Mississippi School Holds First Interracial Prom : NPR

Mississippi School Holds First Interracial Prom : NPR: Mississippi integrated its public schools in 1970, but segregation still haunts parts of the culture. One example of this could be found at Charleston High School. The Delta town had maintained a system of separate proms — organized privately — for black and white students.

As far back as 1997, actor Morgan Freeman, a Charleston local, offered to pay for the dance if everyone could go. This year, officials finally accepted the offer. A Canadian film crew led by Paul Saltzman documented the event for the upcoming Prom Night in Mississippi.

A photographer working with the crew says people in Charleston didn't question the segregated dances. But as the big night approached, the importance of the change became clear. Catherine Farquharson followed several kids as they washed their cars and had their hair done.

She describes one encounter in an African-American beauty parlor, in which an elderly woman who'd been part of the civil rights movement stopped in to see what the hubbub was about. The woman ended up giving an impromptu testimony about the history these young people were about to make. 'It was almost like it didn't occur to a lot of the kids, until the day of the prom, how important what was going on really was,' Farquharson reports.

Apartheid Inequalities Linger in South Africa Schools : NPR

Apartheid Inequalities Linger in South Africa Schools : NPR: Morning Edition, June 12, 2008 � Public education is critical to the success of South Africa's young democracy. The country's school system, however, seems to be getting a failing grade.

A visit to a rural primary school in Orkney, a gold-mining town southwest of Johannesburg, says much about why the system is in trouble.

On a recent day, some 1,600 students were enjoying a rich stew of beans and rice. But because of budgetary constraints, Reahola Primary School is able to feed its students only four days a week, says Principal Nachemane Majola.

'The fifth day they stay without food, and that makes them also not want to come to school, because what drives them to come to school is when they eat,' he says, 'because there is nothing at home.'

Little Improvement Seen

Most of the families in the area are black and poor. The government is trying to make improvements at the school, according to Majola, but the budget allocations are still too small. There is not enough money to renovate the 25-year-old building and its collapsing ceilings. Many of the school's students are HIV-positive orphans who are suffering from illness and hunger. The lack of funding hobbles the ability to meet these students' needs.

Canada To Apologize For Past Abuses of Native Children

Canada To Apologize For Past Abuses of Native Children: Canada will apologize for a policy that forced native children into boarding schools in an effort over a century ago to “civilize” and assimilate the nation’s indigenous population into mainstream culture and religion, the Los Angeles Times recently reported.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will offer an expiation on behalf of the schools and will ask more than 150,000 students and their descendants to consider forgiving the country.

Sixty-year old Thomas Louttit was forced to attend one of the dozens of residential schools for eight years. He told the Times that children were assigned numbers for an identity, sexually abused and terrorized, thus leaving many scarred as adults. Many of Louttit’s friends committed suicide or battled alcohol abuse.

Best & Brightest: Fourteen-year-old Whiz Kid Picks HBCU Over Harvard

BATON ROUGE, LA. — A 14-year-old whiz kid who scored a composite 30 on the ACT, Polite Stewart Jr., was recruited by Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford universities, but decided to attend historically Black Southern University at Baton Rouge.

“They are all very good schools, don’t get me wrong. But one of the ‘cons’ is that you’re just one in a number. Many of the classes are so big that you probably won’t even get to know your teacher,” the gifted youngster says.

“Here at Southern, it’s one on one,” he says.

The son of two school teachers, Stewart was home-schooled at his Baton Rouge home until the age of 10, when he began attending academic programs at Southern University. Stewart started with the Garrett A. Morgan/Ford PAS Summer Business Institute, a program designed to teach the fine points of operating a business, including finance. He went on to enroll in Timbuktu Academy, a national model program at Southern University that mentors pre-college, undergraduate and graduate students in math, science, and engineering. He says Timbuktu Academy did more than give him individual attention and teach him the skills to succeed on the college level.

Study Shows Colorado Has Largest Rise in Child Poverty - NYTimes.com

Study Shows Colorado Has Largest Rise in Child Poverty - NYTimes.com: DENVER — Colorado experienced the nation’s largest rate of growth in impoverished children from 2000 to 2006, according to a study released Tuesday.

The study, by the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a nonprofit group that focuses on child welfare, said that the most recent census data show that 180,000 children — 15.7 percent of the state total — were living in poverty in Colorado in 2006, a 73 percent increase since 2000.

New Hampshire and Delaware experienced the second- and third-largest rates of increase in child poverty, about 47 percent and 45 percent respectively.

No single factor can explain the increase in Colorado, the study said, but a growing number of single parent households, a shortage of jobs for lower wage workers and a low rate of high school graduation contributed.

Shifting demographics also played a role, with an increase in the number of Hispanic children, who are more likely to live in poverty or drop out of high school, the study said.

“What the data is telling us is that we’re headed in the wrong direction in terms of taking care of our lower-income population,” the president of the Colorado Children’s Campaign, Megan Ferland, said.

Ms. Ferland cited another contributing variable, which she called the “Colorado paradox”: well-educated transplants drawn to a state that also has many poorly educated residents.

“We have too many of our working class families who are actually slipping into low-income brackets and becoming families who are living in extreme poverty,” Ms. Ferland said.

The most pronounced rates of child poverty were found in urban centers like Denver and in southern rural areas like Alamosa and Costilla Counties.

Minority children were particularly affected. The number of the state’s American Indian children living in poverty increased by 473 percent, the report said, and the number of impoverished black children grew by 116 percent. In contrast, the number of impoverished white children grew by 57 percent, and for Asian children, it declined by 10 percent.

It’s About the Schools

An Emerging Consensus on the Black-White Achievement Gap

It’s about schools.

For most children in this country, achievement in school, and therefore the quality and the sheer length of life that they and their children will have, can be predicted from their race, language spoken at home, and family income. Almost everywhere, this means that African-American children—those who are or are perceived to be the descendants of American slaves—will not be taught as much or as well as white, non-Hispanic children. In a few areas, this unenviable distinction is held by Hispanic children who speak Spanish at home. In two or three places, this lowest rung of the educational and economic ladder is occupied by American Indians. But in most places, when we look at “the achievement gap,” we are looking at the gap between African-American children, particularly African-American males, and children who are non-Hispanic whites or Asian-Americans. And in most of those places, it remains stubbornly large.

And yet, interest in the failure of educational institutions to meet their responsibilities, particularly in regard to black students, seems to be ebbing. The hatred that dare not speak its name—racism—is advancing under the guise of—of all things—equity. The perverse twisting of the intent of civil rights law in regard to college and law school admissions, now extending to any program that might alleviate the disadvantages of African-Americans, has had a chilling effect on schools, postsecondary education, government, and foundations. And so we hear less about the failure of the schools in regard to black students, and more about “disadvantaged groups,” “people of color,” and so forth: all expressions that take the focus away from those who have, for 400 years, been specifically selected for disadvantage.

Feds Fund Three Types of MSIs

Feds Fund Three Types of MSIs: "
Colleges that do not qualify as historically Black colleges or tribal colleges but who still serve a significant number of African-Americans or American Indians have until late June to make their case for $20 million in new federal funds for such institutions.

Funds are available under two new U.S. Department of Education programs approved by Congress: $15 million in grants for predominantly Black institutions (PBIs) and $5 million for non-tribal colleges, mostly in the western United States, that serve American Indian students.

To qualify as a non-tribal, American Indian-serving institution, a college need only have an undergraduate enrollment that is 10 percent American Indian, the regulations state. The criteria for a predominantly Black institution are more detailed, although a core requirement is that a college or university must have “at least 40 percent Black American students,” the Department of Education says.

“It’s not quite what we had envisioned,” says Dr. Edison Jackson, president of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, N.Y. Jackson tells Diverse that he had hoped that a college would need an enrollment that is 50 percent Black to qualify for the new program.

2008 Enrollment In U.S. Expected To Set Record - washingtonpost.com

2008 Enrollment In U.S. Expected To Set Record - washingtonpost.com: Public school enrollment across the country will hit a record high this year with just under 50 million students, and the student population is becoming more diverse in large part because of growth in the Latino population, according to a new federal report.

Nationwide, about 20 percent of students were Hispanic in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available for ethnic groups, up from 11 percent in the late 1980s. That trend is reflected in many Washington area schools. In Fairfax County, about 17 percent of students are Hispanic, jumping from about 4 percent two decades ago.

Overall, about 43 percent of the nation's students are minorities, according to the Condition of Education, a congressionally mandated annual look at enrollment and performance trends in schools and colleges.

Educators and activists, pointing to the shifting demographics, say it is becoming urgent to find ways to boost achievement of minority and low-income students, who often lag behind white and middle- to upper-income peers.

"Latino students have long underperformed versus Anglo students . . . and they are continuing to underperform," said Peter Zamora, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "When Latino students were a small percentage of the population, this maybe didn't need to be a significant concern of policymakers. But when one out of five students is Hispanic, this isn't a Latino issue, this is an American issue."

According to the report, which drew on data from local school systems, colleges and national and international exams, dropout rates among whites, blacks and Hispanics are lower than in 1972. But Hispanic and black students are still more likely than white students to fail to complete high school.

Ideas on Creative and Practical IQ Underlie New Tests of Giftedness

Robert J. Sternberg often writes about a lecture-style psychology course he took as a college freshman in which he got a C. “There is a famous Sternberg in psychology,” the professor told him at the time, “and it looks like there won’t be another.”

To Mr. Sternberg, the vignette illustrates that conventional assessments don’t measure all the abilities students need to succeed in life.

A nationally known psychologist, he has spent much of his career designing new measures that might more accurately capture the full range of students’ intellectual potential at the university level.

Now, a team of Yale University researchers is using the same ideas to rethink the tests that schools use to identify pupils for gifted and talented programs in elementary schools.

The team’s Aurora Battery, named for the colorful spectrums created by the northern and southern lights, is being translated and tested with tens of thousands of 9- to 12-year-olds, not only in the United States, but also in England, India, Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and other countries.

If the preliminary results from those tests are borne out, its developers say, the new assessment could yield a very different pool of gifted students—one that includes a higher proportion of students from traditionally underrepresented minority groups than is often the case now.

“This test has the potential to capture a more diverse population of students with a more varied and better-qualified array of skills,” said Elena L. Grigorenko, a psychology professor and the leader of the Yale study team in New Haven, Conn.

Hispanics dying on job at higher rates than others - USATODAY.com

Hispanics dying on job at higher rates than others - USATODAY.com: ATLANTA — Hispanic workers die at higher rates than other laborers, with 1 in 3 of these deaths occurring in the construction industry, a government study reported Thursday. South Carolina had the highest death rate in the nation.

Hispanics tend to hold more high-risk jobs than those in other racial groups, but language and literacy barriers and poor training and supervision may also be factors, researchers said. The leading causes of death in recent years have been falls and highway-related accidents.

'Many of the Hispanic workers in construction are undocumented, and many of those who are recently arrived do face a language barrier,' said Rakesh Kochhar, associated director for research at the Pew Hispanic Center.

'A language barrier hinders understanding of a job, or the risks associated with it, or safety precautions,' said Kochhar, who was not part of the new study.

The study was done by health researchers in Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's being published this week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Many Blacks Find Joy in Unexpected Breakthrough - NYTimes.com

Many Blacks Find Joy in Unexpected Breakthrough - NYTimes.com: Kwabena Sam-Brew, a 38-year-old immigrant from Ghana, doubted that Nana, his 5-year-old American-born daughter, would remember the rally that effectively crowned Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee Tuesday night.

But Mr. Sam-Brew said he would describe it to her: “I will tell her, ‘Tonight is the night that all Americans became one.’ ”

Mr. Sam-Brew, a bus driver living in Cottage Grove, Minn., said Mr. Obama’s achievement would change the nation’s image around the world, and change the mind-set of Americans, too.

“We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had,” Mr. Sam-Brew said. “I have new goals for my little girl. She can’t give me any excuses because she’s black.

In his remarks Tuesday, Mr. Obama did not mention becoming the first American of color with a real chance at being president of the United States, and, of course, most of the Democrats who had voted for him were white. But for that very reason, many African-Americans exulted Wednesday in a political triumph that they believed they would never live to see. Many expressed hope that their children would draw strength from the moment.

“Not that we’re so distraught, but our children need to be able to see a black adult as a leader for the country, so they can know we can reach for those same goals,” said Wilhelmina Brown, 54, an account representative for U.S. Bank in St. Paul. “We don’t need to give up at a certain level.”

Just the Stats: Fewer Hispanics Study Music Than Other Groups

Hispanics are less likely than their minority peers to participate in music education throughout their lifetime, and yet they earn the most music degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). More than 80 percent of Blacks will have taken some sort of musical education training throughout their lifetime, compared to 73 percent of Hispanics.

A new report was recently released illustrating the direct effects of musical education on personal fulfillment, career success, and higher education attainment. The survey was conducted independently by Harris Interactive�, an online polling company.

Despite the lack of musical participation, Hispanics outnumber Blacks in earned degrees in music. Based on data from the NCES in 2005, Hispanics represented 12.7 percent of all music associate degree holders, while Blacks earned 8.8 percent of the all music degrees. Similarly, Hispanics represented 6.4 percent of all music undergraduate degree holders, compared to 5.3 percent for Blacks.

Closing the Culture Gap Can Help Latino Students Learn, Professor Says

With the increase in the nation’s Hispanic population, policymakers must address the “opportunity gap” as an education challenge, says Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University.

“The opportunity gap [is] the gap in the opportunity to attend well-funded schools that can offer a good education,” he said in a recent radio interview on National Public Radio. “Latino students in this country are more segregated now than any other group and are more likely to go to schools that have very few resources, and not surprisingly have some of the highest dropout rates in the country.”

Recent data from the U.S. Census reported that the Hispanic population increased by 3.3 percent from July 1, 2006, to July, 1, 2007, and it also reported that nearly a quarter of the children younger than five in the U.S. are Latino. Statistics based on national standardized tests have shown that Latino students, like African Americans, lag behind their peers in reading and math scores, a problem educators have dubbed “the achievement gap.” Latino students also have higher dropout rates and are less likely to attend college, according to recent statistics gathered from the U.S. Department of Education."

Course Watch: University of Akron Offers Class on Black Male Issues

Course Watch: University of Akron Offers Class on Black Male Issues: The first course on Black men’s history and studies in the nation will be taught this summer as a special topics course at the University of Akron (Ohio) by Dr. Zachery Williams, assistant professor of African-American history and interim director of Pan African studies at the university.

“‘African American Men’s History and Studies’ represents an innovative course that seeks to intentionally, holistically and critically examine the history and current socio-cultural realities of Black men, while interrogating the implications of that complicated history/gendered reality for public policy development, implementation and evaluation,” Williams says.

Report: More Than 1 Million High School Students Will Fail to Graduate in 2008, Minorities Most at Risk

Report: More Than 1 Million High School Students Will Fail to Graduate in 2008, Minorities Most at Risk: Of the 1.23 million high school students who will fail to graduate this year, minority students are the most at risk, according to new data recently released by Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center (EPE).


While nationally, 71 percent of ninth-graders make it to graduation four years later, the figure drops for Hispanic, Black and Native American students — 58, 55, and 51 percent respectively.


The new data highlighted in 'Diplomas Count 2008: School to College: Can State P-16 Councils Ease the Transition?' details graduation information for every U.S. district and state, along with other new information, including the estimated number of students in the 2008 class who dropped out before graduating.


EPE, which publishes pre-collegiate education newspaper Education Week, aims to help raise the level of awareness and understanding among professionals and the public of important issues in American education.


Its new study found the new data using enrollment and graduation rates as opposed to drop-out rates from various U.S. states. The information was based upon 2005 numbers because those numbers were the most up-to-date information available.

Study: More blacks than whites must lose a leg to diabetes - USATODAY.com

Study: More blacks than whites must lose a leg to diabetes - USATODAY.com: Blacks undergo leg amputations as a complication of diabetes at a far higher rate than whites, according to a study out today that also found blacks lag behind whites in breast cancer screening and diabetic tests.

'There are remarkable disparities between blacks and whites and between communities,' says Dartmouth Medical School professor and study lead author Elliott Fisher, who says health systems, economics, lifestyle, education and community resources all play a role in the differences.

The study, paid for by the non-profit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, used data from Medicare to look at amputations, screening rates and other measures of quality care among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The foundation is one of the nation's largest philanthropies and backs efforts to change the health care system.

Researchers studied amputation because it can indicate that diabetes patients have received inadequate preventive care. The study found:

• Across the USA, the rate of leg amputation is four times greater among black Medicare recipients than white.

• Black residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina had 6 amputations per 1,000 Medicare enrollees, while black residents of Colorado and Nevada had fewer than 2 per 1,000.

• Overall amputation rates for both blacks and whites vary among states. Utah has the lowest rate at .5 amputations per 1,000 Medicare members, and Louisiana has the highest at 1.7 amputations per 1,000.

Survey: Risky acts more likely for Hispanic teens

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at higher rates than their black or white classmates, according to a new federal survey that shows a continuation of a disturbing trend.

The study is the latest in a series of surveys of U.S. high school students every two years. The new report noted that black and white students are reporting less sexual activity than in years past, but there was no decline among Hispanics.

In addition, Hispanic students were more likely than either blacks or whites to attempt suicide, ride with a driver who had been drinking alcohol, or use cocaine, heroin or ecstasy.

Hispanics also most often drank alcohol on school property, were offered or sold illegal drugs, and occasionally skipped school because they feared for their safety, according to the 2007 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts were unable to come up with an explanation for why Hispanic behavior trends differed. However, they speculated that school environments many Hispanics face may differ considerably from what adolescents of other races encounter. Earlier research found that Hispanics and blacks more commonly attend highly segregated schools than whites or Asians.

"There's tremendous segregation in our schools," said Howell Wechsler, director of adolescent and school health for the CDC. He said he was very troubled Hispanic teens had not improved in certain risk areas at the same rate as blacks and whites.

The finding comes from a survey of about 14,000 U.S. high school students that has been conducted every other year since 1991.

With Losses in Construction, Hispanic Unemployment Soars - washingtonpost.com

With Losses in Construction, Hispanic Unemployment Soars - washingtonpost.com: The unemployment rate among Latinos is rising faster than the rate for all other workers in the United States, as the steep decline in the construction industry eliminates hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to a national study released today.

Latino workers have lost nearly 250,000 jobs in the construction industry during the past year, with Hispanic immigrants getting hit hardest, the report by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center said.

Joblessness among Latino immigrants rose to 7.5 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2008, compared to 6.5 percent for all Latinos and 4.7 percent for all other workers in the U.S. The rise in unemployment for Hispanic immigrants also marked the first time since 2003 that foreign-born Latinos had a higher unemployment rate than that of native-born Latinos, the report said.

Minority Students' Dropout Rates at Crisis Levels

Minority Students' Dropout Rates at Crisis Levels: High school educators have been told in Seattle that dropout rates for minority students, especially Native-Americans, are at crisis levels in six Northwestern states.

``Our success rate with Native children starts in kindergarten, or in preschool,'' said Sally Brownfield, the facilitator for the Center for the Improvement of Student Learning in Washington.

The high school educators from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana and Wyoming met at the University of Washington on Friday for a one-day conference.

A panel of experts told the educators after years of talking about how students need to be properly prepared for school, it's time for schools to start preparing for students.

Brownfield said that's when Native-American children first come in contact with ``foreign'' cultures.

The panelists, made up in part of representatives of the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, advocated resources be redirected to help troubled students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The ``Civil Rights Project'' conference, a national effort by UCLA, catered to educators serving Native-American and Alaskan-Native students in the six states.

Last Brown v. Board Plaintiff Dies - TIME

Last Brown v. Board Plaintiff Dies - TIME: TOPEKA, Kan. — The last surviving plaintiff in Topeka's Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in public schools, has died at 88.

Zelma Henderson died Tuesday in Topeka, six weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Her son, Donald, said she wasn't physically imposing, but when she was passionate about something, "She was just fire."

In 1950, Henderson signed onto the litigation on behalf of her children challenging Topeka's segregated schools. In all, 13 black parents in Topeka, including the Rev. Oliver Brown, took part in the federal case.

The plaintiffs lost in U.S. District Court, but the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and consolidated with similar cases from Virginia, South Carolina and Delaware.

The high court's unanimous ruling overturning school segregation came on May 17, 1954.

As a child in the 1920s and '30s, Henderson had attended desegregated schools in the western Kansas town of Oakley. She was disgusted when she learned her own children would be required to attend segregated schools in Topeka.

'$100 laptop' non-profit teams with Microsoft - USATODAY.com

'$100 laptop' non-profit teams with Microsoft - USATODAY.com: BOSTON — The One Laptop Per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft, a rival the non-profit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to schoolchildren.

Microsoft (MSFT) and the laptop organization announced Thursday that the non-profit's green-and-white 'XO' computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the open Linux operating system. That had been anticipated for months, but it amounts to a major shift.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the laptop project — which aims to produce $100 computers but now sells them at $188 — acknowledged that having Windows as an option could reassure education ministers who have hesitated to buy XOs with its new interface, called Sugar. Negroponte had hoped to sell several million laptops by now; instead he has gotten about 600,000 orders.

A Different State of Race Relations - washingtonpost.com

A Different State of Race Relations - washingtonpost.com: SALT LAKE CITY -- Earlier this year, a state senator stood on the statehouse floor here and spoke disparagingly of a pending bill. 'This baby is black,' said Sen. Chris Buttars, a Republican, adding, 'It's a dark, ugly thing.'

Weary of talking about race? Come to the Beehive State, where race relations is a topic of bracing freshness.

Here, basic issues of sensitivity -- what is spoken of aloud and what is best left unsaid, assumptions good and bad, all the delicate matters that in so many parts of the country have been burnished to exquisite subtleties by worry and constant attention -- are still very basic indeed.

Take what happened to Tamu Smith.

Smith was in cosmetology class when she felt a hand on her head. A classmate was handling her hair.

"And I said, 'Don't ever touch my hair without asking me,' " Smith said. "And she was like, 'Well, I can touch your hair.' And I was like, 'What?' And she was like, 'I can touch your hair because I've never touched black people's hair before.' "

It was after a supervisor was summoned that, as Smith recalls, the classmate whined a question that, a decade later, still strikes at the poignant and suddenly timely essence of being black in Utah: "If I don't get to touch Tamu's hair, then what black person's hair am I ever going to touch?"

While Buttars's cutting remark about an offending piece of legislation was, the Rev. France A. Davis said, "the kind of thing you'd see when I was growing up in Georgia," the controversy was finally put to rest when the senator apologized before Davis's mostly black congregation at Calvary Baptist Church, which knew a teaching moment when it saw one.

"There is kind of a time warp," said Darius Gray, an African American and producer of the documentary "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons." "We are a bit slow on the uptake here."

Taking Back the Land

Native Americans bid to reclaim what was once theirs.

... To get back to the garden that existed before Europeans ravaged their lands, Native Americans are cultivating with an unnatural resource—casino riches. Across the country, Native American tribes are snapping up property with the cash that's flowing in from slot machines, blackjack tables and roulette wheels. Last year, tribal gaming revenue hit $27 billion. Since Native Americans won the right to build casinos on their reservations in 1988, the lucrative business has caught fire. Of the 562 federally recognized tribes, about 220 have gaming operations. And they're using their newfound fortune to invest in land for housing, businesses, farming, hunting and fishing grounds, grazing lands for cattle and buffalo—or simply returning it to the wild. With earnings from its Wildhorse Resort and Casino, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservations in northeast Oregon spent $20 million to acquire roughly 30,000 acres, about a third of which they are returning to its natural conditions, said Bill Tovey, the tribe's director of economic development. Part of the grounds harbor plants and roots the nation uses for ceremonial purposes. "If you don't have land, you don't have culture," he said. "You don't own your destiny."

Immigrants Are Assimilating Quickly, but Mexicans Lag Most, Report Says

NEW YORK

Despite rapid growth in the immigrant population, newcomers of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, according to a conservative think tank.

However, the report from the Manhattan Institute indicates that Mexican immigrants are not assimilating as fast as other groups, a difference largely attributed to lack of legal status for many. Undocumented status, in turn, limits access to the means of assimilation.

The report, which uses U.S. Census Bureau data to calculate similarities between native and foreign-born adults in the United States, concluded that the degree of similarity has held steady since 1990 but was low by historical standards.

The report, “Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States” by Dr. Jacob Vigdor, an associate professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University, introduces a quantitative index of the degree of similarity between U.S.-born and foreign-born adults. “It is the ability to distinguish the latter group from the former that we mean when we use the term ‘assimilation,’ Vigdor wrote in the executive summary.

In the index, immigrants are categorized by country of origin, date of arrival, age, and place of residence.

Latinas, Black Girls Respect, Defer to Moms Most

Latinas and African American girls defer to their mothers more than non-Hispanic white girls do, according to a University of Florida study.

“Within African-American and Latino families, children follow a cultural tradition that places a high value on respecting, obeying and learning from elders, and in our study they did indeed show more respect for parental authority,” said Julia Graber, a UF psychology professor.

The girls’ respect for authority was observed through videotaped interactions with their mothers. Daughters were scored on their listening behaviors when their mothers were speaking: attending to them, acknowledging their mothers' comments and not interrupting. They also were evaluated for defiant behaviors, such as disobeying their mothers' requests, being unwilling to cooperate and ignoring their mothers.

When African-American and Latina girls do act up, said Graber, their mothers consider the arguments to be more intense than those reported by white mothers who clash with their daughters. The study was published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology and reported recently by the university.

Work Life and Identity Issues in Hispanic Youth Are Focus of Study

Education is the primary route to security for children of ethnic minorities, a University of Arizona professor concludes in a study that his publisher says is the most-extensive ever done on Hispanic youth.

Dr. Julio Cammarota, an assistant professor in the UA’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the Mexican American Studies and Research Center, wrote Suenos Americanos, Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities,( $39.95, University of Arizona Press, July 1, 2008, ISBN-10: 0816525935, ISBN-13: 978-0816525935.) It is based on his observations and extensive interviews of youth living in “El Pueblo,” the name he gives to the barrio along the California coast where he conducted his research.

“In my research I found that education is a primary route to rewarding employment and economic security,” Cammarota said. “And that education is particularly significant for the future prospects of children who are ethnic minorities, were born into disadvantaged economic circumstances, or are dealing with language barriers.

From 1993 to 2000, Cammarota interviewed and observed 40 youth between the ages 17 to 24 and selected six of the youth to investigate in depth for Suenos Americanos, according to the publisher."

Naval Academy Names Sports Complex in Honor of First Black Graduate

Six years ago, Wesley Brown suffered a massive heart attack at his home in Washington D.C.

Like he was told in 1945 of his little-to-no chance of graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, doctors said he had a slim likelihood of surviving. In both cases, though, he had too much to live for — ambitions that ironically were interrelated. Enduring the former ended up growing his legacy. Surviving the latter allowed him to ultimately see the edifice that will preserve his legacy for many years to come.

Brown, a retired navy lieutenant commander, endured the taunts and the myriad roadblocks to become the first Black person to graduate from the Naval Academy in 1949. And he carried on to when the academy’s new $50 million sports complex was named after him in honor of that trailblazing feat earlier this month.

“I had a massive heart attack a couple of months after I was notified of this plan,” says Brown, referring to six years ago. “So I was hoping that I wouldn’t have another heart attack and miss the ceremony. It certainly felt good to know that I had survived because very, very few people get buildings named for them while they are still alive.”

The honorary banquet on May 9 and the two-hour dedication ceremony to officially open the Wesley A. Brown Field House the following day, both at the field house on the bank of the Severn River in Annapolis, Md., was the end of “a long waiting period,” Brown says.

Study Finds Whites Anxious About Race

The Bryant Park Project, May 28, 2008 · A new study from Northwestern University's Department of Social Psychology finds that many whites worry about inadvertently getting into trouble for seeming biased. As a result, says study author Jennifer Richeson, Caucasians seek to avoid situations where bias might be revealed, such as in the company of black people.

Richeson, an associate professor at Northwestern University, says her research measured biases that 30 white subjects had against black images. She says the biases, even subtle ones, were enough to make those white subjects so afraid of being branded as racist, they indicated a preference for avoiding all contact with black people.

White anxiety, Richeson says, is an ironic byproduct of increased racial diversity on campuses, in offices and within communities. She says people who've had little experience with interracial interactions don't feel comfortable in new, sometimes daunting situations — and that avoidance and anxiety are the unfortunate results. "This anxiety precludes the encounters that would actually let people explore new interactions," she says.

How to make interracial interactions less anxious? "We need to get out of the business of giving the scarlet letter brand of 'bigot,' " Richeson says. That type of label is really not useful, she says, citing the example of Don Imus drawing fire for racially charged comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team in 2007. Imus later met with the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of his most vocal critics, and insisted he's not a racist.

"I think, in general, we need to be a little bit more generous," Richeson says. "There's nothing wrong with vigilance ... We get stopped at, 'You said this, you said that, you're a racist.' There's no place to go from there."

Court Backs Lawsuits on Retaliation for Bias Allegations - washingtonpost.com

Court Backs Lawsuits on Retaliation for Bias Allegations - washingtonpost.com: The Supreme Court ruled today that two federal anti-discrimination statutes allow lawsuits on claims of retaliation, siding with workers who pursued grievances in separate cases that stemmed from allegations of racial and age bias.

In one case, CBOCS West v. Humphries, the justices ruled in a 7-2 vote that an 1866 law, Congress's first major civil rights act, prohibits retaliation against workers who complain of racial discrimination. The court's two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, dissented.

In another case, Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the court ruled 6-3 that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 bars retaliation based on the filing of an age discrimination complaint. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented in the case, along with Thomas and Scalia.

The court said in both cases that it was bound by previous Supreme Court rulings that allowed retaliation claims under other laws. The respondents in each case had argued that the law in question did not specifically prohibit retaliation.

Housing complaints increase, but fewer charges are filed - USATODAY.com

Housing complaints increase, but fewer charges are filed - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — The federal government is filing fewer housing discrimination charges even as consumer complaints against landlords, real estate agents and mortgage brokers have risen steadily.

Most renters and buyers who seek help from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are unlikely to get relief for their complaints, which can include alleged discrimination by landlords and sellers based on race, religion, sex or disability. The agency is throwing out a growing number of complaints, federal data show.

The housing agency, responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases under the Federal Fair Housing Act, filed 31 discrimination charges in 2007 and 36 in 2006. Charges for those two years combined dropped 65% from the last two years of the Clinton administration — 111 charges were filed in 1999; 82 in 2000.

Complaints during the same period rose from fewer than 7,100 in both 1999 and 2000 to more than 10,000 in both 2006 and 2007.

Study of '94 Adoption Law Finds Little Benefit to Blacks

A 1994 federal law that paved the way for more white adults to adopt black children has left many parents ill-equipped for the situation and has not achieved the goals of giving black children an equal chance of being adopted and recruiting more black adoptive parents, a study concludes.

The study, being released today, found that the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) did succeed in increasing the rate of black adoptions, but only by a small margin, and that black children still disproportionately end up in temporary foster homes.

Because the law forbids discussion of race during the adoption process, it prevents social workers from preparing white parents for the challenge of raising black children in a largely white environment, said the report, titled "Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race and Law in Adoption From Foster Care." It cited studies showing that dark-complexioned children in white homes tend to struggle with identity issues related to skin color, self-esteem and discrimination that their new parents are often not equipped to handle.

"To say that we need to be colorblind is an arguable notion," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, which commissioned the study. "It's a wonderful notion in a perfect world. But most of us would agree that we're not there yet."

"Color consciousness does not mean you're going to do race-matching with kids," Pertman said. But "if you're white and you're adopting a black kid, maybe you could use a little coaching on that issue as you help your kid grow up. The law says you can't be trained to do that. Are we giving parents the optimal tools to succeed in bringing up their families?"

White valedictorian: A first for historically black Morehouse - CNN.com

White valedictorian: A first for historically black Morehouse - CNN.com: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Joshua Packwood knows what it's like to be a minority.

This weekend he'll be the first white valedictorian to graduate from the historically black, all male Morehouse College in the school's 141-year history.

Morehouse, in Atlanta, Georgia, is one the nation's most prestigious universities of its kind. For more than a century, the school has prided itself on personifying the dream of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the school's most notable alums, by producing "Morehouse Men" - intelligent and successful black leaders.

"Because I'm one of the only white students, it's easy to call me 'the white boy,' I'm naturally going to stand out," says Packwood.

But Packwood, 22, doesn't stand out solely because he is white or has maintained a 4.0 grade point average. For those who don't know him, what is surprising is that a Rhodes Scholar finalist turned down a full scholarship to Columbia University to attend the all-black men's university.

This came naturally to Packwood, who attended a predominantly black high school.

"A large majority of my friends, like all my girlfriends have been minorities," says Packwood. "So it was very, it was kind of strange that I always kind of gravitated to the black community."

Packwood fit in immediately at Morehouse. His charm, movie-star good looks and chiseled physique made him popular among students. He was elected dorm president and to class council during freshmen year - and was a favorite at campus fashion shows.

On the Reservation and Off, Schools See a Changing Tide - NYTimes.com

On the Reservation and Off, Schools See a Changing Tide - NYTimes.com: HARDIN, Mont. — One of the last traditional chiefs of the Crow Indian tribe, named Plenty Coups, had a vision as the Old West was fading. Education would be the way of the future, he said — a choice to be either the “the white man’s victim” or “the white man’s equal.”

Roberta Walks Over Ice was among those who heard that message, from her grandfather. She then continued the tradition, preaching the value of education to her daughter, Jasmine, 15.

But the zeal for learning that took root in such families is now coming with a cost. Many families like the Walks Over Ices are deciding that off-reservation public schools in this small, mostly white ranching town are a better choice than schools on the reservation.

Hardin High School, 55 percent white in 2000, is now 70 percent American Indian. On the reservation, at Lodge Grass High School, more than a third of the student enrollment in 2000 has melted away.

The stigma that was once attached to sending a child off the reservation — the legacy of forced boarding-school programs in the early 1900s that tried to strip Indians of their culture and language in the name of assimilation — has faded as elders who remember the old days die off.

Bet on It: Race Skews Referee Calls in the NBA

The Bryant Park Project, May 22, 2008 · Last year, Justin Wolfers set the basketball world abuzz when he co-authored a study that showed racial bias among NBA referees. Coaches, players and refs piled on to debate its central conclusion, namely that officials tend to favor players of their own ethnic backgrounds. Over the course of a season, the study reported, a white referee will call more fouls on a black player and vice versa.

Wolfers took that as a call to put up or shut up. The Wharton professor took his statistics to Las Vegas — virtually — and bet on them. He calculated what would happen if you placed money on the outcome of NBA games solely on the racial makeup of the players and the referees.

What would happen, Wolfers reports, is that you'd turn a profit.

"Our estimate is that the outcome of up to 3 percent of all games would have been different with a different refereeing crew," Wolfers says. "Some people feel that 3 percent's not a lot. Some feel outraged that even that many games could be affected by something so arbitrary. But when you talk to team owners, if you could guarantee them another 3 percent of wins, they will tell you directly that's worth millions of dollars to them."

The NBA has questioned the results of the original study. Wolfers credits the referees for being highly trained and dedicated to getting calls right. What he'd like to see is an acknowledgment from the NBA that bias exists in its workplaces, just at it does in others. He'd like to work with the sports league to improve the situation on the court.

Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias - USATODAY.com

Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias - USATODAY.com: Weight discrimination, especially against women, is increasing in U.S. society and is almost as common as racial discrimination, two studies suggest.

Reported discrimination based on weight has increased 66% in the past decade, up from about 7% to 12% of U.S. adults, says one study, in the journal Obesity. The other study, in the International Journal of Obesity, says such discrimination is common in both institutional and interpersonal situations — and in some cases is even more prevalent than rates of discrimination based on gender and race. (About 17% of men and 9% of women reported race discrimination.)

Among severely obese people, about 28% of men and 45% of women said they have experienced discrimination because of their weight.

"Weight discrimination is a very serious social problem that we need to pay attention to," says Rebecca Puhl of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, a co-author of both studies.

The research, based on surveys of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in 1995-96 and 2004-06, is the first to compare rates of weight discrimination with other forms of discrimination, Puhl says.

Institutional discrimination involved health care, education or workplace situations, such as cases in which people said they were fired, denied a job or a promotion because of their weight. Interpersonal discrimination focused on insults, abuse and harassment from others.

New Online School Targets Hispanics, At-risk Students

New Online School Targets Hispanics, At-risk Students: The state’s newest virtual charter school is expected to go online this fall, but only after a strategic campaign to recruit Hispanics and teenagers at risk of quitting or getting kicked out of public high schools.

Cliff Green, executive director of the iSucceed Virtual High School, has spent the past two months stumping in juvenile correctional facilities, cities with significant Hispanic populations and community programs aimed at getting kids off the streets.

The nonprofit online charter school is part of Insight Schools, a Portland-based company that operates one of the largest networks of virtual high schools in the country. With schools in Oregon, California, Washington and Wisconsin, Insight plans to open more this fall in Idaho, Minnesota and Kansas.

If the Idaho school opens in September as scheduled, Green wants to maintain a Hispanic student population of at least 20 percent. As part of their recruiting strategy, administrators bought ads on Spanish radio stations, advertised classes with bilingual brochures and drafted Hispanic community leaders to serve on its board of directors.

Indiana University Approved To Offer Doctorate in Black Studies

Indiana University Approved To Offer Doctorate in Black Studies: Since the Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced the approval of the new doctoral program in African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) at Indiana University Bloomington more than a week ago, John McCluskey Jr. says he has felt both elated and relieved.

This announcement was four years and countless meetings in the making.

“On the one hand I have been elated,” says McCluskey, an AASDS professor who chaired the faculty committee that wrote the proposal for the new degree program. “On the other hand, because we’ve put so much work into it, it is almost anti-climatic.”

The faculty have not celebrated together yet, but in the days since the decision was handed down they’ve already begun recruiting students for their first cohort of five or six students for the fall of 2009, McCluskey says.

“We have a year to recruit, and let students know who we are,” he says. “We are already looking forward to the first class.”

IU became the eighth institution of higher learning in the United States to offer a doctoral degree related to Africana Studies, joining Harvard University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Temple University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Yale University.

Many schools unlikely to meet goals - Education- msnbc.com

Many schools unlikely to meet goals - Education- msnbc.com: WASHINGTON - Pink slips for principals and teachers. School-funded tutoring for poor kids. Schools are increasingly looking at those kind of consequences for failing to raise math and reading scores.

The federal No Child Left Behind law says that by the 2013-14 school year all students must pass state tests in these subjects.

About half of the states have steady annual goals for increasing the percentage of students passing, or working at their proper grade level. But the other half set the bar very low early on, and starting about now expect big annual achievement gains, according to a report being released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy.

Educators liken the latter strategy to a balloon payment mortgage, in which home owners have a final payment that is much larger than previous ones.

It's unlikely that states that took that approach can make the kind of gains expected, said Jack Jennings, the center's president.

No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says - washingtonpost.com

No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says - washingtonpost.com: A new study to be released today on gender equity in education concludes that a 'boys crisis' in U.S. schools is a myth and that both sexes have stayed the same or improved on standardized tests in the past decade.

The report by the nonprofit American Association of University Women, which promotes education and equity for women, reviewed nearly 40 years of data on achievement from fourth grade to college and for the first time analyzed gender differences within economic and ethnic categories.

The most important conclusion of 'Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education' is that academic success is more closely associated with family income than with gender, its authors said.

'A lot of people think it is the boys that need the help,' co-author Christianne Corbett said. 'The point of the report is to highlight the fact that that is not exclusively true. There is no crisis with boys. If there is a crisis, it is with African American and Hispanic students and low-income students, girls and boys.'

Report: Ethnic Pride Has Mixed Impact on Asian Americans’ Ability To Deal With Discrimination

Report: Ethnic Pride Has Mixed Impact on Asian Americans’ Ability To Deal With Discrimination: Strong ties to their ethnicity can reduce the negative effects of racism for some Asian Americans and intensify the negative effects of racism for others, according to a new report published by the American Psychological Association.

Using the first nationally representative sample of Asian adults in the Unites States, three researchers examined the impact of ethnic identity and mental health among various Asian American populations in an effort to find out whether strong racial ties protected them against the negative psychological effects of discrimination.

Asian American adults, ages 18-75 years old, were questioned about any negative feelings they may have had in the previous 30 days. Participants were also asked about their perceptions of racial and ethnic discrimination, how often they felt discriminated against because of their ethnicity and how close they felt their feelings were to others in the same ethnic group.

For participants born outside the United States, embracing their ethnic identity did not guard against the ill effects of discrimination on psychological wellness. However, for Asians born in the United States, ethnic attachment did affect whether discrimination made people feel more distressed.

Immigrants’ Children Find Better Lives, Study Shows - New York Times

Immigrants’ Children Find Better Lives, Study Shows - New York Times: A decade-long study of adult children of immigrants to the New York region has concluded that they are rapidly entering the mainstream and doing better than their parents in terms of education and earnings — even outperforming native-born Americans in many cases.

But the study also warned of problems that could block upward mobility for members of the “second generation,” including persistent poverty and poor school performance among Dominicans and racial discrimination against black immigrants from the Caribbean.

The results of the $2 million study are detailed in “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age,” published this month by Harvard University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation, which finances social science research.

It focused on five groups: Dominicans, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans (consisting of Colombians, Ecuadoreans and Peruvians) and West Indians, defined as immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, including Belize and Guyana. The researchers also interviewed native-born whites, blacks and Puerto Ricans (those born on the mainland) in the New York area for comparison purposes.

The study identified broad similarities among adult children of immigrants. They were overwhelmingly fluent in English; were less occupationally segregated than their parents; lived longer with their parents than native-born Americans; and were firmly rooted in the United States, with fewer personal and financial ties to their ancestral homeland than their parents.

At U-Va., A Dean Making a Difference - washingtonpost.com

At U-Va., A Dean Making a Difference - washingtonpost.com: More black students graduate from the University of Virginia within six years than from any other public university in the country, and here's why: institutional commitment, an admissions process that selects strong students, generous financial aid and a network of peer advisers.

Not only that, they've got Sylvia Terry, the associate dean of African American affairs, who has, in effect, re-created the high expectations and the support she learned from her parents, her small town and the historically black college her family attended. One by one, she's trying to ensure that these students get the benefits -- intellectual, cultural and economic -- of a college degree. She bakes them cakes, e-mails them poems, gives them hugs -- and expects them to make good. She'll celebrate with a couple of hundred of them Sunday.

"Sometimes you can point to one person who makes such a huge difference," said John Blackburn, director of admissions. "She just nurtures every kid who comes through the door."

Race relations at U-Va. have never been perfect, and in recent years there have been flare-ups over racist graffiti and other issues. But there is an institutional commitment from President John T. Casteen III on down to ensuring that black students stay in school and graduate -- including generous financial aid for needy families, an emphasis on recruiting and academic support and an intense system of peer mentoring that Terry has built up.

Diversity Proves Elusive for Women in Technical Fields - New York Times

Diversity Proves Elusive for Women in Technical Fields - New York Times: BACK in the bad old days, the workplace was a battleground, where sexist jokes and assumptions were the norm.

Women were shut off from promotion by an old boys’ network that favored its own. They went to meetings and were often the only women in the room.

All that has changed in the last three decades, except where it has not. In the worlds of science, engineering and technology, it seems, the past is still very much present.

“It’s almost a time warp,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founder of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a nonprofit organization that studies women and work. “All the predatory and demeaning and discriminatory stuff that went on in workplaces 20, 30 years ago is alive and well in these professions.”

That is the conclusion of the center’s latest study, which will be published in the Harvard Business Review in June.

Women still trail in tech jobs - USATODAY.com

Women still trail in tech jobs - USATODAY.com: Despite women's advances in the workplace, men still dominate in careers in technology.

That concerns women such as Susan Merritt, dean of the computer science program at Pace University in New York City.

'It certainly is the case, and it's worse than ever,' she said of the current dearth of women pursuing careers in information technology.

Only 10% of computing majors are women, Merritt said. That can be blamed in part on some of the techniques used to interest students in computing, such as gaming, which have great appeal among boys but not girls.

Pace has had better results, she said, noting that typically 25% to 30% of computing students are female. She credited her department's sizable percentage of female faculty, including herself as dean, as a draw.

Chicago Tribune | Exploring race

Chicago Tribune | Exploring race: Dawn Turner Trice: Say you are a white person who's at a dinner party and a subject involving race surfaces. The topic could be about anything: from the comments made by Barack Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Bill Cosby's cross-country tour promoting personal responsibility and self-reliance.

So what do you do? Engage in the conversation or determine where the booze is being served and cozy up to a cocktail in another room?

A recently published Northwestern University study looks at white people who avoid racial conversations and even interracial interactions primarily because they are so afraid they will say something that's not politically correct and it will make them appear prejudiced.

That someone would avoid a situation that might make them seem racist is not surprising. What was striking about the study's findings was that the participants—taken from a pool of about 300 students—were so incredibly unnerved by these seemingly minor interactions that their responses mimicked those of people who felt anxious about weightier things, such as chronic pain.

Undocumented Students To Be Denied Admission To N.C. Community Colleges

Undocumented Students To Be Denied Admission To N.C. Community Colleges: Upon the advice of the state attorney general’s office, the North Carolina Community College system will no longer admit undocumented students into degree-granting programs.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper advised the 58-campus system to revert to a directive, issued in December 2001, which barred undocumented immigrants from working toward a degree.

“We asked the Attorney General’s Office for clarification of our present policy and will abide by their advice,” said system President R. Scott Ralls in an official statement. “Until we receive further clarification, we will no longer admit individuals classified as illegal or undocumented immigrants to curriculum degree programs.”

Study: Big gaps in foster vs. traditional homes - USATODAY.com

Study: Big gaps in foster vs. traditional homes - USATODAY.com: Children in foster care live in poorer, more crowded and less educated homes than kids in other families, often taking them from one disadvantaged environment into another, new research shows.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation study is the first to analyze 2006 Census Bureau data, the most recent available, for a detailed look at foster parents.

'The gaps were so pervasive,' says demographer William O'Hare.

O'Hare finds foster households have a lower average income, $56,364, than do all households with children, $74,301, even though they care for more kids.

Half of foster households have three or more children compared with 21% of all other households with that many. The study also finds foster parents are more likely than others to be unemployed and lack a high school diploma.

Schools address black students' suspensions

Under pressure to reduce the suspension rate of black students, Anne Arundel County is making progress by training staff in how to work with people of different backgrounds and giving troublesome students more support.

Experts say such training is a key to keeping African-American students throughout Maryland in school. Last year, 13.9 percent of black children were suspended statewide, compared with 5.8 percent of white kids. Studies have linked suspensions and expulsions to lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates.

Teachers and administrators may misinterpret the body language and occasional confrontational behavior that some African-Americans learn in their neighborhoods and use at school as a way of standing up for themselves, veteran educators say. They will often back down if they're made to feel safe.

"Being rude means one thing to you and another to me," said Ella White Campbell, a retired city school teacher and an education advocate in Baltimore County.

Anne Arundel schools have been suspending black students at a much higher than average rate - nearly 20 percent in each of the past two years. The NAACP and a group of parents filed a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights alleging discriminatory treatment of black students. In response, the county signed an agreement in September 2005 that, among other things, required schools to act to reduce suspension rates.

Shaping the Leaders of Tomorrow

Group Picks Students From Diverse Areas, Backgrounds for Hands-On Training

Joseph Boone, a junior at Anacostia High School in the District, and Natalie Wainger, a sophomore at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, do not travel in the same social circles.

Besides the physical distance between them, Boone's high school is predominantly black, as are his friends, and Wainger's school is predominantly white, as are her friends.

But through a program aimed at finding the leaders of tomorrow among the high school youths of today, the teenagers have become buddies. And that's part of what Youth Leadership Greater Washington is all about.

"I thought everyone else [in the program] would be different from me, but I found out they're actually a lot like me," said Boone, 16, captain of the drum line and an aspiring varsity football player. "I've made friends with a lot of them."

"My school is not that diverse," said Wainger, 16, a member of the Wootton pom squad. "I've never met anyone from Southeast [Washington] before. Joe and I talk a lot."

The Youth Leadership Greater Washington program, which runs from January to June, brings together a diverse "class" of 35 to 45 high school sophomores and juniors from across the Washington region each year. The program looks for teenagers who demonstrate leadership qualities -- at school, at home, at church or in any other arena.

"There are some very obvious leaders, remarkable, amazing kids who might be on everybody's radar screen," said Tim Kime, president and chief executive of Leadership Greater Washington, the adult group on which the youth group is modeled. "But then there are others who are not necessarily the student body president but a child from a single-family home who's taking care of younger siblings or one doing terrific things in their church, their neighborhood, their family or their school."

"We're looking for aspiring leaders who we can inspire and enlighten," said Kenneth Barrow, the program's coordinator. "We hope to foster community involvement and show them how they can contribute to the region."

For one day a month for six months, the group delves into one topic -- such as public safety, diversity or the media -- through field trips, interactive exercises and guest speakers.

Whose Problem Is Poverty?

It's no cop-out to acknowledge the effects of socioeconomic disparities on student learning. Rather, it's a vital step to closing the achievement gap.

In my work, I've repeatedly stressed this logical claim: If you send two groups of students to equally high-quality schools, the group with greater socioeconomic disadvantage will necessarily have lower average achievement than the more fortunate group.

Why is this so? Because low-income children often have no health insurance and therefore no routine preventive medical and dental care, leading to more school absences as a result of illness. Children in low-income families are more prone to asthma, resulting in more sleeplessness, irritability, and lack of exercise. They experience lower birth weight as well as more lead poisoning and iron-deficiency anemia, each of which leads to diminished cognitive ability and more behavior problems. Their families frequently fall behind in rent and move, so children switch schools more often, losing continuity of instruction.

Poor children are, in general, not read to aloud as often or exposed to complex language and large vocabularies. Their parents have low-wage jobs and are more frequently laid off, causing family stress and more arbitrary discipline. The neighborhoods through which these children walk to school and in which they play have more crime and drugs and fewer adult role models with professional careers. Such children are more often in single-parent families and so get less adult attention. They have fewer cross-country trips, visits to museums and zoos, music or dance lessons, and organized sports leagues to develop their ambition, cultural awareness, and self-confidence.

Each of these disadvantages makes only a small contribution to the achievement gap, but cumulatively, they explain a lot.

Student diversity tongue-ties some graduation speakers - USATODAY.com

Student diversity tongue-ties some graduation speakers - USATODAY.com: A week from Saturday, 453 new graduates will cross the commencement stage on the lawn of Macalester College in St. Paul Among them: Nokuthula Sikhethiwe Kitikiti, Udochukwu Chinyere Obodo, and Baitnairamdal Otgonshar.

Jayne Niemi will be ready.

No-oo-TOOL-a SEE-kay-tee-way Ki-tee-ki-tee. Oo-DO-chu-koo CHIN-yea-ray Oh-boe-doe. Bat-NAI-ram-dal OT-gone-shar.

Niemi's job is to read out the graduates' names without mangling them.

'People invest a lot of time and money and commitment to be here at Macalester and get this education, and they get one day of celebration in the end,' says Niemi, a college registrar who will spend several days studying pronunciation cards submitted by students. 'Their families are here from all over the world. I don't want to embarrass them or the college.'

Niemi is part of a cadre of deans, professors and even outsourced professional public speakers that is gearing up to perform one of academia's quirkier, and tougher, jobs — getting every name right, so nobody leaves campus feeling angry or ungenerous toward his or her alma mater.

School districts face sanctions under landmark law - USATODAY.com

School districts face sanctions under landmark law - USATODAY.com: THERMAL, Calif. — At Las Palmitas Elementary School, nestled between rundown homes and fields of grapes, peppers and dates in Southern California, 99% of students live in poverty and fewer than 20% speak English fluently.

Las Palmitas and other schools in the Coachella Valley Unified School District are just the type policymakers had in mind when Congress passed the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 to shed light on the disparities facing poor and minority children.

Nineteen of the district's 21 schools — including Las Palmitas — have not met the federal law's performance benchmarks for four years. Now the entire district faces sanctions for the first time.

'We have hardworking, dedicated, trained teachers like everybody else. They've got to teach a language, they've got to teach the content, and they've got to counter poverty,' said Foch 'Tut' Pensis, the district's superintendent. 'We are the poster child for NCLB.'

California has 97 school districts that failed to meet their goals under the law for four years, more than twice as many failing districts as any other state so far. Kentucky has the next highest number facing sanctions, with 47.

Call Me Mister

Call Me Mister: The mission of the Call Me MISTER (acronym for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) National Initiative is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader more diverse background particularly among the State's lowest performing elementary schools. Student participants are largely selected from among under-served, socio-economically disadvantaged and educationally at-risk communities.

The Call Me MISTER program is contributing to the talent pool of excellent teachers by identifying and supporting students like Mr. Mark Joseph, who are literally 'touching the future' by teaching children. Mark's teaching degree was made possible through the Call Me MISTER program.

Keep Boys And Girls Together In The Classroom To Optimize Learning, Research Suggests

Keep Boys And Girls Together In The Classroom To Optimize Learning, Research Suggests: Boys and girls may learn differently, but American parents should think twice before moving their children to sex-segregated schools. A new Tel Aviv University study has found that girls improve boys’ grades markedly at school.

“Being with more girls is good for everybody,” says Prof. Analia Schlosser, an economist from the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. “We find that both boys and girls do better when there are more girls in the class.” She investigated girls and boys in mixed classrooms in the elementary, middle, and high-school grades of the Israeli school system.

In an unpublished paper, Prof. Schlosser concluded that classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall. “It appears that this effect is due to the positive influence the girls are adding to the classroom environment,” says Prof. Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next.

This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school.

Slow economy hits Hispanics hard - USATODAY.com

Slow economy hits Hispanics hard - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — Unemployment is rising faster among Hispanics than the rest of the U.S. population as the economy slows, a development that has ripple effects across the nation and into Latin America.

The steep, continuing U.S. housing downturn has had a disproportionate impact on the Hispanic workforce, which is highly concentrated in construction. Because homeownership is also the major source of wealth for Latino families, falling house prices have made it harder for small-business owners to use their residences as collateral for needed loans to run or expand their firms.

Further, the weakening job market, and state and federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants, have reduced the number of Hispanics wiring money to Latin America. Millions of families who depend on so-called remittance payments could be pushed into poverty if current trends continue, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

The U.S. Hispanic unemployment rate jumped to 6.9% in April from 5.5% in April 2007. The African-American unemployment rate is higher, at 8.6%, but has risen less sharply in the past year. The white jobless rate was 4.4% in April.

Majority Latino South Texas Town Abolishes Decades-old Segregation

Majority Latino South Texas Town Abolishes Decades-old Segregation: A South Texas town has abolished an anti-Hispanic segregation law more than seven decades after it was enacted.

The Board of Aldermen unanimously voted Monday to abolish an ordinance that banned ``Spanish or Mexican'' residents who were not servants or maids from occupying ``any building on the American side or portion'' of the once-divided town of Edcouch.

``We should have gotten rid of it a long time ago,'' Alderman Rojelio Garcia said.

When the rule was enacted Dec. 9, 1931, a virtual line was drawn through the center of the city. The ordinance prescribed a fine of up to $100 U.S. for violators.

``It was discriminatory,'' Mayor Jose Guzman said. ``At the time, our city leaders didn't believe in equal rights.''

Now, the town is majority Hispanic and the segregation line no longer exists. The 2000 Census found more than 97 percent of Edcouch's population was Latino.

Native American Boarding Schools Haunt Many

For the government, it was a possible solution to the so-called Indian problem. For the tens of thousands of Indians who went to boarding schools, it's largely remembered as a time of abuse and desecration of culture.

The government still operates a handful of off-reservation boarding schools, but funding is in decline. Now many Native Americans are fighting to keep the schools open.

'Kill the Indian ... Save the Man'

The late performer and Indian activist Floyd Red Crow Westerman was haunted by his memories of boarding school. As a child, he left his reservation in South Dakota for the Wahpeton Indian Boarding School in North Dakota. Sixty years later, he still remembers watching his mother through the window as he left.

At first, he thought he was on the bus because his mother didn't want him anymore. But then he noticed she was crying.

"It was hurting her, too. It was hurting me to see that," Westerman says. "I'll never forget. All the mothers were crying."

Survey: Nearly 60 Percent of Hispanic and Black Children Can’t Swim

Nearly 60 percent of Hispanic and African-American children cannot swim, almost twice the figure for White children, according to a first-of-its-kind survey that USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more minority children into the sport.

USA Swimming is teaming with local governments, corporations, youth and ethnic organizations to expand learn-to-swim programs across the United States. One of the key participants is Black freestyle star Cullen Jones, who hopes to boost his role-model status by winning a medal this summer at the Beijing Olympics.

USA Swimming’s motives are twofold, executive director Chuck Wielgus said.

“It’s just the right thing to do making an effort so every kid can be water-safe,” he said. “And quite frankly it’s about performance. We’re something of a niche sport and for us to remain relevant, considering the changing demographics of the population, it’s important we get more kids involved at the mouth of the pipeline.”

Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming’s nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are Black.

As part of the initiative, USA Swimming commissioned an ambitious study recently completed by five experts at the University of Memphis’ Department of Health and Sports Sciences. They surveyed 1,772 children aged six to 16 in six cities two-thirds of them Black or Hispanic to gauge what factors contributed most to the minority swimming gap.

Conference Highlights Successful Schools

When Ricardo Esparza became principal of Granger High School in South Central Washington state nine years ago, he walked into an environment where gangs roamed the halls, fights were common and academic performance was less than impressive.

“We had a 30 percent graduation rate about five or six years ago and 20 percent passing in reading (on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning) and 8 percent in writing,” Esparza said. “It (the school) was definitely demoralized.”

In the past three years, academic and social improvements made at Granger have started to take root. In 2007, the school — which is about 86 percent Latino, with 92 percent of students enrolled in the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program — posted a 90 percent graduation rate, Esparza said.

Asked to grade his school today in terms of academic rigor and student support, Nick Guerra, a junior at Granger, gave it a “B ” noting that “We’ve come a long ways. We’ve probably been an “F” at one time, but we’ve shown a lot of progress over the years.”

Granger was one of several schools across the country with high-minority and high-poverty enrollments that have been labeled a success because of factors highlighted recently during a three-day conference on high school equity held in Washington, D.C."