Hypocritical Obamas and the Democratic Elites of Washington, D.C.

Equality of education is the civil rights issue of our time. It is with great satisfaction that I support Mr. Trump’s position on school choice and his selection for the Dept. of Education, Betsy DeVos.

The elites of Washington, D.C. has had no problem putting their children into one of the most high-priced private schools in the country, Sidwell Friends, in Washington, D. C. In doing so their children will not have to attend the public schools where the Democratic controlled unions have perpetrated bad schools and incompetent teachers on the Black children of that city.  

Described as "the Harvard of Washington's private schools", Sidwell Friends has educated children of notable politicians, including those of several presidents. Both of United States President Barack Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, and Vice President Joe Biden's grandchildren attend the school. President Theodore Roosevelt's son Archibald, Richard Nixon's daughter Tricia, Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore's son, Albert Gore III, all graduated from Sidwell

The 2016-2017 tuition for Sidwell Friends is $39,360 per student not including books and laptop fees. So the Obamas spent at least $78,720 for their children to go to that school. However, these hypocrites and the other Democratic elites are willing to deny a voucher of $12,000 per year for Black parents to send their children to a school of their choice.

Ironically, it takes a white Republican billionaire to relate to the concerns of inner city Black parents.

7 Ways to Become Involved in Your Children's Education

According to a study published in the American Educational Research Journal, parental involvement has been shown to positively influence graduation rates, children's achievement in language and mathematics, their academic persistence, and their behavioral problems. 

You never want your child or children to think that schoolwork is too hard and either start to withdraw or stop making an effort.

If you are a single parent, parental involvement falls solely upon your shoulders. If doing this is a struggle for you, admit to it and ask a relative, a friend, your neighbor, or a pastor for help in keeping close tabs on how your children are doing and working with the school to implement an action plan for improvement.

However, if parent involvement is not a struggle for you, here are: 

7 ways to carry out your parental involvement effectively.

1. Establish and maintain an ongoing dialogue with your children's teachers. Learn how to make sense out of your children's report cards. Determine what type of question to ask at parent-teacher conferences. And, make sure you know what your child should be studying and the tests they are required to pass.

2. Set up regular time for homework completion. Establish appropriate routines at home like creating quiet time for homework as well as for recreational reading. Limit the amount of television they can watch or video games they can watch.

3. Set a good example for your children. Let the children see that you value reading and lifetime learning by enrolling in classes yourself and taking part in study groups. Moreover, if you have younger children, read to them and with them.

4. Praise the child's effort. Instead of criticizing the child's mistakes, guide them into discovering the right answers through their own efforts. If you can't help them with their homework, keep a close enough eye on them to know if they're doing it themselves.

5. Establish a relationship with other like-minded parents and community groups to strive for excellence in the school.

6. Expose your children to a variety of learning experiences. Get up on Saturday mornings and take your children to the museums or the library. Help them to turn their favorite hobbies into enjoyable learning experience.

7. Volunteer, if possible, in the classroom and at least accompany your children's classrooms on field trips. Go to the parent/teacher conferences and meet all the teachers.

The fact of the matter is that the active involvement of parents is the first step in creating a level educational playing field. Parental involvement in the school can turn it from a dropout factory into one of excellence. 
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You can influence the choice of the principal, the type of curriculum, the quality of teaching, the expectations of teachers, and the security and safety of the classrooms.

6 Steps You Must Take to Make Your Child's School Better

Entrenched bureaucracies sometimes change out of enlightened self-interest.  

In other words, they see the light and reform themselves before it's too late, before a more compelling alternative becomes widely available. 

Other times, it takes concerted external pressure to force bureaucracies to change for the sake of their "customers" - the children - as well as themselves.

For far too long, public educators and politicians have kept their heads in the sand, like ostriches, in the face of an urgent need to improve urban and rural schools. 

Therefore, I urge you and other community leaders to keep up the relentless pressure to create straight "A" schools for your children and for every American child.

So regardless of where you live and what your family circumstances are, here's what you must do in order to make sure that your children are well served by their school and placed squarely on the path to academic success:

1. Be vigilant. Make it your business to ask your children what's going on at school. Look for possible trouble spots such as teachers' negative attitudes, tracking, discipline problems, safety issues, and so on. Stay in touch with your kids and pay attention to what they are telling you—and keeping from you.

2. Be informed. Educate yourself about what your children are learning in school and what the school offers. Find out if the work they're doing is grade level or better and whether it meets the academic standards imposed by the states. Familiarize yourself with the standardized tests your children are expected to take, when they must take them, and how they should prepare properly to do well on them. Read up on national and state educational policies and regulations, with an eye to how they will directly affect your children.

3. Be involved. Attend parent-teacher conferences and "meet-the-teacher" nights. Vote in the school board elections and maybe even run for a seat on the board yourself. No one can fight harder than you for your children's right to a good education.

4. Be vocal. Speak up if you see a problem with your child's schooling even if you think there may be repercussions because of your activism. Go to your child's teacher or principal if you detect unfairness in the way your child is being treated. If you feel you, or your child, are being punished for your outspokenness, contact your pastor, the local Urban League, or another community-based organization.

5. Be visible. Make sure the school know that you are actively involved in your child's education. Become involved in the governing process of your local school system. Attend school board meetings and get to know your local elected representatives.

6. Organize. Meet with others to discuss how you can work as a group to help your children. Start on a grassroots level—with neighbors, relatives, friends. Many voices are stronger than one, and work in unison to ensure that achievement matters as much to your children's school as it does to you.

You must be an advocate for your children in school, in the community, and sometimes even within the family. It is your role both to stand up for your and to hold your child accountable.

You must also coach your children through their development. An effective coach teaches concrete skills, pushes an individual to achieve full potential, and is consistently supportive, win or lose."

Children want to do well. When large numbers of them fail, it's because adults—school administrators, teachers, you, and your larger community—have failed them. We all know

it doesn't have to be this way. Bad public schools can be turned around if the adults mobilize to do so; if adults will say: no more excuses for school failure.

I'm not downplaying the problems that many schools and the families they serve face. Just the opposite. While these problems may not go away, they needn't defeat the efforts of you and dedicated educators to close the Preparation Gap and ensure that your children achieve, regardless of your family circumstances.


What steps have you been taking to make your child's school better? 
Leave your comments below. 

How to Prevent your Child from Becoming a Dropout

To end Black dropouts, parents must value education and take it seriously. As a parent you just can’t leave the education of your child to the teachers and administrators no matter what type of school your child attends.

Even if you dropped out of high school or didn’t complete college, it is still important for you to be :

• aware of the school’s curriculum,
• what expectations the school, especially your child's teachers, have for your child,
• the school’s standards,
• the teachers' and the administrators’ qualifications,
• the school’s rankings,
• your child’s safety in the schools,
• whether giving homework is a part of the school’s policy,
• and whether the school welcome and encourage your involvement.

As a parent, you have responsibility to provide for your child’s food, shelter, and his overall development in becoming a functioning adult in society. Your child’s education is an essential piece of the puzzle. Set the right environment in the home.

Organize your home and your child to make sure that he can balance doing chores, completing homework, associating with his friends, having special times with you, and having fun. Set a good example. Let your child see you reading. Watch educational programs with your child. Have conversations about current events and what's being taught in your child’s classrooms.

Again, take the education of your child seriously. You don’t want your child to get discouraged and drop out of high school. Let them know that not only is this unacceptable.

Tell your child that what is acceptable is for him to apply himself, make the required effort, graduate, and go on to realize his full potential. And, most of all encouragement him and give him your full support.

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Three Essential Goals of Education No One Talks About

The focus is on ending Black dropouts. When dropout factories continue to exist, it begs the question, what are the goals of education.

While I firmly believe that the education of our youth is a local issue and not a federal one, each locality should be clear about their educational goals.

Here I am offering a guide for developing specific educational goals.

1. The goal of a good education is to help young people to become both more receptive to and more discriminating about the world: seeing, feeling, and understanding more, yet sorting the pertinent from the irrelevant with a more discerning touch, increasingly able to integrate what they see and to make meaning of it in ways that enhance their ability to keep on growing.

2. The goal of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broad and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is for first-graders as well as for graduate students, for fledging artists as well as for graying accountants.

3. The final goal of education in the schools should be to create men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done ; men and women who are creative, inventive, and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept everything they are offered.


What are your thoughts. Do you think these goals are realistic?

Leave your comments below.

The Sad State of American Education

America ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of students receiving undergraduate degrees in science and engineering.

US undergraduate institutions award 16% of their degrees in the natural sciences or engineering. South Korea and China award 38% and 47%, respectively.

On the Program for International Student Assessment exam, students in Hong Kong and Shanghai dominated their counterparts in the US, and most other countries and most other countries in Science and Technology.

 A record number of high school students taking and passing Advanced Placement exams are scoring at the lowest level possible, according to national data on 2010 graduates. In science, students in 16 countries outscored American students.

According to a 2006 program for international student assessment exam, 15-year-old American students placed a dismal 23rd out of 29 participating countries in mathematics.

Fewer than one third of elementary and high school students have a solid grasp on science. China, Japan, and Finland are all ahead of the US.

To put this in perspective, for years the US dominated the science and technology fields and filed record numbers of patents which in turn empowered its military and fueled its economy.

This matters because our country desperately relies on mathematicians and engineers to remain at the cusp of technological advances. The failure to prepare tomorrow's leaders in math and science is a threat to our country's global standing.

Finally, where does Black students fit in this sad situation? Take a look a Chicago Failing Schools.

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3 Things Dropout Prevention Programs Must Do to be Effective

There are various dropout prevention programs functioning across the United States with varying degrees of success. From my perspective as a mental health consultant, there are 3 important ways if implemented would help stop the high school dropout epidemic.

Lets look at the 3 ways:

1.    The school program must be perceived by the students as leading to higher status roles in the future and to future economic realities. 

In other words, the school programs must have a connection between their school and work either with a future career or at least with a decent paying job with the possibility of advancement after graduation.

2.    The school program must be personalized, challenging, and have a sense of community established whereby the relationship between teacher and student are supportive and trusting rather than unhelpful and distrustful. 

Every high school must be either small enough or divided into small enough units to allow teachers and staff to know the students as individuals and to respond to both their specific learning needs and learning styles.

3.    The school program must provide the student with some choice about the nature of their academic program and what they are interested in learning. As part of their classroom work, students must have an opportunity to design independent projects, work on group projects, conduct experiments, solve open-ended problems, get involved in activities that connect school and work, and have opportunities to encounter some real psychological and practical success in their endeavors.

In reflecting on my experience as a former high school dropout, if I was in a high school that connected school and work or at least connected school work with a career I was interested in, treated me as an individual, and, allowed me some choice in my academic program, I never would have dropped out. 

It is the impersonal and alienating nature of high school conditions, specifically in the largest cities, that needs to be changed.

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

Best Way to Keep a Black Youngster in School

The youngster's school setting which recognizes his efforts and potential is the greatest factor in assuring that the youngster will graduate. 

While testing and holding teachers and administers accountable has a role, too much is often made of this to the detriment of the student. 

Teachers become inclined to "teach to the test" to make themselves look good, to get a bonus or both. 

It can even lead teachers and administers to cheat and short-change the student as what happened in Atlanta, Georgia a few years ago by criminal and greedy Black teachers and principals.   

Again, recognizing the youngster's efforts and potential is the greatest factor in assuring that the youngster will graduate. 

Your Thoughts? Leave your comments below. 

Bad Public Schools, Dropouts, and What to do About It

The high school graduation rate in Chicago as of the last full year of available records. (2012-2013) supposedly 63%, which is far from the national rate of 81 %.

However, according to an investigation done by National Public Radio (NPR), the news might not be quite as sunny and cheerful as the headlines would indicate. Graduating more students isn't really a positive accomplishment if the graduates in question are making it out the door on a technicality and are not prepared for either college or a job. And in Chicago, that seems to be the case far too often.

First of all, the "percentage who graduate" isn't accurate if you mislabel a lot of the dropouts.

Basically, we found that many high schools in the city were mislabeling students when they left. They were saying they were moving out of town or going to private schools when, in reality, they were enrolling at the district's alternative schools or, in some cases, GED programs. This makes it look better than it really is because mislabeling those students makes them disappear from the denominator.

But even the ones who stick around and graduate were frequently getting credit for work which was dubious to say the least. Many students achieved the required minimums through "credit recovery." This process allowed students who failed required courses to "retake" the class at home and/or online with limited teacher supervision and far fewer questions to answer.

Plenty of cities are apparently using similar tactics to Chicago. Camden, New Jersey has an interesting optional program for kids who fail their finals. They get to try again with a substantially easier course.

In New Jersey, if you fail the first-round high school exit exam, there's a second exam you can take — an easier one. It's untimed, and it consists of just one single question per subject. In Camden, half the senior class failed not just the first test but the second one too.

In New Jersey as in many states with grad exams, there's a Plan B. There's an appeals

process. And students can submit samples of work they did in class to the state. It can be a single, graded algebra problem or a persuasive essay with a teacher's comments on it.

That "Plan B" was apparently used by nearly 1,500 students in New Jersey alone. Good work if you can get it, as the saying goes, but are these students in any way ready to succeed in either academia or the work force? It doesn't sound like it.

Illinois Policy says that even that story doesn't tell the whole tale when it comes to Chicago.

Unfortunately, these requirements are not rigorous. In fact, students can fail one of four core classes (English, mathematics, science and social sciences) each year and still advance to the next grade level. They also only have to garner just a D in each class they take to earn the 24 credit hours they need to graduate.

        

It's important to remember what a graduation rate doesn't tell us — namely, how prepared the graduating students are for college. On that front, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) are failing miserably.

According to a recent report, 45 percent of CPS graduates begin their senior year not doing well enough academically to attend a four-year college. In the fall after graduation, the most common outcome for these students was to be neither working nor in school.

NPR also showed the opposite side of the coin when they explored the state with the highest graduation rate in the country, Iowa at 90%. There they talk about a number of programs which Iowa has used to keep kids in the classrooms, including free day care, food banks, smaller classes and flexible hours. Those all sound great, and if the districts can manage the funding there's plenty to like about them. 

But at the same time, nothing is ever going to replace a solid home life and parents who make sure that their kids get out of bed in the morning; make sure they make it to school; check on their progress regularly; and, help them with their lessons and discipline them when needed. Maybe there is simply more of that in Iowa?

That would be nearly impossible metric to quantify, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. Government can provide education as a form of supplied services, but they can't force it on anyone. That happens from the bottom up. And for too many kids in Chicago and many other large cities, that's clearly not happening. The sad result is that a lot of those children will never really stand a chance later in life.

Your Thoughts. Leave Your Comments Below.

The Need for Equality in Education Still Exist

Now, even after the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board and the first time students of color became the majority in U.S. public schools - the state of education in Black America today is at a critical juncture. 
The achievement gap between Black children and their classmates continues to widen, and too many students are simply not being equipped with the tools that they need to succeed in a rapidly changing, global society.

Why? Because in areas where Black children are concentrated and poverty is pervasive, we are falling short of providing a high-quality education for them.

Of the 50.2 million students enrolled in public schools in the U.S. today, 16 percent are Black. While our national graduation rate is at 82 percent, the graduation rate for Black students is 57 percent. Those who do reach that graduation milestone are not as prepared as their classmates for learning beyond high school. 

Racial and Socioeconomic Achievement Gap
Upon entering college, only 12 percent of Black students are ready to succeed without taking remediation courses (basic skills courses) that can be so costly they lessen the odds of some students attaining a degree. These are sobering statistics. But if we want to close the racial and socioeconomic achievement gap, we must have a clear understanding of its exact dimensions and contours. 

Tools for Realizing High Standards
Not only do we need to be able to describe the problem, we need to also use our understanding to build tools that meet the challenge of educating all children to high standards. What are those tools?

In K-12 education, the emphasize needs to include the following: access to great teachers who deliver high-quality instruction; high expectations and challenging coursework; and approaches to personalized learning that allow a more tailored approach for students so we can meet their individual learning needs and build on their strengths.

The Single Most Important Quality of a Great School
The recent New Education Majority national poll of parents and families of color suggests that parents agree. It showed that Black parents overwhelmingly consider good teachers to be the single most important quality of a great school, and that they their young-sters should be challenged more in school to help ensure they are successful later in life.

Today, more than ever before, education doesn't end with high school. A post secondary degree or credentials offers the surest course to career opportunity and individual success in life. We need to make college more personalized and flexible to meet the needs of today's students, who are more diverse than ever. Many are working full-time, while others are raising kids or returning to school at an older age.

Why Some Students Drop Out

Georgia State University, for example, analyzed millions of student to try to learn why some students were dropping out. They found that a low grade in the first course in a student's major can signal trouble. The university gets an alert when students earn a C or lower in the first course tied to their major - and students get more support. It's one of the data-driven steps that helped Georgia State double the graduation rate for Black students and triple the rate for Hispanic students over the last decade.

Georgia State University, among other institutions, is facing the issue of educational inequity head-on and proving that it is not intractable or inevitable. The real question is, do we accept it in our country? Are we going to accept a system that sets students on different trajectories based on the color of their skin or the language they speak? Can we sit comfortably knowing that future leaders and great minds are sitting in classrooms today and not receiving the quality education they deserve?

Absolutely not. We cannot accept the status quo. It is time to look closely at approaches suggested by the data, listen to families and commit to implementing real solutions in our schools and communities.

Throughout history, Black people have always prioritized and fought for educational opportunities. Since the time when slaves learned to read and write despite the threat of physical danger that could result, through the battle for equality in our schools and Brown v. Board, the fight for opportunity through education, no matter the risks, is a part of our nation's story.

Your Thoughts. Leave your comments below.

Integration Hurts Black kids

Let's be truthful, if the American majority wanted integrated  schools, we would already have them. 

Instead, many white families select schools in ways that create social  distance between their children and other races. This leaves people of color who love our children to wonder how long we can chase them and continue to further the insulting delusion that Black student achievement can only be had in proximity to whiteness. 

Personally, I had the experience, in the 1950's of attending all Black elementary schools where there were no white teachers nor principals and acquired an outstanding elementary school education which allowed me to enroll in one of the two best high schools in the city. I simply made the mistake of leaving that school, enrolling in another high school, and afterwards dropping out during my junior year and not finishing high school until after being discharged from the military. 

No Evidence for Integration
Most black parents are realists. There is no evidence that perfect integration will occur soon, but our kids need an education today. With this in mind, it is unnerving to see integration fundamentalists criticizing policies aimed at educating our kids where they are. To them, reforms that assist marginalized communities are a consolation prize for our failure to achieve an idealized picture of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream community. To us, they're an imperfect but ultimately useful pathway helping us to navigate our kids through  a racist society.

What if the supposed beneficiaries of public school integration aren't actually pining for it? There is a long  line of Black intellectual thought that questions the primacy of integration as an educational goal and as a  means of cultural health for Black children.

Thoughts of Great Black Leaders on Education
W.E.B. Dubois said: "The Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed schools. What he needs is  Education. What he must remember is that there is no magic, either in mixed schools or in segregated  schools. A mixed school with poor and unsympathetic teachers, with hostile public opinion, and no teaching of truth concerning Black folk, is bad."

King himself expressed reservations about integration, too. Black educators from his church recall him  saying of white schools and white teachers: "People with such a low view of the Black race cannot be given free rein and put in charge of the intellectual care and development of our boys and girls."  Kenneth Clark, the famed psychologist whose scientific evidence about the deleterious effects of  discrimination bolstered Brown v. Board of Education, expressed disappointment with its aftermath.

Years later he conceded that civil rights leaders may have underestimated institutional racism, writing a paper for the Harvard Educational Review that called for "realistic, aggressive, and viable competitors" for the  traditional public schools. His vision is not significantly different from today's school reform efforts. Research continues to tell us Black children mostly attend public schools where they are more likely to be suspended than white students and are less likely to be placed in gifted classes even when they qualify.

Black Schools Get the Worst Teachers

Traditional school districts crowd the least effective, least prepared and lowest-paid teachers in schools with the most low-income Black children and just as King feared, those teachers hold low opinions of their students' potential. Taken together, you can see why Black parents are the fastest-growing demographic of  home-schoolers, and when culturally affirming charter schools open up, waiting lists quickly develop.

Given all the evidence, the safest things Black parents is to support new schools that get results. The  fundamentalists can work on persuading the American majority to close the gap between what they say about integration and what they do when it's time to enroll their children in schools.

Your Thoughts. Leave Your Comments Below

11 Signs that Your Child's School Welcomes Parents

Parent involvement is a key factor in dropout prevention. 

Lack of parent involvement should be considered a significant risk factor leading to teenagers dropping out of high school. 

Conscientious teachers and school officials should encourage parent involvement and make the school inviting to all parents.  

Here are 11 characteristics you might see in a school that is serious about parental involvement:

1. Keeps parents up-to-date (via a bulletin board, Web site, hot line, or news­letter) about upcoming school events, personnel changes, volunteer oppor­tunities, etc.
2.  Informs parents about important changes under consideration before putting them into effect.
3.  Encourages parent-staff committees to weigh in on decisions that signifi­cantly effect the school (e.g., budget, curriculum, teacher hiring).
4.  Holds frequent events (such as open-house nights) where parents and teach­ers can meet, talk, and swap information.
5.  Provides phone numbers or e-mail addresses where parents can reach teachers.
6.  Supports an active parent-teacher group (PTA or PTO).
7.  Invites parents to observe children's classes.
8.  Greets mothers and fathers warmly; treats them in a courteous manner when they ask questions.
9.  Invites parents to make suggestions and evaluate the job that the school is doing, through surveys or direct communication with staff.
10.  Provides clear written information about school rules and procedures.
11.  Explains things to parents in everyday English, not jargon you can't under­stand. 

Do your child's school encourage your involvement. Let me know.