The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor
Last week we took a look at the people resources that an inner city kid comes in contact with. We also looked at the family dynamics, and school dynamics, pointing to how different links along a child's development, if broken, can cause irreparable harm to a child psyche.
This week we'll take a look at solutions for the 3 areas covered over the past weeks.
Just to rehash where we are at:
Safety, Health, and the Environment - this includes drugs and other substances that can be abuse, sexually abuse, bullying, dilapidated housing, school buildings and community infrastructures.
Financial Resources - this includes the poverty levels of the students, surrounding community, and the resources the school has available.
People Resources - this includes the identifying the different learning levels of students early, their socio-economic status, those who play parental roles, inter-personal relationships, self-image. This also includes hiring compotent teachers, having a reward process in place for teachers who do well in the classroom, instead linking a teachers livelyhood to the number of students they pass, getting teachers to think out of the box, and have more robust training for teachers to keep their skill up to date.
Solutions - I will propose solutions in this section to help develop a strategy at the school level.
1.4 Solution
- Safety, Health, and Environment -
In the first installment of this multi-part series we delve into the issue of safety, the welfare of the child, and the physical surroundings of the child. On of the first things we need to do is start with a grounded home. Kids that are in unstable homes, aren't that productive once they get to school. I think there needs to be an onsite psychologist at the school. Someone who can help a child work through the issues so that they don't express themselves in other ways. There is so much a child is exposed to that they can not process it all. Abuse at the home, walking through rundown neigborhoods, teachers abusing student (whether mental, or physical) all have lasting effect on the child psyche.
Another thing that can help with the sense of saftey is having a cop, or two, come to school once a week and meet with the young students. There's such a mistrust of the police in the inner city that crime flourishes because neither side talks to each. The cop may need someone in the community as an eyewitness, but the community won't help because law enforcement will only provide basic security. But at the same time the community wants the cops to be there to protect them. There must be a mutual respect from each side and it begins at young age, when the child is beginning to understand the authority hierarchy and beginning to place different levels of trust within that hierarchy. By allowing a relationship to develop between school kids and law enforcement it will do two things, (1) it establishes a safe zone with cop, and (2) the kid would be more likely to go to the cop with something that they see a disturbance.
On the health side an onsite nutritionist would be essential. Kids each so much chunk food because it is cheaper for their parents to buy. An it doesn't help that corporation you schools as billboards in exchange for giving money to the school -- usually in the form of vending machine with sugary soft drinks and candy. Then the child goes home and the cabinet is filled with chips, soda, and sugary cereals "fortified" with vitamins. In the inner city you, are more likely to see a liquor store than a good grocery. Although some in the community are taking on the task of growing fresh vegatables.
On the environment tip, and actually creating fun teaching moment, you could have the young students help keep the school clean. Have a day once, or twice a month, where the student and teachers go out pick trash around the school. Of course care should be given if the child happens to walk upon a syringe, drugs, or god forbid a condom. But barring that, it will teach the kids responsibilities and get them involved early in caring for the environment.
- Financial Resources and People Resources -
I'm joining these two together since they meld well. Obviously, if everybody made more money alot of problems probably could be solved, but that is a discussion far bigger than this one. The first thing we need to confront is the self image of the child. Since most inner city schools are public, you are going to have children of different socio-economic status attending the same school. And because some may be better off financially than other, the way they dress will reflect that. And if you are the lonely kid who can't afford the trendy shoes, and clothes, you already see your self as unequal. Therefore, I think school uniforms are needed as an image equalizer. You're not focusing on who's the "it" boy/girl. And while I value free speech, the elementary and middle school years should be about learning and absorbing the world around. They are already going to have cliques -- jocks, cool girls, "geeky guys", etc.
Of course, more up to date books and better teacher pay always help, but when you have different graduation statistics across racial lines, and class lines, you soon see that there may be differences in the way some are learning. I going to propose something I'm calling Continuous Academic Verification, Evaluation, and Reporting, or CAVER, Statistics & Best Practices. This would be a document that would track a childs entire educational track from kindergarden to finishing college. Now, when I say document, I mean a database that captures statistical information. And while I'm sure every state has something similiar to this, that, in it self, is part of the problem -- no consistent narrative. So below I breifly break down what a CAVER is, it's methodolgy, how it is compile, and managed, and some areas where a CAVER statistic can be tracked:
- CAVER System
In the simplest of terms, a CAVER statistic is defined as the smallest trackable unit of information. This could be a test question, the test itself, teacher evaluations, overall learning ability, classroom size, information that spans several categories, etc. Along with capturing this information you want to be able to compare and contrast, and produce reports that students, parents, teachers, education administrators, commercial entities, and politician can use these report to provide corrective action early before the child slips through cracks.
The deployment strategy for the CAVER system would be brand-able, web-based, password protected, with user groups and user group administrators. User accounts will be created based on form submission of certain information, since we don't want just anybody seeing student information. However, an area of the CAVER system will be available to the public (the media, researchers, average citizens) to view summary reports since part of the goal is to keep the public informed about the potential workforce.
Some other areas where gathering CAVER statistics could be beneficial are from mentorship programs, after-school programs, from parents at PTA meetings, or tracking those students that will be the first to go through the CAVER system and become teachers themselves. They will add a new dimension because now you will begin developing a knowledgebase within the CAVER system itself.
The CAVER system is the best way, in my opinion, to coral people resources as well. You can see how mentors and teachers effect the childs learning. However, as it stands right now, CAVER is still in draft white paper form, but once it is done I will be soliciting feedback. This concludes Part I: Strategy At The School Level
Next week >> Part II: Strategy At The Commercial Level
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Todays News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Race Talk:For Obama, touring MLK Street would be "the right thing to do"
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Drive through the heart of any African American community and you will find a street, avenue, or boulevard named in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Very often, these thoroughfares were once thriving and vibrant corridors of black culture and commerce. Today, typically, they are filled with shuttered homes and boarded-up businesses. The current national economic crisis has exacerbated the problems on MLK Street, worsening downward economic trends that have been in the making for several decades.
It is no secret that African Americans have been deeply and disproportionately affected by the recession. Seemingly every governmental agency and nonprofit organization tracking the recession – from the US House and Senate Joint Economic Committee to AARP – has documented the devastating effect that the recession has had on African Americans.
African American unemployment, for instance, has more than doubled in recent years, jumping from 9% in February 2007 to 19% in February of this year, far outpacing national averages for the general population. And things are likely to get much worse before they get any better because of the disproportionate concentration of African American workers, especially African American males, in vulnerable industries such as auto manufacturing; persistent barriers to employment, ranging from employer discrimination to limited education; and the surge in mass incarceration.
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USA TODAY: Texas education standards spark debate on slavery, politics
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The Texas State Board of Education was set to vote Friday on changes to social studies standards that have angered and, in some cases, baffled critics, including President George W. Bush's first education secretary, who is protesting the politicization of the process.
Among the proposed changes: calling the USA's slave trade the "Atlantic triangular trade" and minimizing the role of Thomas Jefferson, who espoused a strict separation of church and state.
The new standards set curriculum for millions of Texas school children and lay the groundwork for textbooks and standardized tests for a decade. But the changes could also carry outsized influence because Texas is a large state — textbooks sold to other states often carry content tailored to Texas specifications.
On Thursday, former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige, a one-time Houston superintendent, said the proposed standards are too detailed and "take away a lot of the latitude of the teachers" in designing curricula. He also worries that teachers, focused increasingly on getting their students to pass state skills tests, will be "very, very concerned about the standards" and ensure that students learn the content.
Paige testified before the board on Wednesday about the growing politicization of education. In an interview Thursday, he said he understands the point of view of several state board members, who this week said they are simply bringing balance to a set of standards that skew leftward. But Paige said, "This political swaying between left and right is retarding our ability to have an effective educational delivery system in the United States of America."
Paige, who is African-American, said the proposed Texas standards "drastically understate the influence of slavery and the Civil Rights movement in our national story – it almost suggests that students will be learning that our liberties – and especially African-Americans' freedoms – were kind of gently acquired. The liberty and freedoms that African-Americans enjoy were born out of struggle – deep struggle. {hellip} nobody just woke up in the morning and said, 'O.K., you're free."
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Race Talk: Mass Incarceration: A destroyer of people of color and their communities
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Dear Obama Administration, instead of having our Drug Czar focus on addiction recovery and prevention programs, how about changing the policy of our racialized criminal justice system that has used the "War on Drugs" policy to put more Black males in the criminal justice system than slavery in 1850?
Around this time last year, the Obama Administration’s Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske said he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," which is a move that favors treatment over mass incarceration. While this approach is being taken, more than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities.
For Black males in their twenties, 1 in every 8 is in prison or jail on any given day. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color, according to a report by The Sentencing Project.
The Obama Administration and the states must take racial disparities in our criminal justice system seriously because it affects the public safety of entire communities. Research shows that people of color who live in high crime areas fear victimization and express a need for increased public safety, yet empathize with offenders and the struggles that they face upon release from incarceration.
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LA Times: Demand for ivory soars in Asia, leads to death of African elephants
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Carefully, the Chinese ivory dealer pulled out an elephant tusk cloaked in bubble wrap and hidden in a bag of flour. Its price: $17,000.
"Do you have any idea how many years I could get locked away in prison for having this?" said the dealer, a short man in his 40s, who gave his name as Chen.
A surge in demand for ivory in Asia is fuelling an illicit trade in elephant tusks, especially from Africa. Over the past eight years, the price of ivory has gone up from about $100 per kilogram ($100 per 2.2 pounds) to $1,800, creating a lucrative black market.
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MSNBC: Haiti still struggling 4 months after quake
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Haiti is still struggling to provide homes, sanitation and basic health care to hundreds of thousands affected by the earthquake four months ago, the country's top Red Cross official said Thursday.
The Caribbean nation was ill-prepared for the devastating temblor that hit the island Jan. 12, killing up to 300,000 people and leaving many more wounded and homeless, the president of the Haitian Red Cross Society said.
"The situation is still very difficult for the people," Michaele Amedee Gedeon told The Associated Press in an interview at the International Red Cross Federation's headquarters in Geneva.
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MSNBC: Gay couple sentenced to maximum 14 years in Malawi
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A judge sentenced a couple to the maximum 14 years in prison with hard labor under Malawi's anti-gay legislation, and crowds jeered the two men as they were driven from the court house to jail Thursday.
The harsh sentence for unnatural acts and gross indecency had been expected after the same judge convicted Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza earlier this week under laws dating from the colonial era. The case has drawn international condemnation and sparked a debate on human rights in this conservative southern African country.
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EbonyJet: What Happened to Afrocentricity?
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Afrocentricity.
It used to be the default viewpoint of African-Americans. Asleep for decades, it restarted in the hip-hop community as a tremor in the late 1980’s and by the early 1990’s. A systematic quake of Afrocentrism ran like a current through the hearts and minds of Black folk in the United States.
Why was it so powerful? Because it was on the radio, in the streets, in the church pulpit and on TV. Back then word of mouth was still king. The World Wide Web was in its infancy, and households had yet to grab hold to personal computers.
Championed on college campuses, an organic movement began to sprout. Loud colors akin to the patterns of African fashions started to pop up everywhere. People began to wearing the triune of black consciousness: red, black and green. Black men started to grow their afros again. Black women started to twist their hair like they did in the Motherland. Historically ashamed about their appearance, Black people started to relish their chocolate skin tones, celebrating them with a prideful appreciation.
Even so-called gangsta hip-hop groups, freed from Westernized ideology and motivated to tell idealistic stories about unity rather than gun shed joined the party.
Merchandising popped up (remember the T-shirts, "It’s a black thang, you wouldn’t understand?"), medallions were sold. A whole cottage industry was built around buying Black products, African-themed furniture and cosmetics (shea butter, anyone?)
It wasn’t the first time the prideful vibe of Africanism hit the United States. It happened in the 1920s with Marcus Garvey’s teachings. It happened in the 1960s with the civil rights movement, albeit it was more bourgeois-flavored. But the tide came back in in the early 1990s. Terms such as "nubian princess" and "Black queen" were defacto on HBCU campuses nationwide. TV shows like "The Cosby Show," "In Living Color," "Living Single" and "A Different World" captured that world’s fashions and mannerisms.
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[] You cannot read this if you are black. by JeffLieber
[] Whites five times richer than Blacks by Sydserious
[] 1,000 Words About Kenya by BorderJumpers
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-- Friday Afternoon Jam -- Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong - The Blues Are Brewin