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Hard Times at Douglass High," is an HBO documentary that aired last June. It captured much of the 2004-2005 school year at Baltimore's predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School. The tragedy is that what is seen in the documentary is typical of most predominantly black urban schools. Douglass' students are four to five years below grade level. Most of its ninth-graders read at the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade levels. In 2006, only 24 percent of its students tested proficient in reading, in math just 11 percent, and that's an improvement over previous years. Only one student managed to score above...

Palm Beach County School District Superintendent Art Johnson will encourage the school board to hire additional attorneys to deflect a potential American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit over low graduation rates among black students. The move would be the first proactive step by the district since the ACLU announced early last year it was considering legal action. The suit would be the first of its kind against a school district for not achieving equal results among its students. About 72 percent of students across the county graduated on time last year, up from 66 percent in 2003 but slightly below the...

WASHINGTON -- More than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms, the government said in a report to be released today. The ratio is only slightly better for Hispanics, at 2.7 inmates for every Latino in college housing. Among Anglos, more than twice as many live in college housing as in prison or jail. The numbers, driven by men, do not include college students who live off campus. Previously released census data show that black and Hispanic college students -- commuters and those in dorms -- far outnumber black and Hispanic prison inmates....

Have racial preferences reduced the number of black lawyers? Three years ago, UCLA law professor Richard Sander published an explosive, fact-based study of the consequences of affirmative action in American law schools in the Stanford Law Review. Most of his findings were grim, and they caused dismay among many of the champions of affirmative action--and indeed, among those who were not. Easily the most startling conclusion of his research: Mr. Sander calculated that there are fewer black attorneys today than there would have been if law schools had practiced color-blind admissions--about 7.9% fewer by his reckoning. He identified the culprit...

A group of black students at Indiana-Purdue University-Indianapolis is threatening to sue the college over alleged discrimination. The IUPUI Black Student Union said it would file a lawsuit Monday unless officials agree to provide a new black cultural center, more black faculty and $78,000 for black student groups. The group also wants sensitivity training for administrators and an undergraduate degree program in African-American studies. "We're not asking for anything outlandish," said IUPUI senior Dominic Dorsey, 24, who heads the group. "We're asking for what's due to us to make us feel comfortable on a Euro-centric campus." In a nine-page letter...

EVERMAN, Texas — A high school principal has left her position two weeks after singling out black students' poor test scores over the school's intercom system. The Everman Independent School District announced Kathy Culbertson's departure in a Tuesday statement. It said her comments had overshadowed district achievements. During an address on the first day of classes at Everman High School, Culbertson said black students who failed math on the state's accountability test had caused the high school to be rated unacceptable. The remarks set off a racially charged debate at the suburban Fort Worth campus, which is about 59 percent...

Everman Principal Leaves Following Remarks EVERMAN – The Everman High School principal who highlighted black students’ poor math scores over the school intercom has stepped down. The decision was announced Tuesday afternoon after Superintendent Jeri Pfeifer met with faculty and school board members. A written statement released by the district said Kathy Culbertson’s comments on the first day of school have overshadowed other district achievements and put the high school at the center of attention for the last two weeks. “Neither the district nor Ms. Culbertson believes in the isolation of any student group or that students are solely to...

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Faced with stiff competition for their traditional students, historically black colleges are now making a push to recruit Hispanics. Black colleges that want to shore up enrollment numbers are revising recruitment strategies to include more members of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority. The campuses are hiring Hispanic recruiters, distributing brochures that feature Hispanic students and establishing special scholarships for Hispanics. "I tell them 'There's a place for you and a need for Latinos to be present on (historically black) campuses,'" said Nelson Santiago, a Puerto Rico native and recruiter for the historically black Howard University...

Let's look at the recent "Nation's Report Card," published annually by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. Nationally, in reading, only 13 percent of black fourth graders, and 11 percent of black eighth graders score as proficient. Twenty-nine percent achieve a score of "basic," defined as a partial knowledge and skills needed to be proficient in the grade. Fifty-nine percent score below basic, lacking necessary knowledge and skills. It's the same story for black eighth graders, with 40 percent scoring basic and 49 percent below basic. Racial discrimination has nothing to do with no less than...

Racial discrimination has nothing to do with what's no less than an education meltdown within the black community. Where black education is the very worst, often the city mayor is black, city council dominated by blacks, and often the school superintendent is black, as well as most of the principals and teachers, and Democrats have run the cities for decades. I'm not saying there's a causal connection, just that one would be hard put to chalk up the rotten education to racial discrimination. ... No one can solve the educational problems that black people confront except black people themselves. First,...

Disciplining a student for wearing a $5 T-shirt five years ago could end up costing the Warren Hills Regional School District close to $1 million. The Warren County district has been ordered to pay nearly $600,000 in plaintiffs' legal fees incurred during the 5-year-old free speech rights battle over whether a high school student could wear his "redneck" T-shirt. That tally does not include the amount the district has paid its own lawyers. Thomas Sypniewski Jr. was suspended for three days during his senior year in 2001 for wearing a T-shirt that listed blue-collar comedian Jeff Foxworthy's Top 10 reasons...

This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at UCLA, but only 96, or 2%, are African American — the lowest figure in decades and a growing concern at the Westwood campus. For several years, students, professors and administrators at UCLA have watched with discouragement as the numbers of black students declined. But the new figures, released this week, have shocked many on campus and prompted school leaders to declare the situation a crisis. UCLA — which boasts such storied black alumni as Jackie Robinson, Tom Bradley and Ralph Bunche, and is in a county that is 9.8% African American...

The preponderance of commencement speakers at our nation's top colleges and universities were Democratic Party officials, leftist activists, and members of the old media, according to a survey released by Young America’s Foundation. The survey also uncovers separate graduation ceremonies for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) students as well as Black students.

Test Scores in County Lag Behind State's Poorer Areas Black students in Fairfax County are consistently scoring lower on state standardized tests than African American children in Richmond, Norfolk and other comparatively poor Virginia districts, surprising Fairfax educators and forcing one of the nation's wealthiest school systems to acknowledge shortcomings that have been masked by its overall success. Even within Fairfax schools, black elementary school students are outperformed on reading and math tests by whites and some other students, including Hispanics, poor children and immigrants learning English. The statewide disparity occurs among all age groups except the middle-school grades, but...

This week, Hillary Clinton debuted the newest in educational options for our children. The school she referred to is evidently so secret that it doesn't even show up on Google. Addressing an audience that was predisposed against school vouchers, Hillary went a bit crazy by comparing parents who send their children to parochial schools to those who wish to send their boys and girls to Hillary's new educational invention, the "School of the Church of the White Supremacist." Since the existence of said school is so top secret that only Hillary Clinton knows enough about it to insert it into...

Controversial and conservative are not two adjectives you would apply to the historically black Philander Smith College. But you would apply them to best-selling author and conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who spoke at the school Thursday night. It`s a surprise to some students and neighbors, but Philander Smith President Dr. Walter Kimbrough says that`s exactly why he invited her to speak. "I want to engage people who`re cutting edge, a little edgy, makes them thing and can also be entertaining at the same time," said Kimbrough. He adds that he wants the college to be a bigger part of the...

January 12, 2006Education: Then and Now By Thomas Sowell Recent news that school children in Charlotte, North Carolina, had the highest test scores among children in big cities across the country had a special impact on me. Back in the late 1930s, I went to school in Charlotte and, while I don't know what the test scores were then, I do know that we were far behind the children going to school in New York. That became painfully clear when my family moved north and I enrolled in a school in Harlem in 1939. From being the top student in...

Following up on an investigative series, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Seattle Public Schools continue to discipline African-American students at nearly twice the rate of white students, suggesting a "chronic problem" of institutional racism. But an examination of the district's own records strongly suggests it's not largely a problem of racism but of family structure, says Stefan Sharkansky, a statistical analyst whose posts at the weblog SoundPolitics.com gave firepower to Republicans in their challenge of the razor-close 2004 gubernatorial campaign. Sharkansky says the data indicates "black students have a higher rate of discipline issues because a larger percentage are from single-parent...

ST. PETERSBURG - The message is everywhere, black students say: You perform far worse than your white classmates, especially on high-stakes tests. Preliminary research shows even the mention of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test can contribute to the achievement gap. Last spring, two University of South Florida-St. Petersburg professors tested high school students to see whether expectations could foreshadow performance. What they found prompted a fall return to see whether certain methods could calm students for test-taking. In their spring study of 81 students at Boca Ciega High School in Gulfport, Brett Jones and Tom Kellow investigated "stereotype threat," a...

DEMOCRATS TRAP BLACK CHILDREN IN FAILING SCHOOLS For Immediate Release Contact: Frances Rice National Black Republican Association 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 900-S Washington, DC 20004 (202) 638-6940 (202) 639-8238 Fax NBRA websiteDEMOCRATS TRAP BLACK CHILDREN IN FAILING SCHOOLS Washington, D.C. - January 7, 2006 - On the heels of a protest rally by Democrats in Florida to shut down a privately funded program that gives school choice vouchers or "opportunity scholarships" to black parents, the liberal Florida Supreme Court ended the state-sponsored opportunity scholarship program, slamming the door in the face of black parents. The National Black Republican Association...

When the San Francisco school board votes Thursday on school closures and mergers, its decisions will almost certainly affect African American students far out of proportion to their representation in the city's public school district. Many of the affected schools, with names including Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, are located in heavily African American neighborhoods, including the Western Addition and Bayview-Hunters Point, and serve by far more black children than any other racial group. Of the 3,204 students affected by the changes, 30 percent will be African American, according to school district figures. At those schools that face outright closure,...

RICHMOND -- Denise Armstrong decided to home-school her two sons and daughter because she thought she could do a better job of instilling her values in her children than the public school system could. Years ago, she found herself the lone black person at home-education gatherings, usually dominated by white Christian evangelicals. But gradually, she has noticed more black people joining the ranks. "I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community," Mrs. Armstrong said. "I noticed, looking around the home-schooling convention at that vast sea of people and seeing more people of color." The increase...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Denise Armstrong decided to home school her daughter and two sons because she thought she could do a better job of instilling her values in her children than a public school could. And while she once found herself the lone black parent at home-education gatherings that usually were dominated by white Christian evangelicals, she's noticed more black parents joining the ranks. "I've been delighted to be running into people in the African-American home-schooling community," Armstrong said. Home-school advocates say the apparent increase in black families opting to educate their children at home reflects a wider desire...

Steve Helber/Associated Press Denise Armstrong, who chose to teach her children at home, helps her son Timothy pick out a library book. RICHMOND, Va., Dec. 10 (AP) - When Denise Armstrong decided to teach her daughter and two sons at home instead of sending them to public school, she said she did so thinking she would do a better job than the school of instilling her values in her children. At the time, Ms. Armstrong was the only black parent at gatherings of home-education groups. But she said that has been changing. "I've been delighted to be running into...

Mandisa likes Abercrombie & Fitch, not FUBU. She speaks proper English, not Ebonics. She takes honor classes and belongs to the Beta Club and National Arts Honors Society at Parkview High. She plays the violin and has danced and sung in area productions of “The Nutcracker” and “My Fair Lady.” Mandisa Surpris, a 15-year-old sophomore, is all this. And she’s black. Some of the other black students don’t know what to make of her. The way she dresses, the way she talks, the grades she earns. She’s an anomaly. To them, she’s more white than black. They’ve even told her...

Chicago plans high school for black males CHICAGO, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The Chicago school district plans to open an all-boys high school primarily for black teenagers. The Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men must be approved by the Board of Education this month, the Chicago Tribune reported. Mayor Richard Daley plans to open 100 schools in the city in the next five years. Plans for the next two years include a virtual elementary school, a high school operated by the University of Chicago and a high school stressing business entrepreneurship. Urban Prep would be located inside Englewood High...

OXFORD - A statue of James Meredith, the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi, will be the latest addition to a proposed civil rights memorial at Ole Miss. After sharp criticism recently for altering an earlier design, the Ole Miss administration agreed to the change this week as a compromise with student leaders. The memorial is expected to be completed by May. The statue of Meredith, who was admitted to Ole Miss amid riots in 1962, will be sculpted by Oxford artist Robert Moorehead. It's the newest change after Chancellor Robert Khayat faced stern criticism when he rejected...

http://www.marvacollins.com/biography.html Marva Collins Biography Marva Collins grew up in Atmore, Alabama at a time when segregation was the rule. Black children were not permitted to use the public library, and her schools had few books. Nonetheless, her father, a successful businessman, instilled in her an awareness of the family's historical excellence and helped develop her strong desire for learning, achievement and independence. After graduating from Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, she taught school in Alabama for two years. She moved to Chicago and, later taught in Chicago's public school system for fourteen years. Her experiences in that system, coupled with...

Minority numbers plunge at Latin Concerns raised about recruiting By Maria Sacchetti In the six years since a federal court ruled that elite Boston Latin School could not consider race as an admissions factor, black enrollment in the school has plunged by more than 42 percent. The number of Hispanic students in the city's most prestigious public school has dropped by 32 percent during the same period, according to state Department of Education records. The decline in minority enrollment is fueling concern that the Boston Public Schools are not doing enough to recruit the system's largest groups of students to...

Forty years after the voters’ rights act, it is arguable that the black American is in a worse place than he was back then. Why is that? Because he/she is constantly being told about the numerous black people who have advanced to higher stations in life, like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and various black executives. I must, however remind the reader of a time-tested adage: The exception proves the rule. The fact that certain people have escaped the poverty inherent to the ghettoes such as Harlem and Compton in the united states means absolutely nothing, under funded schools and cultural...

Why are Charlotte's black students suspended more often than whites? It's a hard-to-answer question, say Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials. But they want to look deeper, they say. An Observer investigation found black students were nearly four times more likely to be suspended than whites in the 2003-04 school year. Overall, CMS suspended 8 percent of white students, and 30 percent of black students. Such disparities also exist nationally and suggest a culture clash in schools, experts say. "It's a very difficult issue, and it's uncomfortable for folks," says assistant superintendent Susan Agruso. "Part of it may be related to culture. Part...

Lawrence Chambers ... was among 18 seniors yesterday who had been more likely to quit school than graduate. Lawrence was also part of the 80-student freshman class from Ward 8 public schools and the impoverished Anacostia and Congress Heights neighborhoods that had only fifth- or sixth-grade reading skills. At the end of the first year, 41 students were kept behind because they did not meet the 10th-grade requirements... Although more students were held back in the next three years and others dropped out after finding the rigorous academic program too difficult, all 18 seniors have been accepted to colleges... The...

BOSTON - Spurred by President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, educators across the nation are putting extraordinary effort into improving the achievement of minority students, who lag so sharply that by 12th grade, the average black or Hispanic student can read and do arithmetic only as well as the average eighth-grade white student. Here in Boston, low-achieving students, most of them blacks and Hispanics, are seeing tutors during lunch hours for help with math. In a Sacramento junior high, low-achieving students are barred from orchestra and chorus to free up time for remedial English and math. And in Minnesota,...

LOS ANGELES - Four black students claimed in a civil rights lawsuit Thursday that officials haven't done enough to quell racist slurs and graffiti by white supremacists at a suburban high school. The lawsuit, which names the William S. Hart Union High School District, its superintendent and the principal of Valencia High School in suburban Santa Clarita, was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges groups of white students intimidate and insult black students by using racial slurs, painting white supremacist messages on bathroom walls and displaying white power stickers on their clothes, cars and notebooks....

Study: Exotic Names Don't Make Grade For Black Students Children With Asian-Sounding Names Considered Brighter A new study suggests that black students with exotic names don't do as well in school as black students with more common names. The University of Florida study found that students with names such as Da'Quan or Damarcus are more likely to score lower on reading and math tests. Researchers said that black students with unusual names are also less likely to meet teacher expectations and be referred to gifted programs than black students with more common names, such as Dwayne. "This study suggests that...

Police: Woman Concocted Scheme To Get Out Of School BANNOCKBURN, Ill. -- Officials say a college student is free on bond after being charged with disorderly conduct and a hate crime. Police say a black female student has confessed to sending threatening letters targeting fellow minority students at her small Christian university, Trinity International University, apparently to convince her parents the school was too dangerous for her to stay. If convicted, Alicia Hardin could get up to five years in prison. Authorities said she told them that she was unhappy and wanted to leave. The letters were sent to two...

City schools have a discipline problem, but it's not necessarily about cursing out the teachers, smoking in the bathrooms or brawling in the halls. It's about race. (Edit) * Though black students made up about a quarter of school enrollment, they received nearly two-thirds of suspensions each year. (Edit) * More black females were suspended each year than white males, even though education researchers say that boys are much more likely to engage in disruptive behavior. * Black males accounted for nearly half of suspensions each year, more than white and Hispanic students combined. They also received multiple suspensions more...

In January, almost 2,000 people jammed the auditorium at Wayne County Community College in Detroit in order to hear Bill Cosby yell at them—there’s really no other way to put it—for being bad parents. That was after a crowd had already filled a hall in Newark. And another in Springfield, Massachusetts. And another in Milwaukee. And yet another in Atlanta.Had Cosby not gone into quarantine as the result of sexual-abuse charges that prosecutors say they are no longer pursuing, there’s no question that thousands more poor black parents would have come to town-hall meetings, asking the comedian-activist to harangue them,...

/BLOCKQUOTE> "Dropout factories" is how a new Harvard study describes some California schools, finding that dropout rates for Latinos and black students are abysmal. Just 50.2 percent of black boys who entered ninth grade in the Golden State received a diploma four years later. The dropout problem on the whole has been underestimated, says The Civil Rights Project of Harvard University, which called for improvements to dropout rate calculation methods and more accountability over the high number of dropouts. The state has reported a graduation rate of 87 percent. Researchers using a different methodology found an overall graduation rate of...

Roland G. Fryer Jr. is 27 years old and he is an assistant professor of economics at Harvard and he is black. Yes, 27 is young to be any kind of professor anywhere. But after what might charitably be called a slow start in the scholarly life, Fryer has been in a big hurry to catch up. He was in fact only 25 when he went on the job market, gaining offers from -- well, just about everywhere. He abruptly ended his job search by accepting an invitation to join the Society of Fellows at Harvard, one of academia's most...

Our friends at Harvard have done another study, and the results are eye-opening to say the least. In 2002, the researchers found that about 50% of the black and hispanic students that should have graduated high school in California didn't. The LA Times headline was "New Study Raises Concerns About `Dropout Factories'". Concern? How about outrage? For anyone who believes that our government controlled monopoly on education is working need to have their head examined. Public education is a massive failure, and by denying the failure, we are dooming our children to poverty, substance abuse and early parenthood. To make...

Urban Parental Disinterest May Cause Our Children's Educational Destruction By Kevin Fobbs March 14, 2005 Twenty three years ago, as officers in the Detroit Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists we began to craft a way to start building a farm team of young minority journalists. But we noticed something very alarming as we worked to create the weekend journalism workshop series for those students. What we encountered was the fact that far too many young minority minds were only receiving a marginal education. Many of the young minds we were seeking to enhance were instead barely performing...

THE British government should consider educating black boys in separate classes from their white peers in order to help them perform better, the head of a race relations watchdog has said. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, also told the BBC it might make sense to deny black fathers access to their sons if they refused to attend school parents' evenings. Mr Phillips told the Inside Out program that many black boys were held back by a culture where being clever was frowned upon and that they lacked self-esteem and good role models. "If the only way...

CLEVELAND - Entertainer Bill Cosby's message to urban youths was the same by telephone as it would have been in person: Get an education. Be responsible. Make a difference. On Monday, Cosby made up - to some degree - for a canceled appearance at a town-hall style meeting last month after a female acquaintance accused him of inappropriately touching her a year ago at his home in suburban Philadelphia. He denied the allegations, and prosecutors in Philadelphia have said they found insufficient evidence to support the woman's claims. Cosby, 67, spoke by telephone for about five minutes to about 250...

When educators and politicians argue for giving more African Americans the chance to thrive at top universities, they see people like UC Berkeley fourth-year student Obi Amajoyi as a perfect example of what they have in mind. He's a biology major who has emerged as a peer leader and athlete. He recruits high school students and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. But while Amajoyi was born in the United States, his parents are from Africa. He considers himself both African American and Nigerian. "I definitely identify with all the struggles that we as African Americans have had...

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times The final hurdle: Many more blacks than whites fail to pass the bar examination. ONE would have thought, given the decades of ardent debate over affirmative action in higher education, that the main axes of the dispute had been established. Defenders of racial preferences say that they compensate for historical wrongs, ensure vibrant and varied campus discourse and help create minority role models and leaders. Opponents say preferences are nothing but a reverse form of discrimination that stereotypes and stigmatizes minority students. But a recent study published in The Stanford Law Review by Richard...

EDITORIAL: Black students need more help It is hard to argue with the facts, especially when they go back decades. And the facts show that black students in Ontario, and particularly in Toronto, are more at risk of failure and of dropping out of school than their non-black classmates. Research also shows black students are more likely to be streamlined into the less-demanding applied courses in high school, away from university-bound academic courses. They also are more at risk of being expelled from school and winding up unemployed or in minimum-wage jobs. That's why some black leaders, fed up with...

For years, people like Thomas Sowell have argued that affirmative action regularly places Black students into schools for which they are not educationally qualified, that in so doing it dooms them to less challenging courses and failure. In debates about affirmative action , the performance of Black students on SAT tests is rarely mentioned. It should be. It is not only supportive of his arguments but the most damning evidence of the inadequacy of the urban school systems from which most of these students come. According to the College Board, 1,877 African American students nationwide scored higher than 1300 out...

From print edition... Story is from Benedict College (Columbia, SC), a school created to educate freed slaves after the Civil War. Seems school president Swinton last year created a new policy to help students who were failing. He created "Success Equals Effort," or SEE. Under SEE a student's grade is made up of 40% achievement and 60% "effort." Thus a student who never pass an exam can recieve a passing grade. Two school professors who refused to accept this ludicrous policy were fired. They are now suing the school, and the school's accrediting agency is launching an investigation (although I...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - The University of Michigan's freshman class had 15 percent fewer black students than last year, partly because fewer applied after the Supreme Court struck down the school's affirmative action policy, officials said Thursday. University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said some potential applicants may have mistakenly believed that the court's June 2003 ruling completely abolished affirmative action in admissions. Instead, the ruling required the school to modify the way it accounts for race in undergraduate admissions. Among the school's 6,040 new first-year students, 350 were black, compared with 410 last year. Applications from black students were down...