At Med Schools, a New Degree of Diversity - washingtonpost.com

At Med Schools, a New Degree of Diversity - washingtonpost.com: In the past 15 years, U.S. medicine has seen a huge influx of first- and second-generation immigrants. It follows and augments a different demographic trend that began 30 years ago with the acceptance of increasing numbers of women into medical schools. As a result of that earlier revolutionary change, half of new practitioners today are women.

From 1980 to 2004, the fraction of medical school graduates describing themselves as white fell from 85 percent to 64 percent. Over that same period, the percentage of Asians increased from 3 percent to 20 percent, with Indians and Chinese the two biggest ethnic groups.

Counted in the "white" category, moreover, are a moderate number of ethnic Persians whose families fled the 1979 Iranian revolution, and a smaller number of more recent arrivals from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the "black" category is an unknown number of graduates whose families recently arrived from Africa, predominantly Nigerians and Ghanaians.

The Shackles in the Shadows of History - washingtonpost.com

The Shackles in the Shadows of History - washingtonpost.com: In 1619, 12 years after Jamestown's settlement, two British privateers sailed into the James River with African captives for sale. The Africans had Portuguese names; they apparently knew Christianity, according to John Thornton and Linda Heywood, a husband-and-wife team of Boston University historians. Those first Africans came from the kingdom of Ndongo, now Angola, which had been penetrated by Portuguese missionaries and traders who soon stopped praying with the Africans and started selling them.

The settlement of Jamestown would ultimately wither and die, but the American form of slavery born with those first Africans would endure for nearly 250 years. Slavery and America grew up hand in hand, and the African imprint on the new nation is evident to this day -- a fact being highlighted in Jamestown events this weekend in the ongoing commemoration of the Virginia settlement's 400th anniversary.

A Magnetic Force Dynamic Chief Has Driven Boom at UMBC

In his 15 years as president, Freeman A. Hrabowski III has so transformed the University of Maryland Baltimore County with his exuberant, forceful character that people on campus invented a word for it: Freemanized.

Once an afterthought even within the state, a commuter school overshadowed by other campuses, UMBC now grabs national attention. Hrabowski has elevated research and entrepreneurialism on campus and helped lift minority and low-income students, especially black math and science majors, to the highest levels of academic achievement.

Black Caucus Founder Parren Mitchell, 85, Dies - washingtonpost.com

Black Caucus Founder Parren Mitchell, 85, Dies - washingtonpost.com: Parren J. Mitchell, 85, a Baltimore civil rights activist who became Maryland's first black member of Congress in 1970, died May 28 of complications from pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He had been living in a nursing home since a series of strokes several years ago.

A former head of the Congressional Black Caucus and chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Mr. Mitchell worked for years to assure minority participation in contracts let under federal public works programs. He was an original sponsor of legislation approved in 1977 guaranteeing minority contractors a share in public works spending. He also sponsored an amendment to the 1982 Surface Transportation Assistance Act requiring that at least 10 percent of the funds provided under the law should go to small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged people.

White students drawn to black colleges - U.S. News - MSNBC.com

White students drawn to black colleges - U.S. News - MSNBC.com:... Private, historically black schools cost an average of $10,000 less per year than their traditionally white counterparts, according to the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.

'Increasingly black and brown world'
The head of the association says lower costs are not the only thing the schools have to offer. Whites who attend the schools are preparing for an “increasingly black and brown world,” said Lezli Baskerville, the association’s president and CEO.

“If you want to know how to live in one, you can’t grow up in an all-white neighborhood, go to a predominantly white school, white cultural and social events, go to a predominantly white university and then thrive in a world that is today more black, more brown than before,” Baskerville said.

White students say they’ve taken valuable experiences from their time at black colleges. Skin color, the students say, is much more of a factor away from the campuses than it is on them.

Higher Education Demographics: University Demographics: Statistics

Higher Education Demographics: University Demographics: Statistics: Twenty-seven percent of undergraduates at Title IV schools are racial minorities; foreign student enrollment in graduate school (12 percent) is significantly higher than in undergraduate (3 percent); and Blacks generally have the lowest six-year graduation rates of any racial group and have a disproportionately high enrollment in for-profit colleges.

This snapshot of the demographics of the nation’s colleges and universities comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, which recently released “Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2005; Graduation Rates, 1999 and 2002 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2005.” The information is based on Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System collection of data from more than 6,457 Title IV institutions and 83 administrative offices in the United States.

Bowie State Students: N-Word Not Welcome Here

Bowie State Students: N-Word Not Welcome Here: "Residents of historically Black Bowie State University’s all-male residence halls are accustomed to watching the news on their communal flat screen television every night between 5:00 and 8:00 pm. They often discuss each other’s entrepreneurial plans. What they aren’t used to is hearing each other use the “n-word.”

“Now if someone says ‘nigga’ everyone will stop and look,” says William “Butch” Tweedle, resident director of Kennard Hall.

Disturbed by how often he heard residents in the 84-bed dormitory using the n-word to greet and refer to each other, Tweedle, three years ago, called a hall meeting.

That meeting led to what is now the “N-Free Zone.” When students move into Kennard or Holmes Hall, the 127-bed all-male freshman dormitory, they become part of a community where casual use of the n-word isn’t cool."

A School Frees Low-Income Boys From the Pressures of the Streets

... A day spent at Jackson shows how it has flourished — by cultivating a culture where boys consider the feelings of their classmates, a sensitivity American culture has too often demanded only of girls.

A nonsectarian school, Jackson now has 116 low-income students, 51 percent of them black, 33 percent Latino and 16 percent Asian. The generosity of foundations and donors covers 92 percent of the school’s bills; though tuition is $12,500, parents pay only a small fraction, and classes are prep-school small.

A visitor is immediately struck by the fact that the boys, wearing ties as if they were corporate lawyers, greet visitors by looking them squarely in the eye and offering a handshake. There’s none of the roughhousing common to middle school hallways.

“You can be ticked at somebody, but nobody has a right to lay a hand on anybody,” is Brother Brian’s watchword.

An eighth-grade discussion of Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” led by a teacher, Kelly Moloney, was on a level that college professors might envy, laced with comparisons to earlier readings like “Macbeth” and “Native Son,” and with every student engaged. When students discussed the symbolism of the flight by the leading character, Milkman Dead, David Marino speculated that “flight is more of a metaphor for going to heaven.”

Challenge Index -- Race, Culture and Education - washingtonpost.com

Challenge Index -- Race, Culture and Education - washingtonpost.com: What roles do race and gender play in how a student does in school? Do black students face ridicule from their peers if they try too hard? What effect do stereotypes have on actual performance?

Prof. Angel Harris of the University of Texas Dept. of Sociology was online Tuesday, May 22 at 2 p.m. to discuss what he's learned from his studies of racial achievement gaps.

Use the link to read the entire transcript.

Parents of Disabled Child Win Ruling - washingtonpost.com

Parents of Disabled Child Win Ruling - washingtonpost.com: The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that parents of disabled children do not have to hire lawyers to sue school districts when they attempt to ensure that their children's special needs are adequately met.

The court found that the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees children a 'free appropriate public education,' gives rights to parents as well. Parents may represent themselves in federal court when disputes arise between them and a school district over what is best for the child, the court held.

Prisoner literacy: inmate education: prison education

Prisoner literacy: inmate education: prison education: A recent study suggests new prison inmates are more educated than cohorts from a 1992 study, and more of their parents are college-educated. In fact, the literacy scores of Black and Hispanic inmates were higher than those of Black and Hispanic high school dropouts living in society.

The National Center for Education Statistics recently released “Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey.” The survey was administered to more than 18,000 adults (16 years and older), living in households in America. An additional 1,200 surveys were also dispensed to prison inmates at the state and federal levels, a sample representative of the nearly 1.4 million adults in prison. The measurement tool assessed literacy through straightforward tasks completely by the test taker. Literacy was measured in three categories — prose, document and quantitative literacy — on a scale of 0 to 500.

Study: Prejudice worsens physical and mental health, ups heart attack risk

Feeling unfairly treated may make you ill - Mental Health - MSNBC.com: NEW YORK - People who report a sense of being unfairly treated face a greater risk of suffering a heart attack and are in worse overall physical and mental health, researchers from the U.K. and Finland report.

The findings underscore that health is a societal issue as well as an individual concern, Dr. Roberto De Vogli of University College London, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health. “Addressing injustice in the social environment in society can be a way to promote health and to reduce health problems, especially among people in lower socioeconomic positions,” he said in an interview.

Report: Few minorities on U.S. news talk shows - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com

Report: Few minorities on U.S. news talk shows - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com: WASHINGTON - The influential Sunday news talk shows aired by U.S. television networks are overwhelmingly dominated by white men, with women, blacks and Latinos having little presence, a liberal media watchdog said Monday.

About one in five guests on the programs was female, said the group, Media Matters for America, which studied four network Sunday news talk shows over a two-year period.

Blacks made up about 7 percent of those appearing on most of the programs, while Latinos made up about 1 percent, Media Matters said. In all, about seven out of every eight guests in 2005 and 2006 were white, the group said.

Minority population tops 100 million - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com

Minority population tops 100 million - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com: ATLANTA - The number of people in the United States from ethnic or racial minorities has risen to more than 100 million, or around one-third of the population, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.

The minorities figure stood at 100.7 million, up from 98.3 million a year earlier. Within that, the Hispanic population was the fastest-growing, at a rate of 3.4 percent between July 2005 and July 2006.

Hispanics were also the largest minority group, accounting for 44.3 million people on July 1, 2006, or 14.8 percent of the overall U.S. population, which, according to census data released in October 2006, stood at more than 300 million.

About One In Three Americans Is A Minority - News Story - WRC | Washington

About One In Three Americans Is A Minority - News Story - WRC | Washington: ... America is becoming more diverse, with minorities topping 100 million for the first time in 2006, according to Census Bureau figures being released Thursday. About one in three Americans was a minority last year, a slight increase.

In 2006, the nation was 67.6 percent white, non-Hispanic; 15 percent Hispanic; 13.4 percent black; 5 percent Asian; 1.5 percent American Indian or native Alaskan and 0.3 percent Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. The percentages add up to more than 100 in part because some people identify with more than one race and Hispanics can be of any race.

Finding Ways to Better School African American Boys - washingtonpost.com

Finding Ways to Better School African American Boys - washingtonpost.com: A new report by a statewide task force that paints a grim picture of how African American male students are faring in Maryland's public schools and universities recommends strengthening mentor programs, encouraging more black men to be teachers and providing more academic support for those who need it.

Two of the more controversial proposals are suggestions to place troubled students at black-majority high schools into single-sex classes and to encourage nonviolent offenders to be mentors to students.

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women

... Asian-American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women in that age range.

Depression starts even younger than age 15. Noh says one study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they've contemplated suicide.

As Noh and others have searched for the reasons, a complex answer has emerged.

First and foremost, they say "model minority" pressure -- the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally -- helps explain the problem.

"In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor," says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who'd attempted or contemplated suicide. "Sometimes it's very overt -- parents say, 'You must choose this major or this type of job' or 'You should not bring home As and Bs, only As," she says. "And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well."

High School Dropout Problem “About Class and Race,” Says Summit Participant

High School Dropout Problem “About Class and Race,” Says Summit Participant: WASHINGTON, D.C.
With only half of minority students graduating high school on time, U.S. secondary schools need more funding, rigor and accountability to address the “silent epidemic” of school dropouts, national and community activists said at a special Washington, D.C., conference Wednesday.
Organized by MTV, the National Governors Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, this “national summit” sought answers to a dropout dilemma that prevents many African-American, Hispanic and American Indian students from ever accessing higher education. While policymakers offered plans to improve a lackluster track record, it was a group of students and community activists who provided stark pictures of the problem.

Asian Panel Debunks “Model Minority” Myth

Asian Panel Debunks “Model Minority” Myth: College Park, Md.
When early news reports about the Virginia Tech shootings last month indicated the alleged perpetrator was Asian, Yixin Li, a University of Maryland freshman, said he prayed the shooter, Seung Hui Cho, would be Korean or Vietnamese and not a fellow Chinese.
That distinction didn’t matter to some observers because “after the incident people started calling me Cho,” recalled Li Wednesday at a forum, “The End of the Model Minority Myth: Reflections on the Virginia Tech Tragedy from Asian American Perspectives,” sponsored by The University of Maryland, College Park Asian American Studies Program and others.
Li said family and friends didn’t want him to attend the forum, preferring that he stay quiet, but he attended so that he could get an understanding of why he was facing the personal backlash from the tragedy.
“I was praying, which I knew was wrong of me, that he was not Chinese. I was praying that he would be Korean or Vietnamese,” said Li, an economics major. But he added, any wholesale comparisons between himself, Cho or any other Asian is wrong.

We Want to be Included, Say Women Tribal Leaders

We Want to be Included, Say Women Tribal Leaders: Four women from American Indian tribes came together in a panel organized by Spelman College on Wednesday to ask Americans not to forget about them in conversations about diversity and race.
As part of the Fourth Annual Leadership Conference for Women of Color, Spelman featured its first Women to Watch panel about American Indians, called “Funny, You Don’t Look Indian.”
“If this was going to be a true representation of women of color, we felt the need for having Native Americans on the table,” says Dr. Jane E. Smith, the executive director of Spelman’s Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement.
The American Indian women said they have no questions about their identity in a world where it seems everyone else is questioning who they are.
“We know where we come from, who our ancestors are, and we have great pride in that,” said panel moderator Beverly Wright, president of the consulting firm Soaring Feather, which is based in Martha’s Vineyard. “We were there before it [the Vineyard] became the ‘in’ place for rich families to vacation in.”

USA TODAY Salutes the Nation's Charities - USATODAY.com

USA TODAY Salutes the Nation's Charities - USATODAY.com: Hispanic College Fund
The Hispanic College Fund (HCF) is dedicated to developing the next generation of Hispanic professionals. Its mission is to provide Hispanic students with the resources needed to attain successful careers and become community leaders. Through programs like the Hispanic College Fund Scholarship Program, Hispanic Youth Symposium, Latinos on the Fast Track (LOFT), HCF Connections and the Hispanic Young Professionals (HYP) Leadership & Development Program, the Hispanic College Fund is enriching lives of our future leaders.

Andrew Young hailed in honor of 75th birthday - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com

Andrew Young hailed in honor of 75th birthday - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com: ... Young, who turned 75 on March 12, was lauded for his role in the civil rights movement, as a U.N. ambassador and as mayor of Atlanta. He was also praised for a legacy that is still being written, as he continued to champion democracy, peace and prosperity for people around the world more than four decades after his friend, Martin Luther King Jr., was killed.

Angelou, who was also an SCLC lieutenant recruited in 1959 by King, was coquettish in her recollections of younger Young.

'Each time he spoke, the bells rang,' Angelou said. 'Each time he appeared, he brought the dignity, the sincerity, the devotion and the dedication of African-Americans brought here in 1619.'

She thanked him for being a brother and recited her poem 'And Still I Rise.'

Documenting American Indian Success

: In light of their new report on American Indian college student achievement, leaders of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium were stunned to hear that the U.S. Department of Education cited “insufficient data” and “results not demonstrated” as explanations for a huge cut for tribal college funding in President Bush’s proposed 2008 education budget. Tribal colleges are funded under Title III of the Education Act, which provides aid to developing institutions. Bush has proposed cutting their funding by 20 percent, to $18.6 million.

AIHEC says the new report, “American Indian Measures for Success,” is an innovative, comprehensive data instrument that defines and measures the success of American Indians at the nation’s tribal colleges. The report, presented to a number of federal agencies this year, details the systemic and culturally based approaches to American Indian student success, according to AIHEC President Cheryl Crazy Bull. The report, she says, includes information that numbers alone cannot convey. In addition to standard information on student enrollment, retention and graduation, AIMS examines how effectively tribal colleges work to meet their individual missions, which include revitalizing local cultures and improving communities’ economic and traditional well-being.

First Woman Selected for Top Computer Science Award

First Woman Selected for Top Computer Science Award: The Association for Computing Machinery has named Frances E. Allen the winner of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for her work in computer science. Allen’s research has helped improve computer capacity for problem-solving and has enhanced the use of high-performance computing. Named for the British mathematician Dr. Alan M. Turing, the award is considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computing and gets financial backing from Intel. Allen is the first woman to receive the award, which also comes with a $100,000 prize.

Microsoft Awards $5 Million Digital Divide Software Grant To National Urban League

Microsoft Awards $5 Million Digital Divide Software Grant To National Urban League: National Urban League officials say the $5 million software grant announced by the Microsoft Corp. will focus largely on education and tutoring assistance administered nationally by 102 local affiliates of the nation’s oldest and largest Black organization. Last month, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, announced the grant at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash., during the 16th annual Blacks at Microsoft Minority Student Day.

The grant is supposed to help further the National Urban League’s goal of empowering Black communities.

“We’ll be able to better assist the over 600,000 African-American children and families we serve nationwide and help them to acquire the necessary skills to close the digital divide that still exists in America today,” says Marc H. Morial, the National Urban League’s president and CEO.

Urban League officials say rollout of the three-year, $5 million grant will provide the organization with the technology system assessments and software to improve its adult and youth programs as well as to encourage kids to pursue careers related to math and science. The grant will also provide the organization’s office with tools to integrate data systems and more effectively communicate with affiliates and volunteers across the nation.

Fighting Environmental Racism

: BATON ROUGE, LA.

The National Conference of Black Mayors unveiled a partnership Friday with environmental consultants Envirosource and Historically Black Colleges and Universities aimed at studying the impact of landfills on African-American communities.

Robert Bowser, mayor of East Orange, N.J. and president of the National Conference of Black Mayors, said that 2,800 of the 3,000 landfills in the U.S. today are located in African-American communities.

“There’s a lot that can be done, as far as cleaning up the landfills that we already have,” Bowser said. The National Conference of Black Mayors is having its annual convention in Baton Rouge this week.

In addition, Bowser said the HBCUs and minority-owned Envirosource are looking at alternative disposal methods that are a lot cleaner that traditional landfills. The catch is that the alternative disposal methods require more volume than smaller cities can generate, he said.

Educators re-examine who belongs in special ed classes - CNN.com

Educators re-examine who�belongs in special ed classes - CNN.com: WASHINGTON (AP) -- Many children in special education classes may not belong there, the government says.

A new policy is aimed at intervening early with intensive teaching to give struggling students a chance to succeed in regular classrooms and escape the 'special ed' label.

There are nearly seven million special education students in the United States, and roughly half have learning disabilities. Most of those are reading related, such as dyslexia or problems in processing information.

The Bush administration, following passage of a broad special education law, issued rules in October that rewrote the way schools determine if a child has a learning disability.

States have largely relied on a 1970s-era method that looks for disparities between a child's IQ and achievement scores.

'The fundamental concept here is unexpected underachievement,' said Tom Hehir, a special education expert at Harvard University. He said a child with a normal IQ who is lagging behind in learning would generally be identified as having a learning disability.

Fewer Americans call themselves multiracial - USATODAY.com

Fewer Americans call themselves multiracial - USATODAY.com: The share of Americans who identify themselves as multiracial has shrunk this decade, an unexpected trend in an increasingly diverse nation.

About 1.9% of the people checked off more than one race in a 2005 Census Bureau survey of 3 million households, a meaningful decline from two surveys in 2000.

'There's no overall explanation' for the drop, says Reynolds Farley, a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research who analyzed the trend.

The data show that the nation continues to wrestle with racial identity even in the face of growing diversity, he says. 'We're a society where we still basically assume everyone is in one race,' he says.

Study: HBCU Graduates Earn Less Than Black Graduates of TWIs

: "A study by two economists gives more reasons for Blacks to attend traditionally White institutions over historically Black colleges and universities, further fueling the debate about the relevancy of the HBCUs.

The economic gains earned by Blacks who attended a historically Black institution, as opposed to Blacks who attended traditionally White institutions, declined dramatically from the 1970s to the 1990s, according to “The Causes and Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” by Drs. Roland G. Fryer and Michael Greenstone.

Fryer says data he and Greenstone collected seems to lean toward improvements by traditionally White institutions in educating Blacks being a big part of the reason why the decline in wages for HBCU alums exist.

“We tried to explore a lot of ways [this could be possible] in the papers,” says Fryer, an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University. “We looked at funding. That’s not it. Then we looked at the types of students. That’s not it. The only thing that seems even plausible is that historically Black institutions have not declined, it’s that traditionally White institutions have enhanced in educating Black students.”

Just the Stats: Can High School Counselors Prevent Drop-Outs?

Just the Stats: Can High School Counselors Prevent Drop-Outs?: A new report by the National Center for Education Statistics suggests a strong relationship between the number of credit hours a high-school student earns as a freshman and their likelihood to drop out. With this information, could school administrators identify potential dropouts early enough to intervene?

Based on an analysis of the outcomes of a cohort of students who were in the 10th grade in 2002, the report, “Course Credit Accrual and Dropping Out of High School,” “examines the timing of dropping out and its relationship to the number of credits earned by high school students.”

In 2004, roughly 5 percent of the 10th graders from 2002 dropped out, 2 percent were still enrolled, 12 percent graduated early or received their GED and 82 percent graduated from high school.

Researchers found that the dropouts had failed to earn enough credit hours in their freshman year to put them on path for an on-time graduation. The trend continued each year, with students failing to earn the same amount of credits as graduation-bound students.

Antioch’s Seattle Campus Chooses First American Indian Woman College Head

Antioch’s Seattle Campus Chooses First American Indian Woman College Head: "Dr. Cassandra Manuelito-Kerkvliet of the Navajo, or Dine, tribe appears to be the first American Indian woman to be appointed president of a mainstream university outside of the tribal college system. She was named this month to lead Antioch University Seattle from a pool of more than 40 candidates. She formally begins her presidency July 15.

Neither the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) nor the Council on the Advancement and Support of Education has a record of any Native woman being named president of a non-tribal college until now, but cannot confirm the information with 100 percent accuracy. The lack of such data could be said to underscore the dearth of native women in leadership positions among non-tribal colleges. Rather fittingly, Manuelito-Kerkvliet’s doctoral thesis examines the challenges faced by Native women pursuing leadership positions in higher education and the lack of mentoring available to them."

Study: Minorities Fare Worse in Traffic Stops

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Black, Hispanic and white drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police, but blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to be searched and arrested, a federal study found.

Police were much more likely to threaten or use force against blacks and Hispanics than against whites in any encounter, whether at a traffic stop or elsewhere, according to the Justice Department.

The study, released Sunday by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, covered police contacts with the public during 2005 and was based on interviews by the Census Bureau with nearly 64,000 people age 16 or over. (Read the full reportexternal link)

"The numbers are very consistent" with those found in a similar study of police-public contacts in 2002, bureau statistician Matthew R. Durose, the report's co-author, said in an interview. "There's some stability in the findings over these three years."

Traffic stops have become a politically volatile issue. Minority groups have complained that many stops and searches are based on race rather than on legitimate suspicions. Blacks in particular have complained of being pulled over for simply "driving while black."

"The available data is sketchy but deeply concerning," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau. The civil rights organization has done its own surveys of traffic stops, and he said the racial disparities grow larger, the deeper the studies delve.

Affirmative Action Admits Tend To Be More Successful Than Legacy Admits, Says Study

Affirmative Action Admits Tend To Be More Successful Than Legacy Admits, Says Study
Researchers at Princeton University have found that students who received legacy admissions are more likely to face academic challenges than Blacks who were admitted under affirmative action admissions programs.

Despite their findings, the programs remain a target of critics, as anti-affirmative action groups look to duplicate the success of Michigan’s voter-approved ban on race-based preferences in college admissions. Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma are the next battlegrounds.

In a study published in the February 2007 journal Social Problems, Princeton sociologists Douglas S. Massey and Margarita Mooney used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen to compile a sample of nearly 4,000 students at 28 colleges and universities. They found that 77 percent of the Black students surveyed were the beneficiaries of affirmative action. By comparison, 48 percent of all legacies benefited from admissions preferences.

Minorities hit hard by rising costs of subprime loans - USATODAY.com

Minorities hit hard by rising costs of subprime loans - USATODAY.com
Across the nation, black and Hispanic borrowers helped fuel a multiyear housing boom, accounting for 49% of the increase in homeowners from 1995 to 2005, says Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. But Hispanics and African-Americans were far more likely to leverage the American dream with subprime loans — higher-cost products for buyers with impaired credit — that are now going bad at an alarming rate.

About 46% of Hispanics and 55% of blacks who took out purchase mortgages in 2005 got higher-cost loans, compared with about 17% of whites and Asians, according to Federal Reserve data. The South Side of Chicago, with a large concentration of minority borrowers, has a high concentration of subprime loans and the state's highest foreclosure rate. In Boston, where defaults are rising — especially in minority areas — 73% of high-income black buyers (those making $92,000 to $152,000) and 70% of high-income Hispanics had subprime loans in 2005, compared with 17% of whites.

Pay gap persists: Women still make less, study says

NEW YORK — Women make only 80% of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the workforce, the gap between men's and women's pay widens, according to a study released Monday.

The study, by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, found that 10 years after college, women earn only 69% of what men earn.

Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the study found that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained. The group said part of the gap is "likely due to sex discrimination."

"Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows," the group said in a news release.

Catherine Hill, the organization's director of research, said: "Part of the wage difference is a result of people's choices, another part is employer's assumptions of what people's choices will be. ... Employers assume that young women are going to leave the workforce when they have children, and, therefore, don't promote them."

The organization found that women's scholastic performance was not reflected in their compensation. Women have slightly higher grade point averages than men in every major, including science and math. But women who attend highly selective colleges earn the same as men who attend minimally selective colleges, according to the study.

"The pay gap is not going to disappear just through educational achievements," Hill said.

First integrated prom for rural Georgia high school

ASHBURN, Georgia (AP) -- For the first time, the faces of students at the Turner County High School prom were both white and black.

Each year, in spite of integration, the school's white students had raised money for their own unofficial prom and black students did the same to throw their own separate party, an annual ritual that divided the southern Georgia peanut-farming county anew each spring.

That all changed Saturday as horse-drawn carriages and stretch limousines carried young couples around the downtown streets to a single prom.

"I couldn't be more proud of these young people," said Ray Jordan, the county's school superintendent. "The changes needed to come from the student body."

At the start of the school year, Turner County's four senior class officers had told principal Chad Stone they wanted an official prom and they wanted everyone invited.

Stone spent $5,000 of his discretionary fund to put together the county's first school-sponsored prom. Another $5,000 came from supporters after news stories about the plan spread across the nation.

"Tonight, it's a fresh start," said James Hall, the black senior class president who led the charge for the integrated prom.

Just the Stats: Socioeconomic Gaps Persist For Students

College freshmen today are more affluent than at any point over the past 35 years, but they say they not very concerned about race relations and are not as prepared for college as they’d like to be, according to a recent report from the University of California, Los Angeles titled “American Freshmen: Forty-Year Trends, 1966-2006.”

Researchers analyzed four decades of data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program’s Freshman Survey, first launched in 1966. The analysis looked at access and affordability, preparation for college and values, breaking down each category by race/ethnicity and gender.

In 2005, the median annual family income of entering freshmen was $74,000 —60 percent more than the national average family income of $46,236. The gap has widened considerably since 1971, when the median income of families of college freshmen was 46 percent more than the average U.S. family — $13,200 compared to $9,028.

The report also found that among entering college students, just over one-third rated the objective of helping to promote racial understanding as “essential” or “very important.” That represents a decline from a high of 46.4 percent in 1992, when the Rodney King beating trial sparked riots in Los Angeles.

The study also found that students continue to be unprepared for college-level math and science, even though more high school students are college preparatory courses in those subjects.

In 1971, more than half of all American Indians, Blacks and Hispanics said they needed remedial work in mathematics during their college years. Between 1971 and 1979, students’ expectations of needing remedial work in college declined. That trend has since reversed. The overall percentage of college freshmen indicating a need to take remedial math increased from 21.5 percent in 1979 to 24.1 percent in 2005. The percent of freshmen indicating a need to take remedial science rose from 9.7 percent to 10.9 during that same period.

Rights activist June Johnson dies at 59 - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com

Rights activist June Johnson dies at 59 - Race & Ethnicity - MSNBC.com: JACKSON, Miss. - Civil rights activist June E. Johnson, who as a teenager was beaten by white officials in a 1963 confrontation that led to federal charges, has died. She was 59.

Johnson died Friday of kidney failure at Providence Hospital in Washington, said her son, Hakim Malik Johnson.

Born in the Mississippi Delta city of Greenwood, Johnson became involved in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee when her parents hosted members of the group in their home.

In June 1963, on the way back from a voter registration workshop in South Carolina, Johnson was arrested at a Winona, Miss., bus station along with Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and others.

The sheriff asked the 15-year-old girl whether she was a member of the NAACP. When Johnson answered yes, she was beaten in the face, then punched in the stomach.

"I raised my head and the white man hit me in the back of the head with a club wrapped in black leather," Johnson said in her statement, quoted in John Dittmer's 1994 book "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi."

"Blood was streaming down the back of my head and my dress was all bloody," she said.

Hamer and three others also were beaten. The Kennedy administration's Justice Department brought federal civil rights charges against five men, including the sheriff and police chief, but they were cleared later in the year by an all-white jury.

Washington, D.C., congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who worked with SNCC at the time, said Johnson "sparkled with uncommon courage."

Community College Presidents And Congressional Black Caucus Join Forces To Reverse Decline In Black Male Enrollment

Community College Presidents And Congressional Black Caucus Join Forces To Reverse Decline In Black Male Enrollment
Alarmed by the declining number of Black males seeking higher education, the Presidents’ Round Table, a group of Black community college presidents, has mobilized to tackle that crisis.

To that end, members of the Round Table participated in sessions with titles like “The Vanishing Male: Minority Males in Higher Education,” and “Ensuring Success for African American Males at Community Colleges” at the 2007 American Association of Community Colleges convention, which is being held in Tampa, Fla., through Tuesday.

The Round Table also met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in February in an effort to form a national action plan to effect a turnaround in the Black male crisis. Dr. Charles A. Taylor, the Round Table’s convener and president of Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Va., says one of his principle policy priorities is getting the Round Table engaged on that issue nationally. The Round Table consists of CEO members of the National Council on Black American Affairs, an AACC council.

NPR : A Test of Courage: Jackie Robinson's Rookie Year

NPR : A Test of Courage: Jackie Robinson's Rookie Year: When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, it was the beginning of a year that would test not only his personal courage, but the mettle of a nation.

While much of Robinson's life has become folklore, the inside story of his pivotal first year on the Brooklyn Dodgers is less well known.

Before he'd even swung a bat in Brooklyn, the media was comparing Robinson to Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver and Joe Louis. By integrating baseball, Robinson had the weight of a nation on his shoulders, and he knew it.

In his new book, Opening Day: Jackie Robinson's First Season, author Jonathan Eig delves into the personal and professional battles that Robinson fought during his rookie season. Eig tells Liane Hansen about the man who would lead the Dodgers in their dramatic race for the 1947 pennant.

African-American News- To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys - AOL Black Voices

African-American News- To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys - AOL Black Voices: OSSINING, N.Y. -- In an effort to ensure racial diversity, the school system here in northern Westchester County is set up in an unusual way, its six school buildings divided not by neighborhood but by grade level. So all of the second and third graders in the Ossining Union Free School District attend the Brookside School.

But some minority students, the black boys at Brookside, are set apart, in a way, by a special mentoring program that pairs them with black teachers for one-on-one guidance outside class, extra homework help, and cultural activities during the school day. 'All the black boys used to end up in the office, so we had to do something,' said Lorraine Richardson, a second-grade teacher and mentor. 'We wanted to teach them to help each other' instead of fight each other. While many school districts have long worked to close the achievement gap between minority and white students, Ossining's programs aimed to get black male students to college are a new frontier.

Gary Howard at Busboys and Poets

Busboys and Poets Books
2021 14TH STREET NW
202-387-POET
Questioning...challenging...re-thinking...the world behind the headlines.
Operated by Teaching for Change

Thursday, April 19, 2007 6:30 – 8:00pm
Gary Howard will give a presentation based on his best-selling book, We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools, 2nd Edition. “Borrowing from the words of Malcolm X, ‘We can't teach what we don't know, and we can't lead where we can't go,’ Gary Howard's book acts on both points. He explains why teachers mustn't ‘fake it,’ but must acquire the knowledge, skills, and disposition to successfully teach all students. A great book for teacher-candidates and experienced teachers.” —Carl A. Grant, Hoefs-Bascom Professor, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Gary Howard outlines what good teachers know, what they do, and how they embrace culturally responsive teaching. The second edition includes a new introduction and a new chapter that speak directly to current issues such as closing the achievement gap, and to recent legislation such as No Child Left Behind. With our nation’s student population becoming ever more diverse, and teachers remaining largely White, this book is now more important than ever. A must-read in universities and school systems throughout the country, We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know continues to facilitate and deepen the discussion of race and social justice in education.

The book is on sale at the Busboys and Poets Bookstore, operated by Teaching for Change, and Gary Howard will sign copies following the presentation.

A $3 donation is requested at the door. Reservation required, RSVP: admin@teachingforchange.org.

To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys - New York Times

To Close Gaps, Schools Focus on Black Boys - New York Times: In an effort to ensure racial diversity, the school system here in northern Westchester County is set up in an unusual way, its six school buildings divided not by neighborhood but by grade level. So all of the second and third graders in the Ossining Union Free School District attend the Brookside School.

But some minority students, the black boys at Brookside, are set apart, in a way, by a special mentoring program that pairs them with black teachers for one-on-one guidance outside class, extra homework help, and cultural activities during the school day. “All the black boys used to end up in the office, so we had to do something,” said Lorraine Richardson, a second-grade teacher and mentor. “We wanted to teach them to help each other” instead of fight each other.

While many school districts have long worked to close the achievement gap between minority and white students, Ossining’s programs aimed to get black male students to college are a new frontier.

Ossining school officials said they were not singling out black boys, but after a district analysis of high school students’ grade-point averages revealed that black boys were performing far worse than any other group, they decided to act. In contrast, these officials said, the performance of black girls compared favorably with other students and did not warrant the same concern.

Minority Scholarships Fall Victim To Fear Of Anti-affirmative Action Lawsuit

Minority Scholarships Fall Victim To Fear Of Anti-affirmative Action Lawsuit
Starting this fall, a scholarship created to boost Black student enrollment at Northeastern University will be open to White students, one of several policy changes the university has taken to avoid becoming the target of an anti-affirmative action lawsuit.

The Ujima Scholars program will also fund far fewer student this fall than it has in past years, although officials say the change is intended to more fully cover college costs. The changes have Black students on the campus ill at ease.

“We thought it was a mistake at first, whether Caucasians can receive the Ujima scholarship, but we were told it wasn’t,” says Lula Petty-Edwards, the associate dean and director of the African American Institute, which has housed the Ujima Scholar’s program since 1972. Ujima is Swahili for collective work and responsibility.

“If Northeastern is already predominately a White university, why should the Ujima programs be used for White students, is the question [Black students] are asking,” she says.

The Boston institution is not alone. Numerous schools nationwide have chosen to open their once racially targeted scholarships to White students in an effort to avoid equal protection lawsuits.

First-generation Students Need Continued Support for College, Says Report

First-generation Students Need Continued Support for College, Says Report
First-generation students say navigating the admissions process and receiving continuing support after getting in are some of the key elements in raising their aspirations, according to a new study by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.

“Straight from the Source: What Works for First-Generation College Students” is based on interviews with Hispanic and Black students enrolled in TRIO’s Talent Search and Upward Bound programs in six Texas cities — Dallas, Edinburg, El Paso, Houston, Kingsville and San Antonio. The students were either from low-income backgrounds, were first-generation students or both.

According to Dr. Colleen O’Brien, director of the Pell Institute and a co-author of the report, it is not enough to raise first-generation students’ hopes and dreams.

“To make the successful leap to college, disadvantaged students need intensive help with the admissions and financial aid processes and a real comfort level with both campus life and college academic support resources. And once they are in college, the challenges to stay enrolled are just as significant,” O’Brien says.

At present, there are 6.5 million first-generation undergraduate students. The report also shows the wide range of issues first-generation students come across in their quest to finish college, such as understanding why college matters and involving family members in the transition. The study recommends prior exposure to college life and knowledge about financial aid programs, and, once enrolled, access to college-based support services.

Report: Investing in American Indian Students Improves Their Health, Income

Report: Investing in American Indian Students Improves Their Health, Income: Higher education can drive economic and social development for all American Indian communities, according to a recent study released by The Institute for Higher Education Policy.
The report, “The Path of Many Journeys: The Benefits of Higher Education for Native People and Communities,” in collaboration with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium and the American Indian College Fund, shows how higher education can benefit tribal communities.
According to the study, almost 28 percent of American Indians age 25 and over had not graduated from high school in 2004. By comparison, 15 percent of the general American population in 2004 had not earned a high school diploma by age 25. American Indians have also faced challenges at traditional higher education institutions, largely caused by the rampant poverty in Native communities. Most students at tribal colleges and universities come from families that make just under $14,000 per year. The poverty limit for a family of four in 2005 was $19,971, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. American Indian students were most likely to receive federal aid (around 50 percent), and were more likely to receive grants (59 percent) than loans (32 percent).

Goal No. 1: Good Science. Goal No. 1: Diversity. - New York Times

Goal No. 1: Good Science. Goal No. 1: Diversity. - New York Times: BALTIMORE — There’s something striking about the laboratory of Michael F. Summers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. It’s not the giant nuclear magnetic resonance machine that he uses to visualize molecules; it’s the faces of the people who work there.

Fifteen of the 32 researchers in Dr. Summers’s biochemistry lab, including a postdoctoral student and 3 Ph.D. candidates, are black. In the halls of American science, such representation is rare.

Dr. Summers, 49, works on two tracks: trying to cure AIDS and trying to create more diversity at the research bench. When he is not in the lab, he takes to the road with the university president, Freeman A. Hrabowski III, pushing universities to set up programs for minority students who are inclined toward science. At U.M.B.C., the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program has provided an intense scientific education to about 800 undergraduates so far.

Indiana University Joins 9 Black Colleges For Science Initiative

Indiana University Joins 9 Black Colleges For Science Initiative: Indiana University is joining with nine historically Black colleges and universities to boost the number of minorities seeking careers in science, starting with a summer program for promising students who will work at IU’s research laboratories.

IU President Adam Herbert, who announced The STEM Initiative during a Thursday news conference at IUPUI, said a $2 million endowment to fund a graduate student fellowship program is already in place to help get the effort off the ground.

He said the STEM program -- its name derives from science, technology, engineering and math -- aims to bring students from the mostly southern Black colleges to Indiana for educational opportunities. IU students and faculty will also be able to study or teach at the nine schools.

“This innovative undertaking unites several thousand students and faculty members across the nation around a common objective -- increasing the number of underrepresented minority graduate students, scholars and professionals in the STEM disciplines,” he said.

School Size and Location Important for Hispanic Achievement

School Size and Location Important for Hispanic Achievement: Public high schools in the seven states accounting for the majority of U.S. Hispanic students (79%) are more likely to have characteristics that negatively affect the learning process and academic achievement, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center, 'The High Schools Hispanics Attend: Size and Other Key Characteristics.' The message directed to educators and educational policymakers being that they 'have vastly more influence over the characteristics of their schools than the characteristics of their students,' such as parents' education or socioeconomic status.

Schools in these high Hispanic enrollment states -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona, Illinois, and New Jersey -- tend to be larger, to have higher student-to-teacher ratios, to be located in central cities, and to have higher percentages of low-income students (see chart, 'Top Seven States by Hispanic High School Enrollment'). All of these characteristics are correlated with reduced educational achievement.

Child fatal injury rate down, but race gap up | U.S. | Reuters

Child fatal injury rate down, but race gap up | U.S. | Reuters: CHICAGO (Reuters) - Young children may be less likely to suffer fatal injuries than they were two decades ago but young blacks and American Indians are twice as likely as whites of dying in accidents, a U.S. study said on Monday.

A steady improvement in the rate of unintentional fatal injuries among children up to age 4 among all racial groups -- a roughly 80 percent drop since the 1980s -- was credited to more extensive use of safety measures such as car seats, smoke detectors and childproof caps on medicines and household products, the study said.

However, there was a 'troubling trend showing increases in recent poisoning deaths in Hispanic and black children,' lead study author Joyce Pressley wrote in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Univ. Of Michigan Uses Computer Program To Achieve Diversity

ANN ARBOR
The University of Michigan says it has stopped using race and gender when selecting which students to admit, but it is using new tools to make sure it brings in a diverse class next fall.

Among the new factors is a demographic review that measures which schools and neighborhoods students come from and how well they are represented on the Ann Arbor campus.

The computer analysis, called Descriptor PLUS, from The College Board, uses a blend of geography and demographics to help supply background information about prospective students.

University officials were forced to change their admissions policies after voters approved Proposal 2 in November, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in university admissions.

University officials said Wednesday that they have received a record 27,000 applications from students seeking admission to UM next fall. They expect that number to be the largest among Big Ten schools for incoming freshmen.

Roughly 5,500 students are expected in the next freshmen class, although a few thousand more than that will gain admission but decide to go elsewhere or fail to take other steps needed for enrollment.

The admissions process won’t be complete for several more weeks. University officials said at a media briefing Wednesday that the admissions process is still thorough, holistic and multifaceted while remaining very selective and competitive.

“We make no bones about the fact diversity is important to us,” said Ted Spencer, a UM associate vice provost. “It always has been at the University of Michigan.”

A Top Honor For Soaring Achievements

Tuskegee Airmen to Receive Congressional Gold Medal


...Today, members of the famed black World War II aviation cadre now called the Tuskegee Airmen will be honored in the Capitol Rotunda for their history-making feats.

In a ceremony at 1 p.m., the airmen, including McGee, McCreary and Crockett, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor that Congress can give to civilians. President Bush is scheduled to speak, along with Colin L. Powell, former secretary of state, who received the medal in 1991.

The achievement of men such as McGee, McCreary and Crockett was simple: They were bold in battle and capable in command -- at a time when many in the military thought blacks could be neither.

"What we accomplished hasn't always been recognized for, really, what it meant to the country," McGee said this week. "There was meaning there, you might say, in a civil rights area that preceded what we know as the civil rights movement."

NPR : Teacher, Student Recall a Segregated Classroom

NPR : Teacher, Student Recall a Segregated Classroom: The first class that Huston Diehl taught was a group of fourth-graders at Morton Elementary School in Louisa County, Va.

It was 1970, in the waning days of officially sanctioned segregation — of separate and, as Diehl would learn, decidedly unequal schooling.

Diehl, now a professor of English at the University of Iowa, describes her experiences teaching in the rural South in a new book, Dream Not of Other Worlds: Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School, 1970.

It was here, in a school that the county neglected to provide with textbooks, that Diehl learned firsthand the damaging effects that institutional racism and Jim Crow politics would have on her young charges.

She soon discovered that she was learning more from her students than they had the chance to learn from her.

Diehl and Matilda Beauford, one of her former students, speak with Scott Simon about their days in Louisa County, and the legacy of segregation.

Maryland to express 'profound regret' for slavery - CNN.com

Maryland to�express 'profound regret' for slavery - CNN.com: ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (AP) -- Maryland lawmakers approved an apology Monday for the state's role in the slave trade, expressing 'profound regret' that it once 'trafficked in human flesh.'

Maryland follows Virginia in issuing a formal apology.

The vote in the House of Delegates makes the apology official, because a resolution doesn't require the governor's signature. The state Senate already approved it.

The resolution notes that slavery 'fostered a climate of oppression not only for slaves and their descendants but also for people of color who moved to Maryland subsequent to slavery's abolition.'

Co-sponsor Sen. Nathaniel Exum, a Democrat, said he was exhilarated that Maryland lawmakers decided to finally recognize the painful role the state played in slavery.

'Once we come to that recognition, maybe we will also recognize steps we need to do to get rid of the lingering effects of it on the people,' Exum said.

In the 1700s, slave ships docked blocks away from the Maryland State House, and thousands of enslaved men and women arrived in the town. Slavery officially ended in Maryland with the adoption of a new state constitution in 1864.

Program Aims to Fill Gaps for Teen Immigrants

Yesterday, Montgomery County school officials announced a pilot program tailored to the specific needs of students such as Lisama: recent immigrants who have had little formal education although they are reaching the age when most native-born Americans graduate from high school.

"Over there, people don't think school is a big deal," Lisama said. "Even if people get their degree, there's no work."

The program, Students Engaged in Pathways to Achievement, would begin this summer at Wheaton High School, a campus serving a large immigrant population, and focus initially on about 15 students in their late teens. Students would be taught functional English, with an emphasis on career-specific vocabulary. Other classes would explore careers, including horticulture, cosmetology and hospitality. Students also would be taught to read and write fluently in their native Spanish.

The program confronts the realities facing teenage immigrants who escape poverty and upheaval in El Salvador and other Latin American nations for a better life in the Washington suburbs. They arrive unable to speak much English, unable to read or write well even in Spanish, with vast gaps in their formal education and too near adulthood to make up for lost schooling.

Students Learn to Seal the Deal, African Style - washingtonpost.com

Students Learn to Seal the Deal, African Style - washingtonpost.com: 'Say 50,' prompted Vera Oye Yaa-Anna, a woman swathed in the bright yellow and red patterns of her native continent. 'Auntie Oye,' a professional storyteller from Liberia, goes from school to school, lining classrooms with bold African cloths, animal-hide drums, straw fans, large stuffed jungle animals and an orangey, 12-foot-long python skin.

She teaches students a little about Liberia and its founding in the 1800s by freed slaves from the United States but mostly about Mali, a country of 12 million people that is the size of Texas and California combined. There, she tells them, mud is an ingredient in cloth-making, people shop for food every day because they don't have refrigerators and life centers on communal activities.

'I teach them how to deal with people who may not be like us,' she said. 'Your individuality in Africa doesn't work because we work together as a community.'

Yaa-Anna said she is motivated to teach kids about Africa in part because of prejudice she has encountered in the United States. For example, she said, people here sometimes assume that because she is from Africa, she must be hungry.

'If these [students] can cultivate a love for Africa, then that's my job,' she said. 'So that when they become adults, they won't stereotype like I've been stereotyped.'

ABCs of Change For Latino Children - washingtonpost.com

ABCs of Change For Latino Children - washingtonpost.com: Latino children nationwide tend to start kindergarten knowing less about letters and numbers compared with their non-Hispanic white peers. Many never catch up. Improving early childhood education is one of the best ways to narrow the achievement gap, educators say, citing such programs as the family book club. But many Latino families face economic, linguistic, educational and even cultural barriers.

'It's partly about parents not understanding the American system,' said Eugene E. Garcia, an Arizona State University administrator and chairman of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics. 'Hispanic parents think school is good and education is good. They just don't have the tools they need.'

About 40 percent of Latino 3- and 4-year-olds (and 5-year-olds not yet in kindergarten) are enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, compared with about 60 percent of white and African American children, according to the District-based advocacy group Pre-K Now. In addition, a new report from Garcia's task force noted that Hispanic mothers generally read and talk less to their children compared with white parents. Hispanic families also tend to have fewer children's books at home.

NEA Issues Report on Status of Hispanics in Education

NEA Issues Report on Status of Hispanics in Education : The National Education Association today issued A Report on the Status of Hispanics in Education: Overcoming a History of Neglect. The report finds that Hispanic students often face unique challenges in student achievement, influenced by the fact that Hispanics have poverty rates that are two to nearly three times higher than whites; Hispanics cite Spanish as their dominant language and more than 20 percent say they do not speak English or do not speak English well; and 40 percent of the Hispanic population is foreign born.

The result is that many Hispanic students must overcome language, cultural and socioeconomic barriers to succeed in school. In March 2006, NEA and the League of United Latin American Citizens convened an education summit in Denver to address the challenges that are hindering Hispanic youngsters from achieving educational success. Educators and community activists gathered to share views and make recommendations on how to improve the education of Hispanics. The results of the summit discussion along with supporting research are published in the NEA report.

Inside Bay Area - Black immigrants, the invisible model minority

Inside Bay Area - Black immigrants, the invisible model minority: DO African immigrants make the smartest Americans? If you were judging by statistics alone, you could find plenty of evidence to back it up.

In a side-by-side comparison of 2000 census data by sociologist John Logan at the Mumford Center, State University of New York at Albany, black immigrants from Africa average the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, including whites and Asians.

For example, 43.8 percent of African immigrants had achieved a college degree, compared to 42.5 of Asian Americans, 28.9 percent for immigrants from Europe, Russia and Canada, and 23.1 percent of the U.S. population.

That defies the usual stereotypes of Asian Americans as the only 'model minority.' Yet the traditional American narrative has rendered the high academic achievements of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean invisible, as if it were a taboo topic.

Instead, we should take a closer look. That was my reaction in 2004 after black Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of Harvard's African-American studies department, stirred a black Harvard alumni reunion with questions about precisely where the university's new black students were coming from.

Media Life Magazine

Media Life Magazine: U.S. Hispanics wield an increasing amount of spending power and have become a desirable group to advertisers, but one area where they continue to lag is the internet. A smaller percentage of Latinos go online than any other ethnic group, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study finds that only 56 percent of U.S. adult Latinos go online, compared with 60 percent of blacks and 71 percent of whites. They are especially far behind in broadband connections, with 29 percent of Latinos using high speed compared with 43 percent of whites. At the same time, there are major differences between different Hispanic demographic groups. Nearly 80 percent of English-speaking Latinos and 76 percent of bilingual Latinos use the web compared with just 29 percent of Spanish-dominant Latinos. Education and economic factors appear to be the biggest indicator of who’s going online. Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and co-author of the report, talks to Media Life about why so many immigrants are not online, what role education plays, and why Mexicans have lower web usage.

National Women's History Project

National Women's History Project: The National Women's History Project, founded in 1980, is an educational nonprofit organization. Our mission is to recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and programs.

March is National Women's History Month!

Women's History Month 2007 -- A National Register of Historic Places Feature

Women's History Month 2007 -- A National Register of Historic Places Feature: The National Register of Historic Places is pleased to promote awareness of and appreciation for the historical accomplishments of American women during Women's History Month. As part of the celebration, this site showcases historic properties listed in the National Register, National Register publications, and National Park units commemorating the events and people, the designs and achievements that help illustrate the contribution of women to the Nation's history. Join the National Register in paying tribute to the many women who have made an impact in our past.

Accelerating Hispanic Progress in Higher Education

Accelerating Hispanic Progress in Higher Education
As the Hispanic community continues to grow in this country, efforts to accelerate and expand student success in higher education will be critical to the nation’s future competitiveness, says Excelencia in Education President Sarita Brown at a Capitol Hill policy briefing on Tuesday.

Excelencia, a nonprofit organization aimed at increasing Hispanic student achievement in higher education, also released figures on the state of Hispanics in higher education and a separate study concerning Hispanic women in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.

There were approximately 1.8 million Hispanic college students in 2004, representing about 11 percent of the total student enrollment in higher education. The figure represents a 6 percent increase from 1990, when 782,400 Hispanic students were enrolled. But despite increases in enrollment, only 25 percent of college-age Hispanics — those 18 to 24 years old — were enrolled in college, compared to about 42 percent of Whites, 32 percent of Blacks and 60 percent of Asians.

“The number of Hispanic women going to college has increased more rapidly. In 2004, Hispanic women represented almost 60 percent of all Hispanics in higher education,” said Deborah Santiago, vice president for policy and research at Excelencia. She noted that about 58 percent of Hispanic undergraduates are enrolled in two-year institutions.

But while Hispanic women enroll in college in greater numbers than Hispanic men, men greatly outnumber women in engineering programs. In 2005, undergraduate Hispanic women represented just 22 percent of Hispanics in engineering programs.

American Indians in Oklahoma say English-only Policy Diminishes Their Tribal Languages

American Indians in Oklahoma say English-only Policy Diminishes Their Tribal Languages

OKLAHOMA CITY
Legislation to make English the official language of the state of Oklahoma has run into opposition from American Indians, who say their native tongues are dying fast enough without any help from lawmakers.

As Oklahoma observes its centennial year, the English-only issue bring up divisions that persist more than a century after American Indians were forcibly marched to the region and then endured a series of land grabs.

Many of Oklahoma’s 37 federally recognized tribes are fighting to save their languages and cultures from extinction years after the end of organized efforts to stamp them out.

Critics of the English-only legislation point out that Oklahoma’s very name is formed from two Choctaw Indian words — “okla” and “homma” — that mean “red man.”

“If you go to English only, what are we going to call the state of Oklahoma?” asks Terry Ragan, director of the Choctaw Nation’s language program. “Even town names in the state will have to be named differently.”

Supporters of the legislation say it could end bilingual state government documents, such as driver’s license tests, and force immigrants to learn English and assimilate into American society.

Illinois Retires American Indian Mascot

Illinois Retires American Indian Mascot: The University of Illinois swept aside the last vestiges of Chief Illiniwek on Tuesday, voting to retire the mascot’s name, regalia and image.

The school will continue to call its sports teams the Fighting Illini under the resolution. Chancellor Richard Herman is to decide how and when Chief Illiniwek’s name and image will stop being used and licensed to apparel makers and others.

Activists and some American Indians have long complained the chief is demeaning. Backers defend him as an honorable tradition.

The school decided in February to end performances of the chief, leading the NCAA to lift sanctions that had barred Illinois from hosting postseason sports since 2005. The NCAA had deemed Illiniwek portrayed since 1926 by buckskin-clad students who danced at home football and basketball games and other sports events an offensive use of American Indian imagery.

Pew: Latinos less likely to be online - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

Pew: Latinos less likely to be online - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com: Latinos are not going online as much as non-Hispanic whites and blacks, even at younger ages where Internet use is far greater, according to a report released Wednesday.

Fifty-six percent of adult Latinos use the Internet, compared with 70 percent of whites and about 60 percent of blacks, according to the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The Internet use of U.S.-born Latinos is comparable to that of whites, but about two-thirds of adult Latinos in the United States were born elsewhere.

States stress benefits of pre-kindergarten programs

... A report being released Wednesday finds states spent at least $3.3 billion last year on pre-kindergarten. That doesn't include money from federal and local governments, which contribute to the state programs. The state funding is up from $2.8 billion in 2005, according to the report by the National Institute for Early Education Research at New Jersey's Rutgers University.

In all, nearly 1 million children, or 20 percent of the country's 4-year-olds, were in state pre-kindergarten last year -- up from 17 percent the previous year, the report found.

About two-thirds of 4-year-olds are in private preschool or child-care programs or at home, the study said.

About one in 10 is in Head Start, the federal pre-kindergarten program for poor children, the report said. The $6.8 billion Head Start program covers only about half of all eligible children. About 7 percent of the nation's 3-year-olds also participate in Head Start.

As in Virginia, most state-funded programs are aimed at poor children. However, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma offer pre-k to all 4-year-olds. Other states are considering going that route.

Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich won approval to extend preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2011 and is pushing for the money to do it.

The federal No Child Left Behind education law probably has something to do with the trend, says Steven Barnett, who wrote the report on state pre-k spending.

One of that law's goals is to eliminate achievement gaps between low-income and wealthier students, but studies show the gap begins before children enter school.

HIV hits U.S. blacks harder than whites - AIDS - MSNBC.com

HIV hits U.S. blacks harder than whites - AIDS - MSNBC.com: ATLANTA - African American men are nearly seven times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than white men, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday.

Blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for nearly half of Americans living with the disease and 40 percent of AIDS deaths and 61 percent of all new diagnoses of people aged 13-24 are black.

The report, which is based on 2001-2005 data, does not reveal a dramatic increase in the rate of HIV infection among African Americans and it shows a significant decline in black mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Disney first: black princess in animated film - Movies - MSNBC.com

Disney first: Black princess in animated film - Movies - MSNBC.com: The Walt Disney Co. has started production on an animated musical fairy tale called “The Frog Princess,” which will be set in New Orleans and feature the Walt Disney Studio’s first black princess.

The film, set for release in 2009, also is the first hand-drawn film Disney has committed to since pledging last month to return to the traditional animation that made it a worldwide brand.

“The Frog Princess,” a musical scored by composer Randy Newman, is “an American fairy tale” starring a girl named Maddy who lives in the French Quarter in New Orleans, said John Lasseter, chief creative director for Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

Depression Hits U.S. Blacks Harder Than Whites - washingtonpost.com

Depression Hits U.S. Blacks Harder Than Whites - washingtonpost.com: Black Americans are more likely than whites to suffer severe, untreated and disabling depression, U.S. research shows.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data on 6,082 people who took part in a national survey conducted between 2001 and 2003.

They found that 17.9 percent of white Americans had depression at some point in their lives, compared with 10.4 percent of blacks of African descent and 12.9 percent of blacks of West Indian or Caribbean descent.

Rates of depression in the 12 months before they were surveyed were 7.2 percent for Caribbean blacks; 6.9 percent for whites; and 5.9 percent for blacks of African descent. Among those who reported depression at some point in their lives, rates of depression in the 12 months before they were surveyed were 56.5 percent for blacks of African descent; 56 percent for Caribbean blacks; and 38.6 percent for whites.

RACE - About the Project

RACE - About the Project: We expect people to look different. And why not? Like a fingerprint, each person is unique. Every person represents a one-of-a-kind, combination of their parents’, grandparents’ and family’s ancestry. And every person experiences life somewhat differently than others.

Differences… they’re a cause for joy and sorrow. We celebrate differences in personal identity, family background, country and language. At the same time, differences among people have been the basis for discrimination and oppression.

Yet, are we so different? Current science tells us we share a common ancestry and the differences among people we see are natural variations, results of migration, marriage and adaptation to different environments. How does this fit with the idea of race?

Looking through the eyes of history, science and lived experience, the RACE Project explains differences among people and reveals the reality – and unreality – of race. The story of race is complex and may challenge how we think about race and human variation, about the differences and similarities among people.

More women working but inequalities are acute: U.N. | International | Reuters

More women working but inequalities are acute: U.N. | International | Reuters: GENEVA (Reuters) - More women are working than ever before, but most are stuck in low-wage jobs and virtually all are paid less than their male counterparts, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Thursday.

The United Nations agency said there were 100 million more women in the workforce last year than in 1996. But, for a total of 1.2 billion employed or seeking work, there remained sizeable gaps in their status, job security and pay.

The female share of overall global employment is 40 percent -- the same as a decade ago -- and the proportion of women seeking work has fallen in several regions including Eastern Europe, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Women are more likely to be unemployed than men, and make up the bulk of the world's "working poor", whose families live on less than $1 per person per day, the ILO found.

"The pace with which gaps are closing is very slow," it said in the report released on International Women's Day.

One of the reasons female labor force participation has stagnated is that more women are accessing higher education and staying out of the workforce longer, the report said.

Female literacy rates are lowest in south and west Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world, the regions where women are most likely to work in agriculture. Many of these women work as vendors in local food markets, and have more difficulty than men in accessing land and credit, the ILO said.