Bridging the Gap

How many studies does it take to prove there is a crisis?
That is the question some educators are asking as a new study argues that the achievement gap between black male students and their white counterparts in American schools is far worse than anyone thought.
The study, published this week by the Council of the Great City Schools, found black males are twice as likely to drop out of high school than white males, and only 12 percent of them are proficient in reading by the fourth grade, compared with 38 percent of white males.
What's even more disquieting, some educators say, is that this was already known.
"They haven't said anything new," James Comer, a child psychiatry professor at Yale University and founder of the Comer School Development Program in New Haven, Conn., told AOL News today.
Indeed, the report is only the latest in a long line of studies showing that the achievement gap between black and white students has widened in recent years, and that black males are being left behind in America's schools at alarming rates. Frustrated after years of seeing similar data, many say it's time to start applying lessons educators have already learned about how to close the gap.
"There are a number of schools where poor black boys are doing well," Comer said. "That ought to raise the question of, 'What goes on there that's not going on in other places?'"
One well-known example is the Harlem Children's Zone's Promise Academy in New York, a charter school that eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and white students among eighth-graders in math. Comer said plenty of public schools are succeeding as well.
Michael Holzman, a consultant with education research group the Schott Foundation, said educators already know that poor schools are to blame for the gap.
"If we look at schools that are predominately black, and we look at the achievement of white kids who are in those schools, we find that the white kids don't do well either," Holzman told National Public Radio.
But Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, said the country needs a wake-up call about the scope of the crisis.
"We hope that this is a louder and more jolting wake-up call to the nation than this country is used to hearing," he wrote in the study, as noted by The Washington Post. "The fact that previous calls have fallen on so many deaf ears is not encouraging, but we are convinced that we must ring the alarms one more time and play a larger role in setting this situation right."

Others said closing the gap will mean holding society -- not just struggling students -- accountable for success.
"There's accumulating evidence that there are racial differences in what kids experience before the first day of kindergarten," Ronald Ferguson, director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard, told The New York Times, which first reported the study this week. "They have to do with a lot of sociological and historical forces. In order to address those, we have to be able to have conversations that people are unwilling to have."
Comer agrees. He said the role of race and racism in education cannot be ignored. Poor black boys, he said, often suffer from low expectations from their teachers and from society.
"The sense of belonging in school is greater among white boys than black boys. The feeling, 'I have a right to be here,' and 'I am valued in school' -- sometimes that's just not there for black students," he said.

-Mara Gay, contributor AOL News

As you can see this a problem that has been around for years. Sadly little is done to fix it. We need to put more value on education. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now. It’s never ok to be stupid. Until we learn to do this we will forever be one step behind. So read a book, read a book, read a muthfucking book….but you don’t hear me though so whatevea nigga……