermore, the attitudes and actions of white teachers (who make up 85% of all public school teachers) were questioned by many of the African-American parents with whom I spoke. They consistently portrayed white teachers as “overly critical, unresponsive, unqualified, insensitive, offensive, mean, hypocritical, and using double standards.”
Studies of the impact of negative white teachers’ attitudes on the school experience of black children reveal that there are two areas where teachers’ unchecked prejudices have been particularly visible and tragic: the over-referral of black students to special education programs and to the criminal system.
Indeed, African-American students are more than twice as likely to be labeled cognitively “deficient” than white American students. Although they only make up 17% of the student population, they nonetheless represent 33% of those enrolled in programs for the mentally challenged.
What appears to be a false and incorrect labeling, has a dire impact on the ability of black students to attend college and achieve social mobility.
Harsh school punishments
Likewise, black students account nationally for 34% of all suspensions. In reality, harsh school punishments have become one of the primary mechanisms through which the school-to-prison pipeline operates, pushing large numbers of black children out of school and into the “justice” system to feed the prison industrial complex that has blossomed over recent years.
Certainly, the parents I interviewed were very much aware of and concerned about the “traps” set by many public schools for black children. One mother in New York poignantly declared, “I say America does not love my children. You know the statistics about prisons and all that. They have a plan for my children, and I am not going along with it.”
Given this state of affairs, it is hardly surprising that a growing number of black parents, frustrated with a school system that is quick to criminalize and disenfranchise their children, turn to homeschooling as an alternative.
Thus, for many black parents, homeschooling equates with a refusal to surrender their children to a system that they see as bent on destroying them. For them, it is an act of active and conscious resistance to racism.
African-American homeschooling
By taking the constant threat of harassment and discrimination out of the picture, homeschooling provides African-American parents the space and time to educate and socialize their children for optimal personal development.
I found the home education is planned and delivered primarily by mothers, who stay at home, or work from home. This mother-led home education process is commonly observed among homeschoolers.
In general, two strategies are commonly observed among black home educators: imparting self-knowledge and self-esteem through positive teaching about Africa and African-Americans.
While finding ready-to-use educational materials can be challenging, most parents reported creating their own materials, by drawing from different sources, such as books, documentaries, the internet, field-trips, etc.
Many go out of their way to provide exposure to black people who have achieved greatness in their domain, for instance, literature, science, or history, in an effort not only to educate their children about their history and culture, but also to instill racial pride and confidence in them.
In other words, many black homeschooling parents engage in racial protectionism, so that they will have the self-confidence and knowledge necessary to face and overcome the hurdles that white racism appears to place in their path.
_________________________
Ama Mazama is the Associate Professor and Graduate Director at Temple University.
As a student-centered instructional method, culturally-responsive teaching is focused on catering to the social, emotional, and educational needs of the student. Among the first goals that teachers must achieve in order to successfully create a culturally responsive environment is convincing their students that they genuinely care about their cultural, emotional, and intellectual needs.
Get their names right. It may sound simple enough, but a teacher who does not take the time to even know the names of his or her students, exactly as they should be pronounced, shows a basic lack of respect for those students. Teachers should learn the proper pronunciation of student names and express interest in the etymology of interesting and diverse names.
Encourage students to learn about each other. Teachers should have their students research and share information about their ethnic background as a means of fostering a trusting relationship with both fellow classmates. Students are encouraged to analyze and celebrate differences in traditions, beliefs, and social behaviors. It is of note that this task helps European-American students realize that their beliefs and traditions constitute a culture as well, which is a necessary breakthrough in the development of a truly culturally responsive classroom.
Give students a voice. Another important requirement for creating a nurturing environment for students is reducing the power differential between the instructor and students. Students in an authoritarian classroom may sometimes display negative behaviors as a result of a perceived sense of social injustice; in the culturally diverse classroom, the teacher thus acts more like a facilitator than an instructor. Providing students with questionnaires about what they find to be interesting or important provides them with a measure of power over what they get to learn and provides them with greater intrinsic motivation and connectedness to the material. Allowing students to bring in their own reading material and present it to the class provides them with an opportunity to both interact with and share stories, thoughts, and ideas that are important to their cultural and social perspective.
Be aware of language constraints. Maintaining a strict level of sensitivity to language concerns is another important component of a culturally responsive classroom. In traditional classrooms, students who are not native English speakers often feel marginalized, lost, and pressured into discarding their original language in favor of English. In a culturally responsive classroom, diversity of language is celebrated and the level of instructional materials provided to non-native speakers are tailored to their level of English fluency. Accompanying materials should be provided in the student’s primary language and the student should be encouraged to master English.
Hand out praise accordingly. High expectations for student performance form the core of the motivational techniques used in culturally responsive instruction. Given that culturally responsive instruction is a student-centered philosophy, it should come as no surprise that expectations for achievement are determined and assigned individually for each student. Students don’t receive lavish praise for simple tasks but do receive praise in proportion to their accomplishments. When expectations are not met then encouragement is the primary emotional currency used by the educator. If a student is not completing her work, then one should engage the student positively and help guide the student toward explaining how to complete the initial steps that need to be done to complete a given assignment or task. Once the student has successfully performed the initial steps for successful learning it will boost his sense of efficacy and help facilitate future learning attempts.
While popular among educators in traditional classrooms, reward systems should be considered with caution in a culturally responsive setting. Reward systems can sometimes be useful for convincing unmotivated students to perform tasks in order to get a reward (and hopefully learn something in the process) but they have the undesirable long-term side effect of diminishing intrinsic motivation for learning. This effect is particularly strong for students who were already intrinsically motivated to learn before shifting their focus toward earning rewards. Given that one of the prime goals of culturally responsive instruction is to motivate students to become active participants in their learning, caution and forethought should be used before deciding to introduce a reward system into the equation.
A culturally response, student-centered classroom should never alienate any one student, but should bring all the different backgrounds together in a blended format. Teachers should develop their own strategies, as well as take cues from their students to make a culturally responsive classroom succeed.
Culturally responsive teaching is a theory of instruction that was developed by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and has been written about by many other scholars since then. To read more of her work on culturally responsive teaching and other topics, click here to visit her Amazon.com page.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Sam Chaltain
Don’t get me wrong: I love Big Bird as much as the next guy. But when people start talking about how Sesame Street is just as effective at closing the achievement gap as preschool, I start to worry that we’re becoming enamored with a seductively simple characterization of a deeply complex problem.
To wit: this article, in which we are told the “new findings offer comforting news for parents who put their children in front of public TV every day.” Or this radio story, in which the reporter claims that the show’s heavy dosage of reading and math can yield long-term academic benefits that “close the achievement gap.”
The lure of a set of findings like this is pretty clear: plug your kids into an educational TV show, help them learn their letters and numbers, and voila! No more class inequality. And actually, when one considers how we measure the achievement gap — via the reading and math test scores of schoolchildren — the opportunity to draw a linear line of cause and effect is available to us.
The problem, of course, is that school is about a lot more than literacy and numeracy — and the problems that beset poor children run a lot deeper than the 30 million word gap.
Consider the research around ACE Scores — or the number of adverse childhood experiences young people have — and how much those scores shape a child’s readiness to learn and develop (you can take a short quiz to get your own score here).
Dr. Pamela Cantor has spent a lot of time thinking about ACE Scores. She founded Turnaround for Children to help schools become more attuned to the cognitive, social and emotional needs of kids, and she’s one of many out there who are urging us to understand what the latest research in child development is telling us about what we need to be doing in schools. As she puts it, “The profound impact of extreme stress on a child’s developing brain can have huge implications for the way children learn, the design of classrooms, the preparation of teachers and school leaders, and what is measured as part of the school improvement effort as a whole.”
Consequently, whereas reduced exposure to the building blocks of reading and math is a problem (and one that Sesame Street can clearly help address), the biggest problem for at-risk children — the root cause — has to do with their social and emotional health.
The good news is that although these deficits are profound, they are also predictable, since they stem directly from the effects that stress and trauma have on young people’s brains and bodies. “These stresses impact the development of the brain centers involved in learning,” Cantor explains. “It is because these challenges are knowable and predictable that it is possible to design an intervention to address them. Collectively, they represent a pattern of risk—risk to student development, risk to classroom instruction, and risk to school-wide culture—each of which is capable of derailing academic achievement.”
That means the best way to help poor and at-risk children become prepared for school is by ensuring that high-poverty schools have universal practices and supports that specifically address the impact of adverse childhood experiences. So while I love and appreciate the benefits of Sesame Street, I’d feel better if instead of suggesting that every child needs more time with Grover in the morning, we suggested that every child’s ACE Scoreneeds more weight in determining how schools allocate resources to support their students’ holistic development.
I hope that doesn’t make me seem like Oscar the Grouch.
Sam Chaltain (@samchaltain) is a DC-based writer, filmmaker, and strategic communications consultant. His work focuses on the changing nature of teaching and learning in America, and on how individuals and organizations can find and tell stories that capture the emotional center of an idea; build and sustain an audience of supporters over time (as opposed to merely generating awareness); and leverage both traditional and new media in order to expand an ideological base of support.
**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**
A guest post by Justin Aaron Foster
As one of only two black male educators in a school district of over 400 employees times can get very interesting, not to mention lonely. As an educator now for over fifteen years being the only minority employee in a district is something not exactly new to me. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics only 2% of the nation’s 4.8 million teachers are black men*. As a certified school counselor working in an elementary school, my being a black male in a profession where many of my colleagues are young to middle aged white females I do have to admit to many times feeling out of place. At the professional conferences I attend there is no hiding for me, especially when topics about race come up. I can feel all eyes become focused on me! At first this used to bother me somewhat, but over time I have come to accept this reality and kind of relish it. I began to realize that I have unique insights being a black male and I enjoy offering my perspective. Growing up and attending school has its own inherent difficulties and challenges. For many minority students attending school in an environment where many of the people teaching you look nothing like you and may not be able to understand where you are coming from either culturally or emotionally can be very scary. Unfortunately from my experience as a student and teaching professional, I have found that stereotypes and misconceptions about these differences can be barriers to relationships in some cases, barriers that at times impacts students learning.
Yes I am different. When it comes to my day to day life in my elementary school one of the things I love most about who I am and the opportunity I have is to break some people’s perceptions of black males. Last year, my first in my current district, as I meet colleagues in other buildings and parents at school functions for the first time one of the questions that I fielded quite often was, “do you teach gym”? After I’d smile and say no, I‘d explain to them that I am certified by the state of Pennsylvania to be a K-12 School Counselor. My answer sometimes would draw sheepish blank stares, to which after a few seconds I’d pat the person on the back and say don’t worry, I get the gym teacher comment a lot. I work in a suburban Pennsylvania school district and from what I have been told by many long timer staffer is that I am the first professional male of color to ever work in my particular building. I will never forget on my tour around the building during my interview, one of the students walked up to me and asked if I was the “President of the United States”. After a good laugh I told the young man no, I am somebody who wants to teach here. He looked strangely at me as to say you teach? Now mind you, I look nothing like President Barak Obama, but as it was explained to me after we all had a good laugh that day, many of the students in my building have never seen a black male in a suit and tie.
Making an impact. For me one of the saddest and at the same time angriest moments of my career took place last year. I was working with a young second grade female student in my office when she asked me if I “stole stuff”. I answered her by saying no, I don’t steal things. A little stunned I said to her, why would you ask me that question and she answered because her father often says at home that “black guys steal everything.” The young girl clearly meant no harm by asking me the question, she was very innocent, but in her mind up until that point she had a negative and false image that may have lingered for years had she not met a black male to break her negative misconception. Many students during my first year would also ask me without any negative intent things like why don’t I play pro football or basketball, or even why don’t I fight MMA? As if being a black male I should be a professional athlete, this was what to this point many of the students knew black males to do. As someone weight trains often and takes care of myself, these types of questions are not too out of line, but the reality is many viewed me in this way due to their lack of exposure black male teaching professionals.
I recall back when I was a student in K-12 I only ever had one black teacher, Mr. Turner. I will never forget, Mr. Turner taught art in my high school I was always so excited to have his class. Up until that point I never thought about teaching, I did not have any reference point for what an educator looked like other than a white male or female in their mid to late fifties. I remember doing everything I could to impress Mr. Turner, not ever wanting to disappoint him. It was this experience that first gave me the desire to want to teach. Mr. Turner, a man similar looking to me inspired me to want to do even better in school.
Going forward. My hope is that over the next few years the numbers of minority teaching professionals grows. The opportunity for students of all colors to have exposure to black male professional people in the classroom who can not only teach them academic skills but that by their positive presence can also day by day break down many of the stereotypes and negative perceptions they may have learned unconsciously are not realities. This expanded view of who black males are and who they can be will only benefit our society.
_________________________
Justin Foster currently works as a public school counselor in Pennsylvania and has over a decade of experience working with youth and families in both public and private education. Justin is a speaker, trainer, author, and educational consultant who enjoys working with students, parents, community leaders and others with a vested interest in being positive influences in the lives of our young people. His messages focus on stressing the power and importance of education, character development, and personal responsibility.
