Young, black and on track ... Why African-American boys often fail in school

[Fausto]

I thought this was an interesting read and a rather blunt wake-up call.

Text of article.

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

Nice opening...

"African-American boys: lose the skullcaps, pull up the droopy pants and get to work. Parents, teachers, employers and girlfriends agree. If you're looking for your future, you'll find it in school."

 

[BOBDN]

"Wherever you turn, these boys are notable by their absence."

beloved patriot link, Fausto1.

 

[kage69]

Sad, but true. Let's all give a big hand to affirmative action.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: kage69
Sad, but true. Let's all give a big hand to affirmative action.

Er.....you didn't read the article, did you? There's not a single mention of AA in it.

 

[Zebo]

I gonna get in trouble for this...Oh well..

How can these boys learn to be men when no men to mentor? Thier fathers left...Thier primary school teachers are overwhelmingly female and they have very few positive male role models.. And the majority of male role models they see is pimps and drug dealers livin' the thug life. This IMO developes a man into a permanent boy who is selfish, lacks focus, has an entilement attitude, care little for the society in which he lives, and will have these problems thoughout his life.

If we don't care about them why should they care about us?

 

[DanceMan]

Originally posted by: xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx
Nice opening...

"African-American boys: lose the skullcaps, pull up the droopy pants and get to work. Parents, teachers, employers and girlfriends agree. If you're looking for your future, you'll find it in school."

I agree with the article, but...I think the women are hypocritical here. I have suspicion that many of those same women would rather go out and date the 'bling-bling' type than the hard-working, intelligent Joe. Look at the videos, even the ugliest rappers with the phattest rides have all the girls. And that's what re-inforces the image for young black males.

Also, what bothers me about this article is really needs to focus more on the parental involvement. The reason that your kid goes to school in a skullcap and droopy pants is BECAUSE THE PARENTS ALLOW IT. School and government can only do so much. However, I do also understand that bad students will become bad parents, so I believe that we are in this never-ending cycle, and it will be difficult, if not impossible to break.

DanceMan

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

Very nice

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

....and this folks, is why I generally stay out of P&N. Too many idiots whose opinions are so firmly entrenched in their tiny little brains that they can't even be bothered to read an article they might actually get somthing out of.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

Very nice

Why don't you two go jerk each other off somewhere else, okay?

 

[kage69]

Er.....you didn't read the article, did you? There's not a single mention of AA in it

I didn't mean to suggest there was, sorry you took it that way. Train-of-thought thing and all that I guess.

I have a friend who was denied an EMT position despite him having the 2nd highest rating of his class. Seems his whiteness didn't conform to someone's quota. Although he didn't get too specific, he said 2 black guys from his class who were "complete muppets" now are full fledged EMTs. I guess I don't like hearing about slackers being shuffled into postions of (especially) medical importance.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: kage69

Er.....you didn't read the article, did you? There's not a single mention of AA in it

I didn't mean to suggest there was, sorry you took it that way. Train-of-thought thing and all that I guess.

I have a friend who was denied an EMT position despite him having the 2nd highest rating of his class. Seems his whiteness didn't conform to someone's quota. Although he didn't get too specific, he said 2 black guys from his class who were "complete muppets" now are full fledged EMTs. I guess I don't like hearing about slackers being shuffled into postions of (especially) medical importance.

That's super. You're still not even within shouting distance of the point of the article. How about you actually read it and then post, alright?

 

[flavio]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: kage69

Er.....you didn't read the article, did you? There's not a single mention of AA in it

I didn't mean to suggest there was, sorry you took it that way. Train-of-thought thing and all that I guess.

I have a friend who was denied an EMT position despite him having the 2nd highest rating of his class. Seems his whiteness didn't conform to someone's quota. Although he didn't get too specific, he said 2 black guys from his class who were "complete muppets" now are full fledged EMTs. I guess I don't like hearing about slackers being shuffled into postions of (especially) medical importance.

That's super. You're still not even within shouting distance of the point of the article. How about you actually read it and then post, alright?

LOL! kage is having a little trouble today....maybe you should give him a couple pointers/tips/tricks on how a link functions?

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: flavio

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: kage69

Er.....you didn't read the article, did you? There's not a single mention of AA in it

I didn't mean to suggest there was, sorry you took it that way. Train-of-thought thing and all that I guess.

I have a friend who was denied an EMT position despite him having the 2nd highest rating of his class. Seems his whiteness didn't conform to someone's quota. Although he didn't get too specific, he said 2 black guys from his class who were "complete muppets" now are full fledged EMTs. I guess I don't like hearing about slackers being shuffled into postions of (especially) medical importance.

That's super. You're still not even within shouting distance of the point of the article. How about you actually read it and then post, alright?

LOL! kage is having a little trouble today....maybe you should give him a couple pointers/tips/tricks on how a link functions?

Too complicated....I'll just post the whole damn thing.

African-American boys: lose the skullcaps, pull up the droopy pants and get to work. Parents, teachers, employers and girlfriends agree. If you're looking for your future, you'll find it in school.

While the rest of the country toils in universities and technical institutes to acquire the skills for professions, and the knowledge to understand the world, black boys --- to an alarming degree --- are lagging in class, dropping out or stumbling across the high school finish line with too few skills to make it through college.

Wherever you turn, these boys are notable by their absence.

More than 70 percent of historically black Clark Atlanta University's students are black women. Some 65 percent of students training to be doctors at Morehouse School of Medicine are female. The point is inescapable --- young black males are too often missing in action when it comes to academic achievement and preparation for college.

As it happens, there is a general trend among boys, white and minority, to trail female students in college enrollment and in graduation rates. However, black boys in particular are having acute problems academically --- so acute that many drop out of high school at the first opportunity.

The malaise among black boys extends across economic lines. In an important study published this year of the Shaker Heights, Ohio, school system, where virtually all youngsters come from middle- to upper-class households, African-American student achievement trailed that of whites, and black boys as a group trailed all other groups. The analysis by John Ogbu was published in the spring and titled Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement.

The Georgia Board of Regents found in a recent study that nothing short of a comprehensive improvement seems likely to get more black boys through school and into higher education. The "Final Report of the University System of Georgia's African-American Male Initiative" was published May 21.

Teachers and parents


What's needed, the regents say, are teachers better equipped to deal with balky black boys, as well as persistent parental support and better-organized outside mentoring help. Most of all, school systems need to consider dropping the vocational education pathway, a convenient way to divert students who don't fit. Instead, the regents say, put everybody on the college track and make it clear the schools expect all to achieve.

A pattern among African-American youngsters is that they emerge from elementary school in reasonably good shape, if they learn to read in timely fashion. However, when they try to cross the fast-moving, rock-strewn river called middle school, many black boys get swept into fads, laziness and indifference, falling behind, never to catch up.

Searching for answers, I checked in with some of the most careful boy-watchers around, black girls. Invariably, my query --- "What's the matter with the guys?" --- was greeted with smiles and a rather short list of answers:

They seem to have no focus. They don't seem to be able to make long-term plans and stick with them. They get caught up too much in fads, in whatever seems to be happening right now. Following the crowd means more to them than to girls. If something looks appealing to them, they can easily be led off their path and into something else. In one way or another, the girls said, the brothers lack focus or priorities.

The young men themselves, talking about what is important, betray a materialistic streak often reflected in music, particularly rap, videos and in some movies aimed at youth.

Youngsters, even in college, sometimes talk, yearningly, about dropping out, getting a job, buying a "truck," a sport utility vehicle loaded with booming sound gear; rolling on "dubs," outsized 20-inch wheels or "Sprewells" --- double rims that can cost $7,000 and more a set. It is a life so compelling to some that they find it hard to postpone such goals to study beyond high school.


A success story


Other boys, also fixed on short-term results, daydream of athletic careers and overnight success as entertainers, careers available to only a minuscule number.

James Poole, a YMCA staffer or consultant most of his adult life, has made mentoring boys an avocation for 40 years. An excellent coach, Poole initially got boys' attention through basketball, and then through personal mentoring. Now based in Columbia, Md., he advises community groups.

Several years ago, nearly 100 of the African-American men he mentored gave a testimonial dinner for him in Cleveland; they included ministers, executives, scholars with doctorates and media people. Morse Diggs, the Atlanta TV broadcaster, is one of them.

In later years Poole counseled girls as well as boys, so he was ready to draw contrasts.

"For guys more than girls, instant gratification seems to be important," said Poole. "And for some, drug-taking becomes the gratification, and for some, notoriety or a damaged reputation is better than a nonexistence."

By contrast, he said, "it is much more common among modern black women to think long-term gratification rather than instant success. . . . They know how to plan their work and then work their plan."

And nothing, not even sweet-talking boys, gets them far off their track, Poole said.

Black women, like white women, have bought more heavily than black males into the notion that the glass ceiling can be penetrated, that opportunities are out there if you are prepared to grab them.


Detours in school


Compounding the aimlessness that marks too many black boys is the fact that school systems seem to cast them aside easily. And there are lots of detours, especially with the coming of more testing to reach the next grade.

A Cobb County executive pointed out to me one of the ways youngsters get sidetracked, especially if parents are not closely involved with students' success. She asked whether her daughter, having gone through fifth grade with all As and Bs in math, could take pre-algebra in the sixth grade.

"Not unless she passes a test for pre-algebra," was the answer.

She asked, "Suppose she comes close but fails to hit the mark?"

The answer was that she would have to take general math but could retest in a year.

"Logic told me," said my friend, "if you cannot measure up to pre-algebra in the fifth grade, a year of general math certainly won't make you more qualified, and that is an example of how kids can fall off the college track at a very early age."

Her point was that if kids have to negotiate the education system without close parent involvement all the way, they can easily get sidetracked and discouraged.

Nearly everyone, including the regents in their 85-page report, sees better teaching as a key to better performance. They urge programs to retain good teachers. Louis Castenell, dean of education at the University of Georgia and an expert in the problems of urban teachers, says any teachers can be trained to improve their relationship and communication with black male students.

"Young black males can just look at a teacher, especially the white female teachers, and sense fear and distrust," Castenell said. "That leads to a situation where teachers distance themselves from youngsters who make them uneasy, and select only the best-behaved and most compliant students as favorites --- and regarding the others as deviant."

Only training can help teachers improve those relationships, he says.

"I sit here ready to help but my phone does not ring often," said Castenell, a member of the regents' task force on the African-American male study.

Ernest Holsendolph is an editorial writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

GRADUATION RATES

Of students who entered Georgia colleges in 1996, here is the percentage of white and black students who graduated by 2002.

Georgia public colleges

White students......53.8%
Black students......33%
White males.........49%
Black males.........23.8%
White females.......57.6%
Black females.......39.2%
University of Georgia
White students......76%
Black students......67%
Black males.........55%
Black females.......71.6%
Georgia Tech
White students......73%
Black students......61.8%
Black males.........59%
Black females.......66.7%
Source: State Board of Regents

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: Zebo
I gonna get in trouble for this...Oh well..

How can these boys learn to be men when no men to mentor? Thier fathers left...Thier primary school teachers are overwhelmingly female and they have very few positive male role models.. And the majority of male role models they see is pimps and drug dealers livin' the thug life. This IMO developes a man into a permanent boy who is selfish, lacks focus, has an entilement attitude, care little for the society in which he lives, and will have these problems thoughout his life.

If we don't care about them why should they care about us?

#1 DMX is not a roll model nor is Jay Z, 50 cent or 70 cents
#2 having bling bling does nothing but get you some short term heiny and condemning you to a life of the ghetto
#3 Just because you were born in the ghetto does not mean you have to stay there
#4 Ebonics does not exist
#5 You should be embarassed if a relative of yours is too lazy to work and gets a welfare check
#6 White people can listen to rap as well, wearing saggy pants, having 3k spinners on your POS ride, driving with the seat laid back practically touching the back seat, and having your windows rolled down while blasting your radio will not get you any. It makes everyone double clutch their purse and do a wallet check, because yes you are a ghetto thug.
#7 You are not a sellout if you make it in corporate america or desire to not be held down by your ghetto brethren. You have opened your eyes and you can be considered enlightened
#8 Just because you choose to vote other than democrat does not void your Black man status
#9 Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do not care about you, just your money
#10 Professional white people would rather be surrounded by professional black people than trailer trash. We are not all rednecks and most would like to see people elevate their status in society regardless of color. The less people receiving public assistance and actually paying back to society the less we have to pay.

A Cobb County executive pointed out to me one of the ways youngsters get sidetracked, especially if parents are not closely involved with students' success

Exactly, everything starts at the home. Stop cheering for him making that touchdown catch and help him with his research paper and trig.

 

[kage69]

Do you girls always act this way if someone makes a flipant, venting remark? Did I SAY I was quoting something from the article? Are you really that bored you have to jump on your little soapbox first chance you get?

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: kage69
Do you girls always act this way if someone makes a flipant, venting remark? Did I SAY I was quoting something from the article? Are you really that bored you have to jump on your little soapbox first chance you get?

Apparently you must be new to P&N.

I am the designated Asshole of the day on Monday and Friday, Red Dawn on Tuesday and Thursday, and Fausto on humpday.

Once again welcome to P&N

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

Very nice

Why don't you two go jerk each other off somewhere else, okay?

That is nice, too. Let me guess, you have a great, great, great, great Uncle who was a slave and you want some of my tax dollars to buy bling with? You make me laugh...keep up the good work, Faustov

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

Originally posted by: Nitemare

#1 DMX is not a roll model nor is Jay Z, 50 cent or 70 cents
#2 having bling bling does nothing but get you some short term heiny and condemning you to a life of the ghetto
#3 Just because you were born in the ghetto does not mean you have to stay there
#4 Ebonics does not exist
#5 You should be embarassed if a relative of yours is too lazy to work and gets a welfare check
#6 White people can listen to rap as well, wearing saggy pants, having 3k spinners on your POS ride, driving with the seat laid back practically touching the back seat, and having your windows rolled down while blasting your radio will not get you any. It makes everyone double clutch their purse and do a wallet check, because yes you are a ghetto thug.
#7 You are not a sellout if you make it in corporate america or desire to not be held down by your ghetto brethren. You have opened your eyes and you can be considered enlightened
#8 Just because you choose to vote other than democrat does not void your Black man status
#9 Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do not care about you, just your money
#10 Professional white people would rather be surrounded by professional black people than trailer trash. We are not all rednecks and most would like to see people elevate their status in society regardless of color. The less people receiving public assistance and actually paying back to society the less we have to pay.

This is the best post I have read all day; I'm beginning to like you, sir. If you are ever in the D.C. area, I'll treat you to a carbonated malt beverage

 

[da loser]

actually i think aa has a lot to do with this article. it's the whole culture of rejecting "white america". white america includes corporations, media, whatever. it's a feeling of why should i try because the man is keeping me down or why should i have to be like them. aa is part of the man keeping me down act. it's a reaffirmation that they need help because the man is trying to keep me down, and he's even trying to take what little i have away. fvck him. look at collegiate black america, it's basically inspired by jesse jackson, how someone's trying to keep the black man down and they have to fight against another culture that has brought injustice upon blacks. they must unite and show their power, their grace, and challenge those. it's all about fighting, not joining.

anyone that tries to succeed is labeled an uncle tom, a sellout, like colin powell. it's not surprise if you reject mainstream america which is white america you're not left with a lot of options. sure you can succeed, but then you're left promoting BET.

i think it's going to take a while by having black women progress first, raising families in suburbia and changing the whole mindset. the reason why black women have progressed is women's rights issues, being female has allowed them to embrace each other crossing racial backgrounds. being a male is seen as already having those possibilities, but it's a fallacy. plus males don't exactly help each other or can't in our culture. look at men's only clubs, they're shunned. so black males are stuck in a black culture.

plus what other choice do women have? they're weaker so it's hard for them to be drug dealers. and sports money is for males. unless you go to prostitution. plus women aren't trying to have sex all day or at least they don't have to waste time trying to get sex.

i predict hispanics will surpass blacks in a couple of decades, and reach mainstream levels just like other immigrant groups who came here poor. they have a strong sense of family and succeeding. on the whole, they're not trying to reject something just succeed against a lack of opportunity.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx

Originally posted by: HeroOfPellinor
If only we'd give them reparations everything would be okay.

Very nice

Why don't you two go jerk each other off somewhere else, okay?

That is nice, too. Let me guess, you have a great, great, great, great Uncle who was a slave and you want some of my tax dollars to buy bling with? You make me laugh...keep up the good work, Faustov

Actually no, I'm as white as they come. I just have minimal patience for assholes who crap in what is supposed to be a thread for serious discussion. I'm surprised someone with an Ayn Rand reference as their forum nick doesn't have something more substantial to offer up.

 

[xxxxxJohnGaltxxxxx]

I did; I typed "very nice" and you decided that you would call me an asshole and the rest of your useless drivel. You are too smart for me, I guess...all bow to Faustov for his great contributions to the thread....whatever.

 

[flavio]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Actually no, I'm as white as they come. I just have minimal patience for assholes who crap in what is supposed to be a thread for serious discussion. I'm surprised someone with an Ayn Rand reference as their forum nick doesn't have something more substantial to offer up.

They bus him in here daily as part of a charter program for the mentally handicapped. The low-level spurious insults he randomly emits may seem nonsensical but this outlet is simply part of the therapy. There soon will be similar cases arriving on the bus which will be identifiable only by the string of "xxxxx" before and after their username.

The "John Galt" username was actually a cruel joke perpetrated by one of the staff at the program. Normally it implies extreme individualism and distrust of government but as you can see this was some jokers idea of irony.

 

[Zebo]

LMAOx2 I don't usually bother with that userating thingy flav, but I gave you a 10.