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Obama Helping Big City Schools Increase Acadmic Achievement For Hispanic And Black Boys (Picture)
Leaders in some of the nation’s big-city school districts say they have new momentum—created by attention from President Barack Obama—to tackle one of the most vexing problems in urban schools: improving academic outcomes for African-American and Latino boys.
But despite the president’s high-profile call for action to improve the lives of boys of color in his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, doing so remains a monumental task for educators. There are no new federal funds to bring to bear, nor is there certainty that the current national focus on the well-being of minority boys will outlast the Obama administration.
Still, 62 big-city school systems—61 of them members of the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools—joined the White House initiative this past summer, with a pledge to ramp up their efforts to steer boys of color to higher achievement, better graduation rates, and more successful lives. In the months since, district leaders from Long Beach, Calif., to Anchorage have been reassessing existing programs, partnering with local businesses and governments, and calling for honest conversations about the role race plays in their policies and practices.
While many of the strategies under way are not necessarily novel, district leaders said the collective impact of dozens of school systems working to improve achievement for boys of color holds promise.
Dozens of big-city school districts have committed to a range of strategies aimed at boosting the academic success of African-American, Latino, and Native American boys. The pledge they issued this summer calls for the 62 districts to:
- Implement strategies in early and middle grades to increase the pipeline of minority boys who are on track to do well in high school;
- Keep data, establish protocols, and monitor the progress of boys of color and other students to facilitate early interventions when needed;
- Use proven approaches to cut absentee rates—especially chronic absenteeism;
- Develop retention initiatives to keep males of color in school and reduce disproportionate suspensions and expulsions;
- Increase participation rates in Advanced Placement, honors, and gifted programs;
- Encourage teacher-preparation programs to use curricula that address the academic, social, and cultural needs of males of color and keep data on how their teachers perform with students of color;
- Work to transform high schools with chronically low graduation rates for boys of color, and provide literacy and other engagement initiatives for parents;
- Reduce the number of minority boys in special education classes;
- Improve supports for students to complete college financial aid applications and increase the number of students who do so;
- Spearhead a broader discussion about race, language, and culture in the districts.
“It’s not just one district that’s moving on its own,” said Felton Williams, a member of the Long Beach school board. “They are moving as part of a collective whole. The difference with what you’re seeing now is synergy. Everybody is rowing the boat in the same direction.” READMORE
You’re delusional.
Yeah, screw ‘whitey’, right?
After 60+ years of taxpayer funded social programs, scholarships, affirmative actions programs, preferences from here to eternity, one would think they could READ by now.