quote:

Originally posted by umbrarchist:
Run Blacksanction! It's the Topic Police.

Topic police? Because I prefaced my comment about the Peter Principle... that makes me topic police? Hmmm... you got that one all wrong.

http://www.afamunschool.com/ghr.html

This needs to be bumped up....

quote:

Originally posted by Cocoa Starr:
This needs to be bumped up....

Yes, it does. That brotha who's started the all African American boys school needs to be contacted for real...

...hmmmmm....something else to add to my "to do" list.....

"Wisdom Is A Woman Teaching!"

quote:

MALE MENTORS AND INSTRUCTORS The earlier black boys are exposed to black men in academic settings, the better, educators agree. The sight of male teachers in the early elementary grades will help boys appreciate how important school is. "We've got to get to these boys while they're still young-five to eight years old," days Spencer Holland, who also directs a mentoring and academic support program called Project 2000 in Washington, D.C. "Otherwise, they may look at classroom learning as a ˜feminine thing' that they want no part of."

If there are no black male role models in the schools, mentoring programs, available in larger cities around the country, can help. But volunteers in these organizations don't have to be black to influence African American boys, says Holland: "White men are just as effective in these mentoring programs as black men-young black boys won't see color, they'll see a nice, caring man."

Men in amerikkka, regardless of color, do not apply for early education jobs. And when men do work in K-8, they are more likely to work in middle school and / or special education and administration.

quote:

Originally posted by Shango67:
Men in amerikkka, regardless of color, do not apply for early education jobs. And when men do work in K-8, they are more likely to work in middle school and / or special education and administration.

They are needed there most...

I do not like Dennis Byrne, he is a conservative, though he was not always. On the other hand, I do not care for Meeks and this stunt he is pulling either. It is hard to tell if the things he does are really for the reasons he states. I have heard some rather disconcerting things from former members of his concregation (but that is standard fare). A few years ago there was a rather strange incident concerning a police officer and Rev Meeks' and his driver.

Compared to Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks is a shill.


Keep the kids in school
Dennis Byrne
August 12, 2008
That was big of Sen./ Rev. James Meeks to dare someone to arrest the kids he's leading out of the city's public schools in an ill-conceived protest, when he's the guy who should be pinched.

As for the students, truant officers ought to round them up and take them back to school where they belong. Of course, no one will do any of that because they don't want to appear mean, racist or elitist. And that's exactly the point of Meeks' plan to haul Chicago students out of the first week of school to protest, at downtown offices and at Winnetka's New Trier Township High School, the "inequities" of the state education funding formula.

"I dare the business community to arrest our children and send them to jail because all they want is a quality education," Meeks said. New Trier School Supt. Linda Yonke, for one, bent to this extortion, saying she wouldn't want to "undermine" his position by "engaging in a public argument." And what would she do? Hold a forum, she suggested. Oh, joy.

The issue already has been studied, protested and demagogued to death. Illinois school funding has fostered years of debate, lawsuits, constitutional revisions and a complicated formula for allocating state aid that will make your head spin. The formula ensures a "basic" funding level for every school district and takes into account local property tax base, student population, poverty and average daily attendance.



It entitles Chicago to more than $1.1 billion in state aid in 2008. Average spending per student for all grades in Chicago is $9,282, about 11 percent higher than the statewide average, according to greatschools.net, but certainly lower than the $17,184 spent on each New Trier student. But then, nearly everyone spends less than New Trier. That's because New Trier generally is free to spend whatever additional money it wants, and so it does, in large sums.

Would Chicago public school students do any better if this "inequity" were narrowed by New Trier spending less? Of course not. What New Trier spends has nothing to do with the performance of Chicago's students.

Truth is, the biggest problem with Chicago and other major school systems is manifested in the performance of black male students. A recent study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education concludes that African-American males in Chicago's public schools are less than half as likely to graduate as their white peers. The foundation attributes the poor performance to "the resource disparities that exist in schools attended by black males and their white, non-Hispanic counterparts." John Jackson, foundation president, lamented that this is the state of affairs 50 years after the Supreme Court decision ending school segregation. Meeks chimed in: "I want to keep kids out of the 'colored' schools. I don't want kids to have to go and drink from the 'colored' water fountain. I don't want them to use the 'colored' toilet or to have to sit at the 'colored' desk."

But if resource inequities account for the poor performance, why don't their white male, Hispanic and black female counterparts do as badly? After all, they are going to the same public schools in Chicago. Or are only Chicago's African-American male students shipped off to junkier schools, where they can only use the "colored" water fountain? Is it part of the state funding formula to somehow apportion less funding to black males? Are black males forced to use 20-year-old textbooks, while everyone else gets new ones? What precisely is there about how money is spent that mainly leaves black males so dismally out of it?

Maybe a complex of factors, other than funding disparities, explains the troubling performance of black males, and thus, a large part of the schools' problems. Perhaps the same thing that accounts for the decay of neighborhoods at the hands of black male gangs, or for the absence of fathers in the unraveling African-American family. These are symptoms of a cultural climate"”corrupted by loosening morals, radical individualism, materialism, Hollywood's adulation of violence and parental irresponsibility, among other strands"”that converges on African-American males in particular with all the focused and destructive force of a tornado. I dare say that in this cultural climate, if Chicago were able to spend as much as New Trier spends on each student, black males still would underperform. What is needed is not so much a change in the school funding formula, but a fundamental change in attitudes about family and society.

But I'm not saying anything new, or anything that Meeks doesn't know already. All that I'm saying is that if Meeks truly has the interests of Chicago's students at heart he ought to concentrate his energies elsewhere. He can start by proving to the students why every day spent in school is precious.

Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. His blog can be read at http://dennisbyrne.blogspot.com

quote:

Are schools failing black boys?

Are the schools failing black males? Hmmmmm......To some degree, yes. But the bulk of the failure lies at the feet of black parents and the black community for allowing it to happen. Negroes love to whine and complain about being helpless unwitting victims when they have the power to organize as a group and address the very things they condemn. In this particular instance, their children dropping out of school and failing to met the basic benchmarks for academic proficiency.

First off, who is you calling Negroes? Secondly, it is not so simple as organizing and addressing. Organize and address what? There is a very complex context that took years to create, some parts as thin as spiderwebs, some as thick as beams. And as my mother told me, you do not get to make a mistake. Born with two strikes already against you, male, black. The least liked mofo in the americas, both black and white. Not complaining, that is just how the stage is set. We do not talk right, we do not walk right, we simply are not right. And so many of the things that we admire about ourselves are the very things that are despised by those would would see us to harm.

How well we learn to imitate our oppressors is in direct proportion to how successful we get to be in this system.

quote:

How well we learn to imitate our oppressors is in direct proportion to how successful we get to be in this system.

That depends totally on what you consider successful. Many people refuse to spend their lives trying to immitate and appease white people. We prefer to live our own realities according to the values we posess. No matter what you do you will always be black and being black makes you a suspect to mainstream America.

Now education, what it means and how it relates to success in this country is another story because I still believe that if we create our own realities, finance those realities then those reallities can be a much more powerful success for many more of us than to simply keep playing this token negro game.

Where is the parents responsibility in all of this?
Is it such they are JUST supposed to take their kid to school and state; "Here, teach him" and if they don't, we blame it on the "institution"?

Why haven't the AA religious denominations taken a lead on educating and shaping young Black boys lives?
Why don't they fill the void even as they holler to make local governments accountable?
If you are steadily looking outside yourself you will never fix the problem.
He is your kid.
What atmosphere have you created at home for learning??
Does he have a desk, a computer?
Did you read to him as a baby? As a toddler?
Have you emphasized good citizenship and scholarship?
Kids can be taught to read even prior to attending kindergarden if the parent values it.


I blame large Black instituions for their failure to take a lead on this.
This argument has been going on since the 80's. [B](How many Black boys have slipped through the sysytem since and are now living way below their priviledge?

This is what we know;Black boys (for whatever reason) fail to thrive in school, drop out, many proceate young, but without marketble skills turn to crime to survive, and then wind up in jail.
Where are the Black religious stewards on this issue...off recording a tape?

I don't agree with the boycott Rev Meeks organized in Chicago this past week, but at least he is one PASTOR who has gotten involved.

The responsbility for educating a child is primarily the parents.

So long as you focus on making someone else primarily accountable, you take the power away from yourself.

Asian parents aren't out there hollering.
They take responsility to educate their own kids.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mirahjay,

nam myoho renge kyo

and girls...

America's reception of Michelle Obama once again reminds us that if little black girls don't conform to certain behavioral and aesthetic expectations, she will not be valued. and even if she does fit those norms and meet all established expectations, she will not be valued.

quote:

Originally posted by mirahjay:
Where is the parents responsibility in all of this?
Is it such they are JUST supposed to take their kid to school and state; "Here, teach him" and if they don't, we blame it on the "institution"?

Why haven't the AA religious denominations taken a lead on educating and shaping young Black boys lives?
Why don't they fill the void even as they holler to make local governments accountable?
If you are steadily looking outside yourself you will never fix the problem.
He is your kid.
What atmosphere have you created at home for learning??
Does he have a desk, a computer?
Did you read to him as a baby? As a toddler?
Have you emphasized good citizenship and scholarship?
Kids can be taught to read even prior to attending kindergarden if the parent values it.



The responsbility for educating a child is primarily the parents.

I find it interesting that nobody takes as hard a look at the condition of the parent(s) who raise these boys as they do at the boys themselves. It's become taboo in the Black community to critique the mismanagement and bad parenting skills that are ultimately responsible for upbringing of what's probably the majority of those young black men horded into the jails today.

A fitting description of these "parents" becomes an argument for *stereotyping* and the subject quickly shuts down before a good, hard, honest discussion and possible solutions can take place.

In many of these situations it's not just the kids that need saving/intervention/therapy/redirection (although they probably need it most) ... it's also their parent(s) who too many times lack the basic knowledge of the ways of positive child-rearing, as well.

[/QUOTE]



I find it interesting that nobody takes as hard a look at the condition of the parent(s) who raise these boys as they do at the boys themselves. It's become taboo in the Black community to critique the mismanagement and bad parenting skills that are ultimately responsible for upbringing of what's probably the majority of those young black men horded into the jails today.

A fitting description of these "parents" becomes an argument for *stereotyping* and the subject quickly shuts down before a good, hard, honest discussion and possible solutions can take place.

In many of these situations it's not just the kids that need saving/intervention/therapy/redirection (although they probably need it most) ... it's also their parent(s) who too many times lack the basic knowledge of the ways of positive child-rearing, as well.[/QUOTE]


Yes yours is my point exactly. Poor paretning skills OFTEn lead to low level of achivement for their kids. I am not speking about whether or not the parents have a college degree but just whether or not they have created some degree of expectation, discipline and value for LEARNING!!

Years ago the Benton Harbor Mi school system instituted a system whereby a student could fail kindergarden.

Asked what a 5 year old should know it was;
the alphabet, to count to 70, to be able to identify shapes, their parents given names, to be able to identify colors, their street address and home phone numbers.

Notes were sent home mid year to advise parents that their their kids were in danger of failing.

It was noted many parents themselves seemed to need remedial help.

In Detroit YEARS ago a proposal was made to establish a all boys public school.
It was subsequently ruled bias and thus unconstitutional.

So where did that leave us?

Having to not yield our race's future to the state's interpetation (for what's right for us) but rather to take matters into our own hands.


There are many, many charter schools now in metro Detroit.

quote:

Originally posted by ZAKAR:
That depends totally on what you consider successful. Many people refuse to spend their lives trying to immitate and appease white people.

Ok, wait a minute there. Please explain what it means to imitate White people. How does a Black person approach success differently from a White person? This is the mentality that I think people in our community need to thoroughly investigate, because I think too many of us have been brainwashed to believe that doing anything that mirrors the success of Whites means to "act White" or "imitate Whites". That's the point at which Black people began our regression - when we convinced ourselves (or had been convinced by others) that success, prosperity, education, love & family is only for White people.

But in reality, all of the things that we believe Whites do in order to enjoy a quality life is not even race based. They are basic things that any and everyone should do and have access to in order to be successful and live a high-quality life. When it comes to wanting a good and happy life for yourself and your kids, there aren't any "White activities" or "Black activities". I don't know anyone who comes into the world wanting to fail and be miserable.

Acquring an education and building a repetoire of marketable skills so that you can earn enough money to support yourself and a family. That's not a "White thing." That's a common sense thing.

Expecting your children to do their best in school and not make excuses for skipping classes and failing courses. That's not "acting White". That's a common sense thing.

Marrying the mother of your children and making the relationship work for the benefit of your children and not just thinking only of your needs and personal desires. That's not a "White man thing". That's a man of integrity thing.

Encouraging your children to read diverse literature daily, helping them to complete their homework, and if necssary, hiring a tutor to help them with courses that you had trouble with in school. That's not a "White family thing", that's a family with purpose thing.

So, this acting and imitating White - get rid of that kind of thinking. We don't need to instill that kind of ludacris thinking in our children, because if we really want to revisit our history, BLACK people were the founders of education. The first library, university, house of medicine (hospital) was in AFRICA. So let's not hand over our legacy of intellect and scholarship over to late-arriving Europeans. I can't stand it when I hear ignorant Black people accusing other Black people of "acting White", because they value education and they don't make excuses for not continuing their education and skill set. Two important rules that I tell my students during the first week of school are

(1) I better not EVER hear anyone in this classroom calling someone the n word, and

(2) I better not EVER hear anyone accuse someone of "acting White" when they witness a classmate paying attention, actively participating in class, and completing claswork assignments. Everyone in this classroom, regardless of their color or gender, is expected to do their best in every subject.

That's what we have to tell kids. We can't tell precious Black children that being an intellectual is "acting White". That's what's wrong with these kids today. If anything, we need to tell our Black children that their history if FULL of intellectual and educational pursuits and it's alright to fulfill their ancestors' legacy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Rowe,

Rowe, that is not what acting white is and I am just as tired as you are of hearing about children teased for acting white. Acting white is snotty-assed suburban condescension, it has nothing to do with anything you mentioned. And talking white is that same condescending nasal suburban bullshit that urban blacks have had to put up with for decades if not centuries.

And I have to say that attitude of what you better not hear is already putting a wall between you and the children who may need your help the most.

quote:

Originally posted by Wiz:
Acting white is snotty-assed suburban condescension, it has nothing to do with anything you mentioned. And talking white is that same condescending nasal suburban bullshit that urban blacks have had to put up with for decades if not centuries.

The subject of this discussion is about education and how today's education might be failing Black boys. In his last response, Brother Zakar stated that many people refuse to immitate and appease White people, but what does immitating and appeasing White people have to do with education? In other words, when a student is in school, please provide very specific examples of when a student, regardless of her or his race, is immitating or appeasing White people, and very clearly explain how that behavior negatively impacts the student's education. Let's get to the bottom of this, right now.

quote:

And I have to say that attitude of what you better not hear is already putting a wall between you and the children who may need your help the most.

I appreciate your sensitivity, but of all people, I don't have to answer to you about how I address my students. If it is any consolation, the children in my care know that I am speaking to them out of genuine love and care, and that I only want to foster a learning environment in which everyone can feel free to learn without fear of judgement or disrepect from their peers. I suppose you've never heard your mother or father say to you in your youth, "Boy, I betta not hear you cuss in my house!" Maybe if you had heard these authoritative warnings in your youth, then as an adult, you wouldn't so proudly boast, in an African-American discussion forum for intelligent conversation, about your being a nigga. Anyway, I can assure that the "walls" that I've established in my classroom have been established to create a positive learning environment rather than an environment in which ignorant language and behavior is permitted. And by the way, you don't reach students by allowing them to do whatever they want to do in your presence. You reach students by setting limits, having positive and attainable expectations, and rewarding them when they make an effort to do their best.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Rowe,

quote:

Originally posted by EbonyRose:

Sister Ebony, I too am shocked by Wiz's sens