(Name-mce) ListServ Fwd: Maryland panel proposes tactics for academic success of males

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Ideas to aid black youths

Maryland panel proposes tactics for academic success of males

By Liz Bowie  liz.bowie at baltsun.com    Baltimore Sun reporter
Originally published December 14, 2006

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.board14dec14,0,6657108.story?coll=bal-local-headlines


To push more black male students toward success, Maryland should turn to
academic solutions such as single-sex classrooms and street-level fixes such
as pairing ex-convicts with young men in the neighborhood, a panel of
education experts told the state school board yesterday.

A task force of 45 educators, business leaders and union officials met for
two years to prepare a report intended to address a persistent problem in
academic achievement for black males in the state.

"There is a crushing sense of urgency that permeates this report," said
Dunbar Brooks, co-chairman of the task force and vice president of the
Maryland State Board of Education. "If we don't make this change, we have
failed as a society and a nation."

Many of the study's 18 recommendations would be expensive to implement and
would require action by local school districts. Panel members would not
predict the likelihood of their proposals becoming reality, and many said
the findings would need strong advocates if they are to be followed.

Maryland last tackled the difficult topic in 1993, when then-Gov. William
Donald Schaefer convened a task force on black males in the state. But those
recommendations were largely ignored, in the absence of political leadership
pushing them.

"These recommendations need an independent group to monitor our progress and
hold our feet to the fire if we fail to make it," the report said.

State schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, chairwoman of the task
force, said the next step is to define what body in Maryland is responsible
for each of the recommendations in the report.

The report calls for school systems to stop placing large numbers of black
males in special-education classes, where they are over-represented, and
stop sending them home when they are suspended instead of providing
constructive punishment inside the school.

The report also endorses the use of more single-sex classes inside regular
schools, saying research points to a rise in academic achievement among boys
segregated by gender.

African-American males also need to be challenged in higher-level courses
and need to understand what it takes to get into college, the report says.
So it recommends increasing the number of students who take PSATs and
Advanced Placement classes.

The disparity in academic achievement for African-American males has
remained a persistent problem.

In 2003, 76 percent of white males graduated from high school, compared with
53 percent of black males in Maryland.

For every four black men in college, there are three behind bars.

Only a small percentage of black men get to college, and fewer still
graduate. In Maryland, black men earn 15 percent of master's degrees and 7
percent of doctorates.

But even if they apply and are accepted to college, they sometimes cannot
find the money to attend, said Olan M. Johnson, co-chairman of the panel and
treasurer of the University System of Maryland's Board of Regents.

Black students are now being turned away from colleges in the state because
they cannot find enough financial aid, he said. So under one of the group's
proposals, Maryland would fully fund state need-based grant and scholarship
programs.

Unlike many education proposals, the report acknowledges the "inextricable
connection between a child's emotional well-being and his academic success"
and makes a number of unusual suggestions.

In school, the report says, any black male who has behavior or academic
problems should be given an advocate who can listen to him and intercede on
his behalf.

Outside of school, the report calls for Maryland to fund programs that find
black men to mentor boys. But when black men cannot be found, a mentor of a
different race is better than no mentor.

  Other supports for young men could be found in their neighborhoods.
Ex-inmates who are returning to their neighborhoods often need help in
reconnecting to their communities, the report said, and many young children
need father figures.

"Maybe it is counterintuitive to put children and ex-offenders together. And
maybe it's exactly what each one needs," the report said. The ex-offenders
might offer lessons in the mistakes they have made in their lives to those
boys growing up in the same neighborhood, it said.

Any ex-offenders would have to be carefully screened and any mentoring would
have to be closely monitored.

"We realize this may get some people's juices going," Brooks acknowledged,
but he said the proposal is one to be considered.

Other recommendations include:

• Placing more qualified teachers in the lowest-performing schools.

• Providing better child care for young children.

• Improving school-based mental and physical health care.

• Greater funding for schools in correctional facilities.

State school board members were generally supportive of the recommendations,
although some said they believe local school systems would be crucial in
seeing that they are implemented. They also recognize that black families
must take their part in the change.

"There is a cultural dimension, and that cultural dimension is going to be
harder to get at," said state school board President Edward L. Root. "It
can't be done by the schools alone."

The report will be delivered to the University System of Maryland Board of
Regents and the PreK-16 Leadership Council in the coming months. It will be
up to both boards to see that it is enacted.