Tuesday, September 26, 2006

CNN.com - Some historically black colleges see declining enrollment - Sep 25, 2006

CNN.com - Some historically black colleges see declining enrollment - Sep 25, 2006: RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- When Jessica Page visited Hampton University in March, she considered the trip a formality. She had already made up her mind to attend the school, considered by many a jewel among the nation's historically black institutions.

Then she saw the campus.

The dorms weren't as sleek as she had pictured. Buildings seemed antiquated. Was this 'The Real HU' she had heard about?

'I wasn't impressed,' said Page, who later enrolled at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. 'Hampton was my No. 1 choice -- until I visited.'

Page is part of a steady trickle of talented young blacks slipping away from the nation's most prestigious black colleges.

Experts say aging campuses are one reason. But other reasons cited include increasing competition from predominantly white schools that are trying to become more diverse; changes in black students' desires; and the greater opportunities available to them in a society more integrated than that of their parents.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

CNN.com - Boston school district wins top education award - Sep 19, 2006

CNN.com - Boston school district wins top education award - Sep 19, 2006: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Boston public school system won the nation's largest prize in public education Tuesday, earning $500,000 in college scholarships for making steady gains in the classroom.

The Boston district won the biggest share of the $1 million Broad Prize for Public Education. The award annually honors urban districts that make notable academic progress, particularly by reducing the test-score 'achievement gap' among poor and minority students.

This year, 100 districts were eligible. The other four finalists were Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, Jersey City School District in New Jersey, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the New York City Department of Education. They will all receive $125,000.

Boston has been a finalist for five straight years. It won this year's top honor by posting impressive gains among poor and minority kids when compared with other Massachusetts districts.

'Boston has consistently shown that stable leadership in the school district and the city, as well as data-driven teaching, leads to strong student performance,' said Eli Broad, the philanthropist who created the Broad Foundation in 1999, with his wife, Edythe.

'While it is discouraging that there is not more success in this country's public school systems,' he said, 'other large urban districts can learn from Boston's sustained progress.'

Boston's district has about 58,000 students, and almost 75 percent of them are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, an indication of a district's poverty level.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Women Aren't Good in Math . . . or Are They?

Women Aren't Good in Math . . . or Are They?: Strange but true: Women score much lower on math tests if they are first asked unrelated questions about gender issues. The phenomenon is called 'stereotype threat' -- a kind of performance anxiety discovered in 1995 when psychologists found that black students at Stanford University did significantly worse on intelligence tests if they were first asked to identify their race on the test form.

Since then, dozens of other experiments have confirmed that subtly cuing women or minorities to think subconsciously about their sex or race causes them do poorly in areas where the stereotype suggests they are weak.

Digital divide separates white, minority students - The Boston Globe

Digital divide separates white, minority students - The Boston Globe: WASHINGTON -- Many more white children use the Internet than do Hispanic and black students, a reminder that going online is hardly a way of life for everyone, a federal study has found.

Two of three white students, or 67 percent, use the Internet, but less than half of blacks and Hispanics do, according to federal data released yesterday. For Hispanics the figure is 44 percent; for blacks, it's 47 percent.

``This creates incredible barriers for minorities," said Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a specialist on how communications influence civil rights.

Not using the Internet ``narrows their ability to even think about the kind of work they can be doing," Lloyd said.

The new data come from the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the Education Department. It is based on a national representative survey of households in 2003.

Overall, 91 percent of students in nursery school through 12th grade use computers; 59 percent use the Internet.

Almost all US schools are connected to the Internet. The gaps in Internet usage between whites and minorities, though sizable, are smaller during the school day.

A total of 54 percent of white students use the Internet at home, compared with 26 percent of Hispanic and 27 percent of black children. Limited access can erode a student's research on assignments or college scholarships.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Bloomberg.com: Japan

Bloomberg.com: Japan: U.S. Has Life Expectancy Gaps as Wide as 20 Years (Update2)

By Theresa Barry

Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Asian-American women have the top life expectancy in the U.S., while black men in some urban areas have the worst, a gap of almost two decades, scientists said.

The life expectancy of Asian women was 86.7 years and for black men living in high-risk urban areas, it was 68.7 years, according to a national study in today's PLoS Medicine online. Hawaii led 50 states and Washington, D.C., with life expectancy of 80 years, while D.C. ranked last, with 72 years.

The differences are driven by injury and preventable risk factors for long-term disease such as smoking, alcoholism and obesity, especially in Americans ages 15 to 59, said lead investigator Christopher Murray. He said most health-policy initiatives currently focus on children and the elderly.

``The evidence is really quite clear that most of the gap across these groups is due to differences in mortality in young and middle-aged adult men and women and most of that is due to chronic disease,'' Murray, Harvard Initiative for Global Health director, said in a telephone interview. ``It's not HIV. It's not homicide. It's cardiovascular disease. It's chronic respiratory disease, liver disease and somewhat cancers.''

Discovering the factors underlying longevity gaps is important, Murray said in a telephone interview Sept. 8 from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He said the life expectancy gaps won't close until the focus turns to Americans ages 15 to 59.

Seeking Causes

The investigators divided the country into eight groups based on such factors as race, location, population density, income, and homicide rates to look at life expectancy:

-- Asian: 10.4 million people

-- Northland low-income rural white: 3.6 million

-- Middle America: 214 million

-- Low-income whites, Appalachia, Mississippi: 16.6 million

-- Western Native American: 1 million

-- Black middle America: 23.4 million

-- Southern, rural, low-income black: 5.8 million

-- High-risk urban black: 7.5 million.

Gaps in life expectancy have changed little from 1982 to 2001, the investigators said.

Sources for the data included the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics. The study was financed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Association of Schools for Public Health and the National Institute on Aging.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Blacks, Hispanics pay more for mortgages - Real Estate - MSNBC.com

Blacks, Hispanics pay more for mortgages - Real Estate - MSNBC.com: WASHINGTON - Black and Hispanic home buyers pay more for their mortgages than do whites, according to a Federal Reserve report released Friday.

The Fed’s analysis of 2005 home lending data found that 54.7 percent of black borrowers paid a higher-than-typical interest rate on home mortgages. That was up sharply from 32.4 percent in 2004.

For Hispanics, 46.1 percent paid more than typical for their mortgages last year — more than double the 20.3 percent reported in 2004.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Hispanics to pass blacks in buying power - Stocks & Economy - MSNBC.com

Hispanics to pass blacks in buying power - Stocks & Economy - MSNBC.com: ATLANTA - Hispanics will outpace blacks as the most powerful minority consumers in the country next year, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

Still, the vast majority of states will continue to see blacks as their strongest minority market because the nation's Hispanic population is concentrated in a handful of areas, study author Jeffrey Humphreys said.

Hispanics are expected to have buying power of $863.1 billion, compared with black buying power of $847 billion in 2007. Hispanics — the nation's largest and fastest-growing ethnic minority — will comprise about 8.5 percent of the nation's total consumer market next year.

WP: Mystery of Va. slaves is unlocked� - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

WP: Mystery of Va. slaves is unlocked� - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com: JAMESTOWN - They were known as the '20 and odd,' the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607.

For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were transported to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no trace.

Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began.