Thursday, November 20, 2014

Racial Gap Costing America $2.3 Trillion; In Boston, Black andLatino Males Lag; Grades, before test scores, hold secret to success!



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The Economic Benefits of Closing Educational Achievement Gaps: $2.3 Trillion

Closing racial and ethnic achievement gaps-by raising incomes and increasing the size of the economy-would also have significant positive impacts on federal, state, and local tax revenues.
By Robert Lynch and Patrick Oakford November 10, 2014
Our nation is currently experiencing growing levels of income and wealth inequality, which are contributing to longstanding racial and ethnic gaps in education outcomes and other areas. These large gaps, in combination with the significant demographic changes already underway, are threatening the economic future of our country.
Thus, closing racial and ethnic gaps is not only key to fulfilling the potential of people of color; it is also crucial to the well-being of our nation.
Gaps in academic achievement are a function of a host of factors, such as income and wealth inequality, access to child care and preschool programs, nutrition, physical and emotional health, environmental factors, community and family structures, differences in the quality of instruction and school, and educational attainment.
This suggests there are a wide range of public policies that could help narrow educational achievement gaps; this report demonstrates that there are enormous payoffs to closing the gaps through public policies. It also outlines effective public policy strategies to achieve this goal, though their details are left to future research.
If the United States were able to close the educational achievement gaps between native-born white children and black and Hispanic children, the U.S. economy would be 5.8 percent-or nearly $2.3 trillion-larger in 2050. The cumulative increase in GDP from 2014 to 2050 would amount to $20.4 trillion, or an average of $551 billion per year. Thus, even very large public investments that close achievement gaps would pay for themselves in the form of economic growth by 2050.
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Closing racial and ethnic achievement gaps-by raising incomes and increasing the size of the economy-would also have significant positive impacts on federal, state, and local tax revenues.
Therefore, government investments in closing educational achievement gaps that cost less than an average of $198 billion annually over the next 37 years would pay for themselves even in strictly budgetary terms. To put this figure in perspective, consider that the annual cost to implement the Obama administration's high-quality, universal pre-K program averages $7.5 billion per year over the first 10 years.
These potential economic gains illustrate in stark terms the massive waste of human talent and opportunity that we risk if achievement gaps are not closed. They also suggest the magnitude of the public investments the nation should be willing to make now and in the decades to come to close achievement gaps. Even from a very narrow budgetary perspective, the tax revenue gains this study forecasts suggest that investments to close racial and ethnic achievement gaps could amply pay for themselves in the long run.
Click Here to Read Full Story
In Boston schools,
Black, Latino males lag
The report also raises questions among researchers about whether the School Department has unintentionally created a two-track system - one that provides white and Asian males with the greatest learning opportunities while black and Latino males are left with woefully diminished access.

By James Vaznis November 13, 2014

Black and Latino males are facing an educational crisis in Boston, lagging substantially behind their peers on the MCAS, high school graduation rates, and other barometers that lower their prospects for college or workforce success, according to a city-commissioned report being released Thursday.
Collectively, the data paint troubling gaps in achievement that persist more than 40 years after court-ordered desegregation of the city's school system.
The report also raises questions among researchers about whether the School Department has unintentionally created a two-track system - one that provides white and Asian males with the greatest learning opportunities while black and Latino males are left with woefully diminished access.
For instance, just 8.6 percent of black males and 8 percent of Latino males in the city's school system were enrolled in its highly regarded exam schools in 2012, compared with 45 percent of white males and 47.8 percent of Asian males.
On the other end of the spectrum, the report said, black and Latino males were far more likely to be enrolled in special education classrooms, where instruction is considered inferior to that in regular classrooms.
Among some of the findings:
- Just 22.1 percent of black males and 24.9 percent of Latino males scored proficient or higher on the English MCAS exams in elementary school, compared with 56.9 percent for white males and 48.5 percent for Asian males.
- 66.9 percent of black males and 60.4 percent of Latino males graduated within four years, compared with 81.5 percent of white males and 90.5 percent of Asian males.
The School Department's failure to help many black and Latino males acquire the necessary job training could make it more difficult for them to gain long-term employment and lead to unhealthy decisions that could be a drain on the city's vitality, it states.
Ayomide Olumuyiwa, a student representative on the Boston School Committee, said he was unaware that black and Latino males were lagging until it was mentioned at a recent committee meeting.
"It's just alarming," said Olumuyiwa, a senior at the O'Bryant School of Math and Science, an exam school in Roxbury. "This is something students wouldn't find out on their own unless they asked."
Olumuyiwa self identifies as a first-generation African-American whose parents are from Nigeria. He started off his education in Randolph and then moved to Boston in the seventh grade. He said he recalls that his first math class in Boston covered the same material he had in the fifth grade in Randolph.
"I thought they made a mistake," Olumuyiwa said.
Click Here to Read Full Story

Grades, before test scores, hold the secret to success

Editorial - November 10, 2014
From Sun-Times Library
It's not all about the test scores, stupid.
That sums up a new University of Chicago study, a groundbreaking analysis of middle-school student performance that lays out which measures best predict success in high school and college.
What matters most for later academic success are middle-school grades and attendance, far more than test scores and demographic factors (race, poverty and the like), concluded the study of Chicago Public Schools fifth- through eleventh-graders. Standardized test scores are not the best predictors of academic success, as our test-crazed world might have us believe.
The real-world implications are clear: the Chicago Public Schools should continue to scale back its intense focus on standardized tests and turn to what matters - boosting middle-school grades and attendance.
The researchers found that attendance and overall grade-point average in middle school were the strongest predictors of actual school performance in ninth grade and 11th grade, both of which strongly predict high-school graduation rates and college success.
"Test scores are very good at predicting future test scores but not as strongly predictive of other outcomes we care about, like whether students will struggle or succeed in high school coursework or graduate from college," Elaine Allensworth, director of the university's Consortium on Chicago School Research and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
Good grades reflect mastery of skills valuable in college and in life in general, such as broad knowledge (not just reading and math), writing and capacity for sustained effort. Standardized tests, in contrast, hone in on a far more narrow band of skills.
Click Here to Read Full Editorial
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Community Organizing Training
facilitated by
Midwest Academy
at
The Black Star Project
3509 South King Drive
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, December 6, 2014 - 10:00 am to 4:00 pm
Sunday, December 7, 2014 - 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Agenda includes:
Understanding Relations of Power in Organizing
Turning Problems into Issues
Effective Strategy Development
Please call 773.285.9600 for more information or to RSVP for this free training.
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Wednesday, December 3, 2014
6:30 pm to 7:30 pm
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Chicago, Illinois

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You must be safety minded, have a clean driving record and background, be 21 years old, and pass D.O.T. physical and drug test.

Please call 773.285.9600 for more information or to RSVP.
Take A Young Black Man To Worship
Sunday, November 23, 2014
In Your City, at Your Place of Worship
This past election cycle, many White elected officials were invited into Black churches across America. Now we are asking those same Black churches to invite young Black men to come worship with them. Please call 773.285.9600 to register your place of worship and to get a registration kit for "Take A Young Black Man To Worship!"
Click Here to See Greg Wilkerson Invite Young Black Men Into His Church and Challenge Other Churches To Do the Same!
Click Here to See and Hear - Jesus Is The Life of the Party!

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