Vision Circle

College Graduates and Affirmative Action

If you listen to some people, Blacks don't graduate at the same rate from college as white students because of affirmative action.

Right now, overall, the percentage of Blacks in college is around 14%.

The number of Blacks with a college degree is around 12% while, for whites, it's about 28%.

I bring this up for one reason:

Study: Most College Students Lack Skills
Jan 19 2:43 PM US/Eastern
By BEN FELLER

Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.

Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.

More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

More than 50%?
That can't be mainly Black students, can it?

"This Hurts More More Than...."

I never believed the saying, "This hurts me more than it hurts you".

Until now.

Sometimes you have to let your children fail in order to teach a life lesson.

Stand back, say, "You do what you want to do, but it is wrong for the following reasons...". Then, let them go along their way. Just pray that they find their way back onto the right path.

The "kid" messed up the first year of college. No more funding from me until it's determined that the "kid" has proper priorities. Meanwhile, swim on your own. If you sink, you sink.

With love...

Are HBCUs Failing?

From today's NYT:

IN a classroom of white walls and black students, an air-conditioned sanctuary from a sweltering July morning, Devon Moore walked toward the front table with his homework. He had clipped out a newspaper article and now gave a one-sentence synopsis of its subject, safety problems in pickup trucks. He identified a word new to him, "adjacent," and a word that used a prefix or suffix, "faulty." He was less than four weeks from starting his freshman year of college.

Devon had passed up a senior-class trip to Atlanta to enroll in the Summer Academy at Texas Southern University here, and at the outset of the eight-week session, he had wondered why. Having graduated from high school, he figured, "I already knew everything there was to learn." That illusion crashed and burned on Day 1, when the math instructor taught a lesson on slope and even gave an overnight assignment.

For some 185 incoming freshmen like him, and indeed for Texas Southern as an institution, the summer courses in reading, writing, and math form one front in a battle to reverse a disturbingly low graduation rate. Of the students who received diplomas last May, only 6 percent had earned their degree in the normal four years, and only 21 percent in six years. Those numbers, incredibly, reflected improvement from prior rates.

Detroit Catholic schools close, repoen. Race involved?

I graduated from Bishop Borgess High School, right outside of Detroit, in 1987. 92 out of 287, or something like that.

Now? The school itself has barely 200 students total. Earlier in the year the Archdiocese closed down over ten Catholic schools.

Borgess was one of them. St. Martin DePorres, where my brother graduated? Closed it too.

I didn't care that much for my high school. I tolerated it as much as it tolerated me. I got into Michigan DESPITE, not because of, my high school. But when I got the news about the closing I was still set back a bit. Like I didn't have a home to go back to.

But recently someone with deep pockets came to the rescue. DePorres, where my brother went to school? IT's reopening too.

The interesting thing? At least one other school that closed contacted the funder...but he didn't bite.

Tim Vervaecke, former development director for Notre Dame Catholic High School in Harper Woods, said he is puzzled by Maida's acceptance of the Covenant plan even as he rejected proposals to reopen Notre Dame.

The difference? When I went to school, Notre Dame had a black population so small you could count it on a few hands and some feet. If that's still the case now, you're talking about a largely white working class population with suburban options (Notre Dame), vs a largely black working class population with urban options (Borgess).

Cosby calls for $100 billion initiative

I wonder if this was part of a 1-2 punch? I've said all along that it was an inefficient use of resources (among other things) for Cosby (worth a few hundred million himself) to travel to various cities on his Smackdown Tour. Will he now travel to those same cities to mobilize support for his initiative?

(As an aside, usually projects like this are not so much co-authored as they are branded. Cosby probably wrote the introduction. I can't imagine him writing much else. Cornel West has done the same thing with many of his "co-authored" works.)

Out of the Mouths of "Babes"

Students Say High Schools Let Them Down

Students Say High Schools Let Them Down
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

DES MOINES, July 15 - A large majority of high school students say their class work is not very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would work harder if courses were more demanding or interesting, according to an online nationwide survey of teenagers conducted by the National Governors Association.

The survey, being released on Saturday by the association, also found that fewer than two-thirds believe that their school had done a good job challenging them academically or preparing them for college. About the same number of students said their senior year would be more meaningful if they could take courses related to the jobs they wanted or if some of their courses could be counted toward college credit.

Taken together, the electronic responses of 10,378 teenagers painted a somber picture of how students rate the effectiveness of their schools in preparing them for the future.

The survey also appears to reinforce findings of federal test results released on Thursday that showed that high school seniors made almost no progress in reading and math in the first years of the decade. During that time, elementary school students made significant gains.

"I might have expected kids to say, 'Don't give us more work; high school is tough enough,' " said Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and chairman of the governors association, which opens a three-day summer meeting here on Saturday.

"Instead," Mr. Warner said, "what we got are high school students actually willing to be stretched more. I didn't think we'd get much of that."

More at the link provided.

Robbin' Hood

It seems that anywhere one looks, there are countless stories of educators taking from the till. Rich and poor school districts alike are undermined by these thieves. Whether you're poor in DC or paid on Long Island, some teacher/administrator/ is pimping the public for all he/she can get.

It's too easy to "demonize" the students. It's not as if they're blind. They are surrounded by moral decay - and wonder why they should follow rules that are not obeyed by the very people who would be their "educators."

Howard beats Harvard

In this year's moot court competitions Howard University beat Harvard in what was a first for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

My man Bomani, himself a proud product of Clark Atlanta (where his old man Mack produced a generation or three of black political scientists), chimes in.

There is a pride in attending schools like Morehouse, Howard, Clark Atlanta and even Tennessee State that is as strong as fealty to a Christian denomination amongs Christians with a capital "C". I've been to more than a few black homecomings in my day, and there's nothing like being at the football game and hearing thousands upon thousands of black men and women singing their fight song at the top of their lungs.

But I think that we're making too much of kids' decision not to attend black schools.

The bottom line is that the comparison between Howard and Harvard is apt on one level--Howard is the best black law school, and Harvard is the best non-black law school. But on another level it makes much more sense to me to compare Howard as a law school in general to Wayne State. If a student tells me he got into Howard and Wayne State and wants to know which one he should choose? He should choose Howard. Better networking capabilities, better name recognition, probably a better learning experience. If he tells me he got into Howard and Harvard (or a Michigan)? He should choose Harvard.

What about at an undergrad level? I've told my peers that I'd be down with any decision my children make...almost. If they told me that they wanted to go to Mississippi State for undergrad? I'd withhold my loot. If they told me they wanted to go to Morris Brown? I'd do the same. Harvard vs. Howard? Probably a push.

Michigan vs. Howard?

Michigan.

Elite Eight fraternity or sorority vs. Non-black fraternity or sorority?

A Whole Nother Conversation.

The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund

The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund

Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall successfully argued the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, ordering desegregation of public schools. He later became the first African-American appointed to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund (TMSF) was established in 1987 to carry on Justice Marshall's legacy of equal access to higher education by supporting exceptional merit scholars attending America's Public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges (OAPBC) created TMSF with Justice Marshall's support. [OAPBC is an information and advocacy unit of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) in cooperation with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.] Today, 47 schools are members of the TMSF, including many of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions of higher education.

Graduating StudentsTo date, the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $50 million in scholarships, capacity building and programmatic support. More than 200 Thurgood Marshall Scholars have graduated and are making valuable contributions to science, technology, government, human service, business, education and various communities thanks to the support they received from TMSF.

Alumni of TMSF member schools include civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson; CBS News "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley; NFL football great Walter Payton; actress Lynn Whitfield; opera star Jessye Norman and astronaut Ronald McNair, who died when the Challenger space shuttle exploded just after it launched in January 1986.

Thanks to TMSF scholarships and programs, public historically black colleges and universities are preparing a new generation of leaders.

Mrs. Coz Gives Some Cash

Mrs. Coz gives a high school some cash:

Camille Cosby gives $2 million to city school
Wife of Bill Cosby lauds Saint Frances Academy for college acceptance rate

The Associated Press

April 4, 2005, 5:26 PM EDT

The wife of funny man Bill Cosby is making a serious donation to a Catholic high school in Baltimore.

Camille O. Cosby donated $2 million to Saint Frances Academy, where 90 percent of seniors are accepted to college.

"If we are looking for solutions to the failure of our schools to educate our children, we would be well served by studying and replicating what Saint Frances Academy is doing," Cosby said in a press release today.

The press release calls Saint Frances a proven solution in America's crisis-ridden educational system. The gift spotlights the coeducational academy founded 176 years ago by the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order of black nuns.

Most of Saint Frances' 325 students are black and come from Baltimore's lower-income neighborhoods.

College graduation rates for students from low-income households are generally low, but between 1985 and 1998, more than 70 percent of Saint Frances alumni earned a college degree within six years of graduation.

Parents and Education

P6 posted some things concerning education that I thought were good:
Integration alone is merely symbolic and

...and they will continue to cheat students as long as they see our kids as competitors to theirs.

I commented in both threads. I thought I'd put my comments here:

I was tracked in Jr. High school, but I was tracked in the "academically gifted" category. I found out in High School that the "academically gifted" class meant nothing.

I went to a engineering and science oriented high school. I spent 1 1/2 years catching up before I hit my stride. Despite the urgings of my counselors and a couple of teachers, one a self proclaimed redneck pig farmer, I stayed in the advanced college prep course and it paid off.

The teachers praised the advanced college prep and college prep tracks and had high expectations of us. They expected us to be tomorrows leaders. They held low expectations of the technical track students and let us and the tech track students know it. I knew it was wrong then, and that belief has gotten stronger as I have aged.

Having written that, if the parents haven't done what they could to get their kids to get into the higher classes and get the system changed, then the parents failed their kids.

Shame on the parents.

----------------

It seems to me that if the parents/guardians did more reading to the kids, required more reading from the kids (free library anyone?), required work from the kids during the summer, made kids turn off the damn boob-tube, and visited free events at the libraries and local museums, then there would be less lost during the summer.

Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Opens

Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Opens

In fall 2005, the University will open the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science [(MS)2], a public charter school committed to academic excellence with a specific focus on mathematics and science. The school is the first component of the University’s planned Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Center.

We plan to enroll 120 sixth grade students for the 2005-06 academic year, and only D.C. residents are eligible to apply.

Applications are being accepted during the month of March. They are available online at www.howard.edu/ms2, or may be picked up from the Howard University Community Association, located at 2731 Georgia Avenue, NW. Any applications received after March 31st will be added to the school’s waiting list.

If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact us at information@middleschool.howard.edu or 202.806.7725.

"Under Achieving" Students

I was reading the Post for news about Johnnie Cochran when my eye caught the link to this article:

Assessing the KIPP Schools -- a New Perspective

When reading it, this paragraph caught my eye:

Some critics (although not Rothstein) have suggested that KIPP's scores have increased so much because they recruit students with the most motivated parents. This seems wrong to me. Those students had those same great parents when they were getting much lower scores back at their regular schools. Their progress would almost certainly deteriorate if all the KIPP schools closed tomorrow and they had to return to low standards and disorganized teaching at their neighborhood schools, no matter how conscientious their parents were.

For some time I have been saying that parents of kids who are under performing are being criticized for their children's performance and the children are also being cirticized for being "anti-intellectual". I thought that some of this criticism may be misplaced because when the children get into private schools, or other schools, many times their grades improve. But the parents are the same and the children are the same. The variable that changes is the school.

So, why is school performance being tied to "anti-intellectualism"?

Governors asked to overhaul high schools

Story here. I don't think they'll be successful. What stands out to be are the national drop out figures. I'm pretty sure these figures are driven by urban dropouts. But what happens in cities usually end up bleeding into suburbs.

You want to put Jesse and Al on the unemployment line?

...support and extend this effort by teachers. A snippet:

Eighth-grader Michael Clark knows all about civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall. But he also can give you the rundown on Jo Ann Robinson and Charles Hamilton Houston, who worked behind the scenes to fuel the movement.

He knows all about the slaying of NAACP field officer Medgar Evers in 1963, but he can also describe how the killing of black 14-year-old Emmett Till -- who flirted with a white woman -- stirred protests nine years earlier.

(Yeah, I know...technically Jackson and Sharpton are ALREADY unemployment. I'm just saying...)

Anti-Intellectualism

On a semi-regular basis, you read news accounts of foolishness like this.

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- A student whose vacation plans were spoiled has sued to end summer homework in Wisconsin, claiming it creates an unfair workload and unnecessary stress.

Peer Larson, 17, had lined up a dream camp counselor job last June, but honors pre-calculus homework turned his summer into a headache.

"It didn't completely ruin my summer, but it did give me a lot of undue stress both at home and at work," the high school junior said Thursday. "I just didn't have the energy or the time for it."

We read much about so called "Black anti-intellectualism", despite the fact that there are enough studies that cast doubt on the wide spread nature of it, but when we read nonsense like this, "white anti-intellectualism" is not at play.

More and more I hear on a first hand basis, or read, about parents who are pressuing teachers and/or the school administration to change their kid's grades because of possible long term harm to the kid's chances of getting into a "better" institution of higher education.

I hear, or read, about parents complaining about "too much" homework being given to students.

But that's not white anti-intellectualism.

Detroit Schools on Verge of Massive Closing

This is trouble...as well as a tremendous opportunity. Someone said that education is the new civil rights battle. Stanley Crouch comes to mind, but I'm pretty sure that if he said it, he cribbed it from someone else. Whatever the case I am in full agreement. Both of my parents graduated from the Detroit Public School system. Most of the Detroiters I went to Michigan with also graduated from that system (the vast majority from only two schools--Cass and Renaissance--but still). I support public schools. Even as my children are being homeschooled. But I don't forsee a solution that does not involve a significant degree of private initiative.

You Can't Tell Me Nuthin', The College Years

Allow me to ramble for a bit.

Now I'm about to enter college.

Some of my friends went into the service, either enlisted or military acadamies. Some went directly into the work force. Most of them had no desire to go to college because, for them, it wasn't a good fit. Some went to college and dropped out because they realized it wasn't there thing. Some dropped out because of funding. In fact, one friend dropped out because it came down to him or his sister going to college, and he decided to give her the shot.

Now...

It's now my 3rd day of my first year in college when I get the list of classes I'm supposed to take. I compare my classes to other engineering students when I see that I'm taking pre-101 level classes. I go to my advisor to find out why I have such an easy load when I find out that because I'm from Baltimore, whose students have not done well historically at the school, I'm in a "transition program." Simply put, I'm in a program to ease my way into the college life.

If I had attended any public school in Maryland, I would have qualified to go in at the sophomore level. If I would have attended RIT or Virginia Tech, I would have qualified to go in at the sophomore level.

And now, this school wants me to go in at a "pre-college" level. My SAT score exceeded the average score by more than 100 points. My senior year of high school was, essentially, a freshman level of college work except for English. In fact, some students in the A course, took an English class on Saturdays for their entire junior year, so that they could graduate a year early!

After discussing things with my advisor, I was told that the only way out was to get the approval of the transition program head. She told me I had to do exceptionally well on a placement test that all transition students had to take.

I was paired with a Black room mate. I was one of the very few Black students who was paired with a Black room mate. It turned out that he was also a transition program student. I told him about the situation and he said I should just go with the program. But I wasn't about to spend an additional year at that school if I didn't have to do so. I was paying for my schooling and I worried about my funds.

He studied hard for the test. I didn't study. We took the test. I finished the test in under 1 hour. I was the first one to finish. The proctor, who was the transition program head, asked me how I did. I told her I got every question right. She laughed and said we'll see. I was wrong. I got a 98 out of 100. I was let out of the program and scrambled through the ADD/DROP process to get a full load.

At the end of my first year of college, I chose to major in computer science, as did many other students. By many, my guess was that it was greater than 30 students, with a fair number being Black students. By the end of the first semester of my second year, about half of the computer science majors switched majors. By the end of the second year, most had switched majors. That means, most white students and most Black students.

I recall one major computer science project in the 2nd semester of my second year. One woman cried because she couldn't get it right. One man kept cursing and banging on the table. Another man just looked, stood up, flicked off the computer terminal, smiled, said he quit, and walked out of the computer lab.

I was an engineer. I was an athlete. I graduated in four years. I was the only Black person to graduate with a computer science degree from the engineering school that year.

My first full weekend at the school, I found out which frats were known for having drug parties. All frats had keg parties so that was no big deal. By the end of the first year, I found out that the police raided the Black "townie" area on a regular basis for drug raids. Meanwhile, one particular white frat was known for marijuana, mushrooms, and speed. But it wasn't raided until the year after I left. It took 4 years, and federal funding, for them to go after college kids. In the end, some college kids did time, one who was well known and later had a pro football career, and a national frat lost a frat house with the frat being kicked off of campus.

There was a house on campus that housed the Black student union. Near that house was a college bus stop. "We" knew it as the BBS -- Black bus stop. One day, someone decided to spray paint "NIGGER" on the sidewalk of the BBS.

The school has an honor code system. Black students were being disproportionately charged with honor code violations and many believed that racism played a part. A Black professor stated that Black students should sit as far apart from each other as possible when taking tests. They should not look at each other during tests or look at someone else's direction during tests. Years later, one student was thrown out of school for an honor code violation. His parents sued the school over lack of due process. They won in court but by the time the case was one, the student had attended another school and graduated. He was vindicated and the school's honor system took a hit.

The school responded by re-evaluating the honor system and how it functions. The student run re-evaluation, one where white students dominated the process, suggested changes which made the system MORE unfair. For example, they suggested that those accused not be given the chance for defense! The school ignored the recommendations, and made other changes.

Close to 10 years after I graduated, I attended a cookout where I met the mother of a student at the school. She told me she was trying to keep her son in the school, even though he didn't like the school. She, like I, am Black. I then listed the reasons why he didn't like the school and she shook her head in agreement. Things had not changed.

Four years ago, I was in the process of selling my previous house. The realtor, who was Black, had a daughter at the same school. In talking, she said that the daughter liked the school, but there were issues that bothered her. I gave the reasons and the realtor said I was correct. It was the same list that I gave previously.

About 5 years after I graduated, the school complained about high schools not properly preparing students for college work. They decided that the high school of students who needed to take remedial courses, would pay the cost of the student's remedial classes. About 2 years later, the school said the cost of remedial classes were too high. They were no longer going to offer the classes. It would be up to junior colleges to fill the gap.

The school graduates Black students at a similar rate as white students. It also has the highest graduation rate of Black students in the country.

Yet, Linda Chavez says that the affirmative action program at the school is unfair because white students, more qualified than the Black students, are not let into the school.

See the mixed bag here?

Acting Like A Public School System

This move by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore would tick me off. This may be an example that voucher opponents may use in the future.

There is no freedom of movement here.

Transfer edict angers parents Catholic education chief bans midyear enrollment; Three schools merging into one; Decision made to prevent 'mass exodus' by pupils

By Lynn Anderson
Sun Staff

December 27, 2004

Plans by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore to combine three Catholic schools next fall to cut costs and boost enrollment are angering some parents of children who attend.

They are particularly upset about an edict by the Catholic school system's superintendent prohibiting other schools in the archdiocese from accepting midyear transfers from the affected schools - St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic and Shrine of the Little Flower schools - for fear of a mass exodus.

Parents who don't want their children to attend the new combined school are calling Superintendent Ronald J. Valenti's decree - issued in a letter to principals shortly after the Nov. 17 merger announcement - unfair. They worry that if they wait too long to change where they enroll their children, all the open seats will be taken.

"He wants everyone to give the new school a chance, and so he is strong-arming everyone and not allowing them to transfer in the middle of the school year," said Lilly Santmyer, the mother of a third-grader at St. Dominic School in Hamilton. "It is unheard-of. I don't get it."

Parents say they are concerned that the new school - housed at St. Anthony's in Gardenville and named after Mother Mary Lange, a Haitian who became a nun after opening the first Catholic school for black children in Baltimore in 1828 - will offer a different curriculum and larger class sizes. They say detailed information, including preschool schedules, has been slow to come out.

Tom Joyner and Morris Brown

Morris Brown College ponders a sale to Tom Joyner’s Co.

Date: Thursday, December 16, 2004
By: C. JEMAL HORTON, BlackAmericaWeb.com

After initially rebuffing Tom Joyner’s efforts to purchase Morris Brown College, school officials said they are now having “conversations” with the syndicated radio personality about a deal for the troubled historically black college.

On Tuesday, Joyner’s sons, Oscar and Tom Jr., were among a contingent that met with Morris Brown leaders, including trustee chairman James Young.

“We’re just talking; we’re not going together yet,” Oscar Joyner., President & Chief Operating Officer of REACH Media Inc., told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

The younger Joyners did not provide further details, adding only that Morris Brown officials had gotten several e-mails and phone calls expressing frustration at why the school wasn’t seriously considering his father’s offer.

Coppin State University (HBCU) Adopts Elementary School

This is good news for Coppin State University, an HBCU in Baltimore.

From the Baltimore Afro.

Six years ago, the 'big, bad' State was coming to get this West Baltimore school. Failing test scores and low attendance created a seemingly insurmountable challenge for Rosemont's administration, students and the surrounding community. Since 1998, however, Coppin State University has taken Rosemont under its guidance and forged a flourishing partnership with a school that was once on the State's infamous 'take-over' list.

Coppin, the first and only university in Maryland to manage a public school, has "set the standard for community outreach for any institution of higher learning" said Ashe. During this relationship, Coppin State has launched several support initiatives that include: free college courses geared to meet the needs of Rosemont teachers, administrators, and staff persons; mentorship programs with Coppin State students like the 'Reading Explosion'; and science-oriented partnerships with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NASA Goddard Space Flight.

Rosemont, now in the top 10 percent of Baltimore City schools, has experienced dramatic improvements in its reading and mathematic scores -- topping the city and state average for each grade level. The percentage of advanced third grade readers has surpassed that of the entire State average by 12.5 percent.

According to the Maryland State Board of Education's Maryland School Assessments, Rosemont is well above the proficiency standard levels of Baltimore City in math for grades three and five.

Education to Govern

The four-week "anniversary" (technically that isn't the right word) of homeschooling is this week. It's gone ok, though we've had some life stuff in the middle. Since we jumped into it as a response to structual failures we didn't have time to really think out what the process would look like. We're dealing with those issues now. How long should the day be? What type of currriculum should we use? Should we go the classical education route or should we think about other options? I culled this from Boggs:

Concrete programs which prepare black youth to govern are the logical next step for rebellious black youth who, having reached the stage of Black Power in the sense of Black Pride, Black Consciousness, and total rejection of the present social system, are not sure where to go.  Young people whose self-concept has undergone a fundamental change must be given concrete opportunities to change their actual conditions of life.  Otherwise, they can only exhaust and demoralize themselves in isolated acts of adventurism or in symbolic acts of defiance or escapism.

I don't think the book has been written yet about the opportunity that was lost when we had a chance in cities like Detroit and Gary to remake the school system for our kids. If it was written it needs to be reprinted.

Real Cut in Grants

This was in the NY Times.

Bill Clears Way for Government to Cut Back College Loans

The government moved to change its formula for college aid last year, but was blocked by Congress. Now, however, no such language appears in the appropriations bill lawmakers are considering, clearing the way for the government to scale back college grants for hundreds of thousands of low-income students.

Nearly 100,000 more students may lose their federal grants entirely, as Congress considers legislation that could place more of the financial burden for college on students and their families.

The cutback stems from a revision to the formula governing virtually all of the nation's financial aid. Last year, the Department of Education changed the formula on its own, angering members of Congress who contended that it was a backdoor way of cutting education spending without facing the public. The department retorted that it was merely following the law.

Thanks to P6 for this.

NCLB, Unintended Consequences

This appeared in The Washington Post.

High Achievers Leaving Schools Behind
Transfers in Fairfax and Elsewhere Were Meant for Struggling Students

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A01

Eight-year-old Umaid Qureshi does math problems for fun and reads most nights before bed. His mother thinks her son might become a doctor, like her. Or maybe he will follow his father's lead and become a software consultant.

So when Fairfax County sent Shafaq Qureshi a letter in August explaining that Umaid's school -- McNair Elementary in Herndon -- fell short on standardized test scores and that any McNair student could transfer to a better-performing school, she decided there was no reason for him to stay.

"I thought, this is an opportunity, why shouldn't I try it out?" said Qureshi. "I just felt like maybe something was lacking there."

Well, why wouldn't you expect that the parents that care would remove their kids, leaving the rest behind?

NACME

The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.

Our Mission:

To provide leadership and support for the national effort to increase the representation of successful African American, American Indian and Latino women and men in engineering and technology, math- and science-based careers.

Our Purposes:

Our goal is diversity with equity, our metric is parity in the workforce and our methodology is the formation of partnerships with those corporations, educational institutions, foundations and governmental bodies that share a commitment to these aims. NACME and its partners will foster research-based changes in policies and practices that ensure equal opportunities for the preparation and participation of all Americans in science, engineering and technology.

They helped in funding for me to complete college. Please provide your support. I do. Although I don't see my name in the annual report for donors. :-|

Moving Forward--the Big Questions

I'm going to write about the election a few more times depending on how many months it takes for us to ferret out the winner. And tomorrow's Africana.com column will deal with Bush's African American support base as well as the growing ignorance of Bush supporters in general. But let's be clear. Even though I do believe that this election is the most important one I've participated in--Bush won't get sixty Senators to override a filibuster.

It's time we begin to segue into the next phase. Getting back to the local issues that I think merit a real republican black/democratic black/leftist black/ black nationalist dialogue. Education is a biggie.

ANd today my wife has made the tentative decision to homeschool our kids, a decision I support. I say tentative because there are some details to work out.

But while I'm with Darkstar on vouchers, I do not understand how black parents with resources can do anything other than pull their kids out of urban public schools.

My daughter came home the other day and showed me her homework. She's learning decimals and greater than/less than symbols. I'm looking over the homework and see the following equation: 1 < 1.00

I tell her...that's not right. She says, "the teacher told me it was."

You mean the teacher who spells questionnaire with one 'n' rather than two?

But wait it gets worse. My son's first grade class (30 deep) does not have recess or gym.

Do any of you have boys? Do you know what type of impact this has on their ability to learn?

No Child Left Behind is a crock. Period. But as of right now there is no constituency willing to put the federal funding behind education we would put behind a national disaster area. And as powerful as black children are, as capable as they are of producing beauty out of chaos (see graffiti, hip-hop, house, techno, jazz, the blues, etc. etc. etc.), we're talking about a disaster area here. And in the wake of community organizing efforts that have yet to truly come up with innovative solutions...you've got to take radical INDIVIDUAL steps to make sure your children are taken care of.

I've been meaning to set up a blog for my wife. This might be the perfect time to begin.

No Child Left Behind

It's often said that when the government enacts policies, there is no thought given to the possible outcomes.

Well, this is one that people stated would happen.

"People are calling constantly who want to take their kids out of [nearby elementary schools] to come to Anne Beers," Fears said. "They say, 'You have to take me because of No Child Left Behind.' I say, 'Yes, but tell me what this child is going to bring to the table.' Because we got this infusion of NCLB students, and it drastically changed the climate in our school."

"With No Child Left Behind, we have students coming here who don't necessarily fit in because they don't have the same kind of parents," said Beers guidance counselor Kaye Henson. "That has worked to our detriment. We see a lot of parents now who have problems themselves, who are not educated."

The transfer into Beers of children who are fleeing schools tagged as failures threatens his achievements, Fears said. So Fears -- like other principals in the same boat -- tries to screen those students. "Let me see the report cards, the SAT-9 scores," he tells parents of those who want in. "What do you do with your child at home? If you aren't reading to your child, you can't come to Anne Beers."

Fears is required to accept students who live in his school's home area, but he has leeway in selecting children from outside those boundaries. One result is a sad new game in which principals who have worked hard to get a handle on discipline problems and build up academic expectations find themselves fending off transfers generated by No Child Left Behind.

The backwardness of English-Only programs

I'm actually surprised it took this long but researchers have found that people who know more than one language have more gray matter in the language section of the brain. Questions:

1. Is this a zero-sum game? That is, is gray matter LOST in other places? Sounds like a stupid question...but it should at least be considered.

2. What constitutes a second language? There are a number of different dialects of Chinese, and I am pretty sure that a number of them have different pictographic systems as well. In other words, if we were to go to China, hear someone speak Mandarin (and see the pictographs), and then hear someone speak Pinghua (and see the pictographs), I am sure that we would think of them as two different LANGUAGES rather than two different dialects.

If John McWhorter would keep his head out of grown folks' business, he'd be the perfect person to talk about this. And it does relate to the question of whether Ebonics constitutes a language. If we could employ the same methods on an inter-racial group here, we could find this answer out.

From what it appears, it seems like this article makes the best case to scrap most English-Only programs. What's the joke?

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual.

What do you call someone who speaks one langauge? American.

Howard Receives Gift Valued at $71 Million

University to Upgrade Tech Offerings

(Reg. required)

By Karlyn Barker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 6, 2004; Page B08

Howard University has been selected to receive nearly $71 million worth of engineering software and related computer technology to help prepare its students for jobs in the automotive and engineering fields.

The gift, the largest in-kind contribution in the university's history, was announced yesterday by Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education, a corporate alliance formed in 1999 by General Motors Corp., EDS, Sun Microsystems Inc. and UGS to enhance engineering, science and art education for potential employees.

"This is a tremendous vote of confidence in the university and in our ability to make good use of this program," H. Patrick Swygert, Howard's president, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

The Burden of Acting White

OK, so now this article has set off a round of posts by people. I'll say it's about damn time.

I've been arguing for some time now, that based on some readings I've made, the "acting white" charge may be over blown. Note, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. And, to be sure, one charge is one charge too much. But from my experience, when it happened to me, it came from someone who was not performing well. I saw it as an obvious case of envy. That's a lot different from it being a "Black culture thang."

LaShawn, Booker Rising, LKSpence, and Ambra make comments on this report about "Acting White". Not that anyone cares, but I've been talking about this for a bit. I've done it on email lists and on USENET.

Here's a sample of my USENET efforts. I'm quoting a study:

Usenet post #1

Most important, the study found that black students who belonged in academic honor societies were more likely than other black students to perceive themselves as "popular." At predominantly black schools, students in honor societies were more popular than students who had not been so honored. Cook and Ludwig conclude that the evidence "is not compelling" that nationwide black students who aspire to educational pursuits are ridiculed by their peers.

---

Usenet post #2

If there are stronger antiacademic norms among black adults, black parents would be expected to have reduced involvement with their children's schools relative to white parents. Our analysis of the NELS data finds that, on average, African American parents are at least as involved in their children's educations as white parents of similar means.

The NELS 10th graders reported the frequency of different interactions
between their parents and school. As seen in Table 5, African American
parents are more likely to telephone their child's teacher, a
difference that increases once family socioeconomic status is
controlled. A greater propensity for African American parents to
contact school staff by telephone would, of course, be of limited
vallue if phone calls were a substitute for, rather than a complements
to, other forms of involvement in their child's schooling. But
analysis of the NELS datasuggests that African American parents are at
least as involved as white parents in other ways, as well. The results
shown in Talbe 5 indicated that almost 65 percent of African American
parents were reported by their children as having attended at least
one schoo meeting in the 1990 fall semester, vs about 56 percent for
white parents. Once family SES is controlled, this difference
increases to almost 14 percentage-point advantage in favor of African
American parents. Similar results are found in Table 5 for aprental
attendance at school events.

---

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I am saying that before people jump on the bash Black culture band wagon, get an idea of what you're speaking about. Is it "culture" or one on one envy?

And why doesn't the "sterotype threat" idea get more examination? After all, people swooned when George W. Bush used "bigotry of low expectations" and it's the same thing under a different name.

The Burden of Acting White

I number of times, I've referenced a study called "The Burden of Acting White" by Phillip Cook and Jens Ludwig.

I scanned it in and placed it on a personal website that I have. But I now see it's the Brookings Institution, so I'll point the link there.

The Burden of Acting White

The hat tip goes to Faheem (http://blackintrospection.blogspot.com) for the link. I've never been able to find it via Google.

More later. I have to live the real life...

Standards

This post by Ambra got me ta thinkin'.

If we as a society believe that we should not lower standards, and that we as a society strives to be one based on merit, why do the following exist without much comment?

• Grading on the curve?
Let's be real here, so what if the entire class has a grade distribution that matches the bell curve? If the highest grade in the class is an 80 out of 100, then that should be a B-, not a curve adjusted A.

My major was a part of the engineering school. Would you want someone designing a bridge who had a grade average of 75, but a curve adjusted average of A-?

• PASS/FAIL?
Why should a person who passes a class with a 70 be treated the same as a person who passes a class with an 80, 90, or 100?
• Grad School
I keep hearing from people who have attended graduate school, that if you do your work, you are guarenteed to receive a B. If you do it well, you will get a B+ or better. If you do the minimal, you will get a C, which is bad in graduate school. If you fail, you likely ticked off the teacher. Since when is doing the work good enough for a B?

Just some questions.

Charter School Results

When the recent report was released stating that children in charter schools were not out performing students in more traditional public schools, I thought that the comparison was not valid.

The major reason is, the kids in charter schools are more likely to be kids who are under performing.

Clarence Page takes it one step further:

You don't need to read very far into the AFT report, for example, before you discover that the gap in test scores between charter and public schools disappears when you take race into account. Compare white students with white students and blacks with blacks and Hispanics with Hispanics and the gap in scores between the charters and traditional public schools goes away.

That's important because charter schools enroll a higher proportion of minority students. More than half of charter school pupils were black, Hispanic or American Indian in the 1999-2000 academic year, compared with one-third for all public schools, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Charters also enroll a higher proportion of students who were not doing well for one reason or another in public schools, which makes the stories of successful charters all the more amazing.

Check out the entire article.

Some Advice for College Students

YOUR Life

• Your mother believes in you. Your father believes in you. Your family believes in you. God believes in you. This counts for a lot, but it really doesn’t mean anything if you don’t believe in yourself.
• Your preparation has gotten you to the point where you are now. You have to continue to prepare yourself to get to the point where you want to be. But you have to prepare yourself to go beyond that point.
• Don’t be afraid to do things some people say you can’t do. Don’t be afraid to try to do things they say that can’t be done. If you fail, at least you tried. If you succeed, you prove them wrong. If you never tried, you’ll never know.

YOUR Personal Responsibility

• Your safety is your responsibility. “Date rape” or “friend rape” happens when you allow yourself to get into situations that you cannot handle. Do not allow yourself to be alone with someone and assume that he will not try to get you to have sex. No means no but many people believe that saying “no” is just a part of the “game”. Remember, “The only thing open at 2AM is legs”.
• When a young woman says “No”, it means “No”.
• You are more than what is between your legs.
• You have to act as though every picture you take will be placed on the internet. Will your family be ashamed of the picture you take?
• You have to act as though every video you are in will be placed on the internet. Will your family be ashamed of your behavior in the video?
• “Bootie cams” are sure to get raves from your boys, but what about the young women being disrespected?
• You will be judged by the company you keep.
• Blacks between the ages of 20-35 are 55% of the reported HIV/AIDS cases in the United States. Washington D.C. and Baltimore are the number 1 and number 2 “leaders” in that category. The “South” is seeing a big increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases.
• Many people will get to school and then get “buck wild” their first year. They will spend the next 3 years trying to live down what they did in their first year. Years after you graduate, you will remember the young women and young men who got “buck wild”.
• In a couple of weeks or months, many people will lose their reputation because they are “sexing” around or drinking or drugging. They will never get their reputation back at the school; NEVER.
• No matter how many credit card offers you get, DO NOT GET A CREDIT CARD! You will get into debt and it will be your responsibility to pay off the debt. You may already be in debt from the cost of your education. Why make it worse by being $1,000 in debt that you have to pay back with an 18% interest rate.
• If you are at a party, never drink anything that you haven’t opened yourself. If you leave your drink, don’t drink it. People will put something in your drink and take advantage of the situation. Your safety is your responsibility.
• Never leave the door to your room unlocked. Make sure your roommate never leaves the door to your room unlocked. NO MATTER HOW QUICKLY YOU THINK YOU WILL BE BACK TO YOUR ROOM.

YOUR Education Responsibility

• Associate with people who are serious about their education.
• You will do better if you study with people who are serious about their education. Study groups are important.
• Find people who are 1 or 2 years ahead of you in your major.

o They can help you avoid the bad professors.
o They can help you try to get the good professors.
o They can give you study tips.
o They can give you past quizzes and tests.
o They can help you with the classes you need to take.

• Find a quiet place to study. There will be places that many people go to “study,” but they will be more about socializing than studying. You have to find out where those places are and avoid them when you really need to study.
• You will have a counselor assigned to you. Make sure the counselor knows your name and face. You do this by visiting him or her on a regular basis.
• Keep track of the number of credit hours you have earned and the number of credit hours you need to meet your degree requirements.
• The first day of classes, you will get a syllabus. Make a copy of each syllabus you receive. Tape one onto the inside front page of your notebook for the class. Keep the other in a folder that you keep in your room.
• It is your responsibility to keep up with your work. This is college. The professor will not keep behind you to get your work done. If it is not turned in, you will get a zero.
• Know the deadlines for the Add/Drop dates.
• It is your responsibility to make sure that the number of credits you have earned matches what the administration office says you have earned.

Of Cosby, Hiphop, and Knuckleheads

Cosby's at it again.

In using Cosby's rant to move passed Civil Rights politics Cobb's on the right track. But during the ensuring conversation an elderly sister notes that in many cities there exists a core group of folk who are escaping hiphop culture and embracing academic achievement culture. Now it is evident that this sister knows about identifying programs that we should model.

But it isn't quite clear she knows anything about hip-hop. Yes I'm a househead. But I wouldn't be where I am without hip-hop. Cobb talks a great deal about NSBE but I'm willing to bet that nothing but hip-hop is played at their national conference.

I've mentioned before that I wouldn't be here without the knuckleheads. It was the knuckleheads that taught me the dozens--the value of using wordplay as a means of attack and defense. The knuckleheads taught me to stand up for what I believed in. The knuckleheads taught me what it meant to be confident in myself when all around me doubted. And it was the criminally minded knucklheads that taught me the value of having game even as they gave me strong anti-role models.

Cosby can't feel that, because I'm not sure he ever needed a knucklehead. But those of us NOW in institutions like Michigan owe a great deal to them, because I'm not sure we are in those spots without them.

As an aside below are a couple of stories that exemplify the problems we encounter when we juxtapose an embrace of hip-hop against an embrace of academic success:

Word War
Word War II

One of the afrofuturists (don't recall which one) dropped them on me.

Black Admissions Down at Berkeley

Black admissions drop 30 percent at Berkeley
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/29/state1556EDT0052.DTL

MICHELLE LOCKE, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2004
Sometimes, Adia Harrison looks around her classes at the University of California, Berkeley and is slightly surprised at the reminder: Just about no one else in the room looks like her.

This fall, being black at Berkeley is likely to become even more of an anomaly. As of late spring, 98 black students had registered for fall enrollment out of an expected class of 3,821.

"This is supposed to be a public university and it's not really representing the public," says Harrison.

Campus officials aren't sure what lies behind a nearly 30 percent decrease in admissions this year.

Part of the explanation may go beyond Berkeley. Applications from black students were down about 10 percent here, and decreases in minority applications were also reported at the University of Michigan and Ohio State University.

Gary Orfield, co-director of The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, says possible explanations include higher tuitions across the nation as well as publicity over a U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that tempered Michigan's affirmative action programs.

Berkeley recruiting efforts were further hurt, campus officials say, by new restrictions on their practice of flying students from predominantly minority high schools to campus for pre-application visits.

Lawyers for UC's central office advised that targeting minority schools could violate Proposition 209, the 1996 voter-approved law banning use of race in California college admissions, said Berkeley spokesman George Strait.

Berkeley officials don't agree with that interpretation and they are looking at ways to revive the visits as well as pursuing other recruitment strategies. A long-planned multicultural center also is set to open on campus this year.

"Virtually every part of the campus is extremely concerned about the low numbers of underrepresented minorities and, in particular, the appallingly low numbers of African-Americans," said Strait.

The fall enrollment figures came about six months after John Moores, chairman of UC's governing Board of Regents, issued a report saying Berkeley turned away thousands of students who aced the SAT but accepted hundreds -- many of whom were black or Hispanic -- with low scores.

After Moores wrote an opinion column in April saying UC policies victimized students, his fellow regents slapped him with a rare public censure. Regents also reaffirmed their commitment to UC's "comprehensive review" admissions, which don't consider race but do look at social factors, such as overcoming poverty, as well as grades and scores.

Still, the affair left some Berkeley students feeling undermined.

"The way a lot of the students feel is that the UC system and the administration has this rhetoric of celebrating diversity but they're not really following through with it," says Peter Tadeo Gee, a Berkeley student who works with a campus multicultural resources center.

Some black students at Berkeley say they have encountered outright hostility -- racist taunts as they walk down the street -- as well as prejudice of a quieter kind.

"It's usually the black student who ends up without a partner," says Renita Chaney, a junior and executive director of the campus Black Recruitment and Retention Center.

Black student admissions have been low for some years.

In 1997, the last year affirmative action was allowed at UC's nine campuses, Berkeley admitted 562 black students. That number fell to 191 as the new race-blind policies took effect, but had risen to 338 by 2000.

But this fall, only 211 black students were admitted.

Fewer black students mean fewer people to call on for help on community issues, says Chaney. Still, she'd be reluctant to encourage black freshmen to attend this fall unless they're looking for a challenging environment.

"If it's activism or some kind of fight they're looking for, then come here. But if education is what they're looking for, then don't come here," she said.

Does it matter if the black presence at Berkeley is dwindling?

Yes, says Toff Peabody, a Berkeley molecular biology major, who was so struck by the new Berkeley numbers he joined a loosely organized group this spring that has been campaigning for a more diverse campus under the banner, "White Males for Diversity."

"If the purpose of school was to just go to lectures we could all stay home and watch them on the Internet," says Peabody. "It's the actual interaction you have with other students that make my education better at Berkeley than somewhere else."

As of fall 2003, whites accounted for about 30 percent of undergraduates, with Asian Americans, who also did not benefit under the old affirmative action programs, comprising about 40 percent. (Berkeley's definition of Asian American is broad, including people with ties to the Pacific Islands and countries such as India.

Proposition 209 supporters say it's a mistake to focus on race or ethnicity -- that keeping a close tally of demographics only serves to create barriers.

"Don't go there thinking, 'I'm going to be looking around for other black kids,"' says Ward Connerly, a part-black UC regent who led the fight to drop race-based admissions. "Go there and recognize that it's going to be one of the greatest experiences of your life. You're there to meet new people. You're there to learn. You're not there to engage in this racial, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' kind of thing."

Harrison was admitted to Berkeley after participating in a privately funded outreach program run by the campus' Haas School of Business -- Young Entrepreneurs at Haas -- which connects middle and high school students with mentors who involve them in programs such as drawing up business plans or studying the stock market.

"We're a business-based program, but really if I had to look at the core of what we do, it's, one, telling kids that they can go to college; two, exposing them to college," says Oscar Wolters-Duran, program executive director.

For Harrison, knowing there'll be fewer black students on campus next year is a little unsettling.

"People are going to notice even more that there's not very many African-American people. Not only the African-American students will notice it," she says.

Still, she doesn't regret coming to Berkeley. "It's a good school," she says, "and I know eventually, no matter how difficult it is, I'll be able to get through.")

This article reprinted in full without permission for the purposes of discussion and review, as permitted by Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.

Ellis Cose on Brown

Ellis Cose has put together a remarkable report on the state of American eduction in the post-Brown years which includes some very important survey information as well as.. well everything.

From the report:

Brown was so much more than just another lawsuit. “Brown led to the sit-ins, the freedom marches … the Civil Rights Act of 1964. … If you look at Brown as … the icebreaker that broke up the sea, that frozen sea, then you will see it was an unequivocal success,” declared Jack Greenberg, former head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and one of the lawyers who litigated Brown. Clearly Brown altered forever, and for the better, the political and social landscape of an insufficiently conscience stricken nation. It succeeded, as Greenberg attests, in dramatically shaking things up and, in the process, of transforming a reluctant America. Yet, measured purely by its effects on the poor schoolchildren of color at its center, Brown is a disappointment—in many respects, a failure. Between past hopes and current results lies an abyss filled with forsaken dreams. So this commemoration, this toasting of the heroes of who slew Jim Crow, is muted by the realization that Brown was not nearly enough.

Download File

Basis for success

A couple in Tuscon, AZ, have created a public high school based on a radical proposal. Teach nothing but AP courses from 5th to 12th grade.

The story.

They say, or at least the journalist says, that to a certain extent this is an attempt to curtail the "coddling movement." Which appears to be a synonym for the self-esteem movement that took shape around the sixties. Combining a program like this with the type of work that Bob Moses is doing in Mississippi, and I think the world will either beat a path to your door....or they'll assassinate you. Not sure which. Maybe both.

Excellence

Graduation at Washington University in Saint Louis. A portion of my Senior Seminar class.

African American Museum Saved

I remember when the newly rebuilt Detroit's Museum of African American History opened for the first time. They decided to stay open for 24 hours, so everyone would have a chance to see what was then the largest museum of its kind. My wife and I had just left a fraternity ball, so we were dressed to the nines. It was PACKED. Executives, tradesmen, hairdressers, students, players, pimps, and hustlers.

Walked by a woman I thought I knew from somewhere. Turned out to be Lani Guinier.

Almost ten years later the museum was on hard times. Attendance fell far short of expectations, and funding sources were as dry as a bone. The curator approached the City of Detroit to step in, but the city is facing its own budget crisis. So what happens?

The great (I'm sorry, make that Great) Judge Damon Keith steps up to the plate.

Schooling and Black Boys

I don't think I've talked much about my family here. I remember when Cobb killed Boohab, at least partially (as I understand it) to integrate his personal life into his internet oriented political work. I haven't made that leap fully, largely because my own professional persona (which is pretty much distilled here) doesn't require that I do so.

Something happens every now and then in my personal life that gives me pause. Such is the nature of black life.

I have two sons and two daughters. My oldest daughter is nine, my youngest is 1.66. My oldest son is 6, my youngest is 3.90.

My two oldest children attend the same grade school. We supplement their education with our own as much as we can. My teaching mode with my own children is much the same as I employ with my students. I try not to tell them WHAT to think, but rather, try to teach them HOW to think. While the true results won't be known for a while, I think we're doing ok.

So my son tells me last week that he got into a spat with another child. I am significantly underplaying it. The first day I was able I went to the school to talk to the teacher, to see what they intended to do about it. When I talked to the teacher, she then had my son go to the classroom of the other child and point him out.

The little boy was a couple of years older than my son, and dark skinned. As soon as I saw this, I recognized that there was another problem at work. People doing research in this area recognize that the educational gap between black and white kids starts at around 8 or 9 and persists afterward. When I saw the little boy I recognized that we needed to make sure that my son was ok, but also that the little boy wasn't tagged with the label. Because as soon as that happens, it isn't all over NECESSARILY...but it becomes much more difficult for black children to succeed. When i talk to the (white) administrators I specifically tell them that I'm not interested in having the other kid punished, because I'm sensitive to what schools routinely do to black children in general, and to darker skinned black boys and girls in particular. They ensure that this won't happen, that they'll talk to the boy and his parents, and see to it that everything and everyone is made whole.

I get an email from the administrator. The parents want to meet with me and my wife.

They don't think their son was guilty of what my son accused him of.

At this point a number of scenarios are playing themselves out in my head. But I agree to meet. In talking it over with a couple of my colleagues, they think I've made the wrong choice. I can easily imagine going OFF on someone who accused my son or daughter, if they told me they didn't do it. And given the way that institutions often work on black children it isn't hard to imagine the worst case scenario--angry parents trying to protect their child from the system and from someone else's parents.

But we stick by our decision.

We had the meeting yesterday. When I came to the meeting I made sure I came in discrete mode. No "Dr Spence." No suit or tie. As close to hip-hop as I'm going to get as far as gear at 35. I don't want any of my words misunderstood because of class differences.

The meeting goes far better than anyone would've possibly expected, largely because we didn't come in there talking zero tolerance. From jump, we tried to make sure that the parents understood we knew what they were dealing with, that we weren't trying to jack anyone, and that we wanted to make sure that everyone was safe. The administrator and counselor (who were present as facilitators) thanked us all profusely for not taking an adversarial approach and for looking out for everyone concerned.

There are a lot more layers here than I can adequately convey in this space. But I couldn't help but wonder how the situation would've been different had I been white...or if I didn't teach this stuff for a living. Would I have looked out for Leroy (and his parents) interests as much as I did?

I've come to the general conclusion that one of the reasons for the gap is not simply the material resource gap that exists between blacks and whites, but the psychic resource gap. How much time do I have to spend thinking about these issues compared to my white counterparts? How much time do I have to spend supplementing my children's education? How much time do i have to spend making sure that the black history fact sheet about Maya Angelou is actually ABOUT Maya Angelou rather than Marian Anderson (true story)? How much time do I have to spend going over letters making sure that the adminstrators aren't sorting and surveilling black kids unknowingly? How much time do I have to spend actually thinking about what I have to do to make sure my children and their black friends are powerful in spite of the racialized hurdles they have to face?