Transcript Mobilizing Your Community for School Improvement

The Educational Achievement of
Black and Latino Males:
A Persistent and Present Challenge
Warren Simmons: Presenter
Promoting the Achievement of Culturally Diverse Males
Mid-Atlantic Equity Center Annual Regional Conference
March 2006
Washington, DC
Goals of the Presentation
 Revisit roots of current challenge posed by underpreparation and achievement of African American and
Latino Males
 View historical and current challenge in context of
changing families, communities and schools.
 Discuss implications for today’s response to an old/new
challenge
Annenberg Institute for School Reform
at Brown University
 Established in 1993 with a gift from Ambassador
Annenberg to Brown University
 Key Features of Current Work
 Some research and teaching
 Primarily capacity-building support to large, urban districts and
their reform partners
 Three Focus Areas:
 Teaching and Learning Supports
 District Supports
 Civic Supports
Deepening Challenges Confronting
Black and Latino Males
 Persistent under-preparation and achievement
in literacy and mathematics
 High push-out and dropout rates in middle and
high school
 Disproportionately high rates of incarceration
and un- and under-employment
 Disproportionately low college enrollment and
completion rates
 Dearth of means needed to establish families
and build strong communities.
Student Voices
• Lack of clarity about what it takes to succeed: grades,
complete work, behave well
• Many feel not much is expected of them
• Curriculum is repetitious and not challenging
• Little support for grappling with issues of race, ethnicity,
gender, culture, class, sexual orientation
Teacher Voices
• Lack of clarity about what good instruction looks like
• Lack of support for providing differentiated instruction
for English language learners, students with
disabilities, and students with major gaps in
achievement
• Lack of system support for identifying and sharing local
expertise and promising practice
Principals’ Voices
• Pressed by competing reform demands
• Pressure to focus on immediate test scores gains vs.
continuous improvement in teaching and learning
• Limited opportunities to work with colleagues to
address common challenges
• Frequent changes in leadership and direction,
combined with limited resources hinder ability to
maintain focus
Revisiting the Past
Prince George’s County Public Schools, 1988
Prince George’s County, Maryland 1988
Black Male Achievement Initiative School
and Community Recommendations:
 Extended Student
Supports for All Schools
 Increase support for
families
 Multicultural Curricula
 Adopt comprehensive
accountability system
 Increase proportion of
African American
Professionals
 Introduce strong core
curriculum/reduce
tracking
 Expand mentor and
internship programs
Black Male Achievement:
Extended Supports
 Comer School Development Program
 Full-Time Guidance Counselors
 Extended-Day Programs
 20:1 Student/Teacher Ratio
 Full-Day Kindergarten
 Math & Reading Specialists
 Increased instructional technology
Black Male Achievement
Recommendations: The Community
 Political Action to Support
School Reform
 Build Community
Supports for Learning
 Multicultural Education in
the Home and in the
Community
 Learning must be Valued
in the Home and in the
Community
From 1988 to the Present: Exacerbating
Conditions
 Chronic under-funding of urban
school systems and systems
with high enrollments of Black
and Latinos
 Increasing residential and
educational segregation of lowincome Blacks and Latinos
 Continued economic
globalization and expansion of
knowledge economy
 Surge in immigration among
Latinos
 Growth of multinational
experience and perspective
among students and families
 Negative consequences of
standards movement
 Continued and accelerated
deterioration of after-school or
community-based
infrastructure for learning and
development
 Increased visibility of sports
and entertainment pathways
Additional Hindrances
 Emphasis placed on genetic and cultural factors
 Relative lack of attention to structural forms of
discrimination and racism in education and other areas
(e.g., access to and delivery of health care and other
basic services, business development, wealth-gap,
criminal justice treatment disparities)
 Disparagement of equity in favor of excellence
 Failure to address scale (depth, breadth, sustainability,
ownership).
New Levers for Transformation
 Small schools and small learning communities
 Evidence-based professional learning communities
 District Reform (reallocation of resources, portfolio of
schools, community partnerships in governance,
operations and support)
 Local Education Support Networks (Harlem Children’s
Zone, St. Hope Academy, Dallas Arts Partnership,
 Education as a Political, Technical and Cultural
Enterprise: Increased role of Community Engagement
 International networks (school, community,district)
Organizing the “Outside”:
“Schools need the outside to get the job done – but
outside organizations (community-based organizations,
businesses, local philanthropy, higher education, other
child- and youth-serving agencies) don’t come in neat
packages. It’s up to the schools to puzzle through how
the outside can add value in ways which support
coherent reform focused on instruction.”
Michael Fullan, 1999
The Case for Community Engagement
for Public Education
 Creates and sustains a community’s vision for
reform
 Expands community-based resources to promote
student success
 Promotes a broader vision of “community
accountability” for teaching and learning
 Provides means for equitable improvement at
scale
Resources and contact information
[email protected]
Annenberginstitute.org