Access Without Equity

Many theories attempt to explain why, despite all efforts, African American boys continue to lag behind their White counterparts. This article reviews three prominent theories addressing the social and cultural factors that can inhibit academic excellence among these youth: Steele's stereotype threat model, Ogbu's cultural-ecological perspective, and Majors and Billson's cool pose theory. All three emphasize the barriers that prevent African American boys from incorporating academics as an important part of their self-concepts, theoretically explaining the achievement gap. The article reviews possible courses of action to facilitate identification with academics and thus improve achievement. Educational and psychological research repeatedly has shown that students from disadvantaged U.S. minority groups tend to receive poorer academic outcomes than do White or Asian American students. Included among these poorer outcomes are lower grades in school (Demo & Parker, 1987; Simmons, Brown, Bush, & Blyth, 1978); lower standardized tests scores (Bachman, 1970; Herring, 1989; Reyes & Stanic, 1988; Simmons et al., 1978), higher dropout rates (American Council on Education, 1990; Steele, 1992), and lower college grades (Nettles, 1988). Similar findings appear in the literature for Latino students (Bruschi & Anderson, 1994; Whitworth & Barrientos, 1990). Further, when students are paired on academic preparedness, subsequent achievement is lower for African American and Latino students than for White or Asian American students (Jensen, 1980; Ramist, Lewis, & McCamley-Jenkins, 1994). In sum, there is convincing evidence that students from disadvantaged minority groups achieve poorer outcomes at every level, even given equal preparation, than do their White and Asian American peers (Steele, 1997). Numerous explanations exist for this trend, including differences in cognitive (Shade, 1982) and communication styles (Kochman, 1981); aversion to intellectual competition (Howard & Hammond, 1985); genetic differences (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994), low achievement motivation, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, and feelings of helplessness (Epps, 1970); and disparities in social-psychological environments (Katz, Epps, & Alexson, 1964; Steele, 1997). However, many of these theories tend not to be conclusive. For example, if cultural differences are the culprit, why do children who emigrate from cultures drastically different from the United States (e.g., from Middle Eastern and Asian countries) often perform better academically than students of color born in the United States? Why do African immigrants (children not born into the majority White U.S. culture) do better in school than do African-descended children born into this culture? It is questions such as these that tend to make genetics and lingual/cultural theories unsatisfying. Other observations also raise interesting questions. For example, the racial achievement gap is neither developmentally nor historically static. Neisser (1998) has argued that the historic racial gap in academic test scores is decreasing. Further, the gap between White and minority U.S. students, which is minimal or nonexistent at the beginning of schooling, has been shown to widen by as much as two grade levels by sixth grade (Alexander & Entwhistle, 1988; Valencia, 1991, 1997). Recently, the concept of identification with academics has emerged as an important contribution to the racial achievement gap. Several authors, including Steele (1992, 1997), Ogbu (1992), and Majors and Billson (1992), have argued that factors inherent in U.S. society prevent students of color from viewing themselves as scholars and students and thereby valuing academics personally. Empirical evidence supports this argument (Osborne, 1995,1997b). Theoretically, lack of identification with academics has been shown to cause or contribute to poorer performance (Osborne, 1997b; Osborne & Rausch, 2001). …

We provided national prevalence estimates for selected health-risk behaviors for Asian American and Pacific Islander high school students separately, and compared those prevalence estimates with those of white, black, and Hispanic students. We analyzed data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. To generate a sufficient sample of Asian American and Pacific Islander students, we combined data from four nationally representative surveys of U.S. high school students conducted in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007 (total n = 56,773). Asian American students were significantly less likely than Pacific Islander, white, black, or Hispanic students to have drunk alcohol or used marijuana. Asian American students also were the least likely to have carried a weapon, to have been in a physical fight, to have ever had sexual intercourse, or to be currently sexually active. Once sexually active, Asian American students were as likely as most other racial/ethnic groups to have used alcohol or drugs at last sexual intercourse or to have used a condom at last sexual intercourse. Pacific Islander students were significantly more likely than Asian American, white, black, or Hispanic students to have seriously considered or attempted suicide. The prevalence estimates of health-risk behaviors exhibited by Asian American students and Pacific Islander students are very different and should be reported separately whenever feasible. To address the different health-risk behaviors exhibited by Asian American and Pacific Islander students, prevention programs should use culturally sensitive strategies and materials.

Achieving a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Environment for the Black Orthopaedic Surgeon: Part 1: Barriers to Successful Recruitment of Black Applicants.

This article explores how the concept of psychological well-being (PWB) relates to the religious and spiritual engagement of college students, as well as how levels of PWB vary between racial/ethnic groups over time during college. The study uses descriptive and multivariate analyses to examine PWB for White, Black, Latino/a, and Asian American students. Data were derived from the 2004 and 2007 College Students’ Beliefs and Values Survey, a longitudinal national survey examining the spiritual and religious development of college students.

The Segregated Schooling of Blacks in the Southern United States and South Africa

Dans cet article, l'auteur se propose d'analyser les similitudes dans l'education des Afro-americains et sud-africains noirs durant les periodes de segregation et d'Apartheid. La nature de l'oppression en milieu scolaire permet de lier les approches des Etats-Unis et de l'Afrique du Sud en matiere d'education pour les populations visees ainsi que l'usage par les communautes noires, dans ces deux contextes, de l'education comme ascenseur social, permettant de depasser les limites imposees par la segregation. Il est a noter egalement les strategies identiques, dans ces deux environnements, mises en place par les parents, les chefs d'etablissements et les enseignants pour encourager les eleves a depasser le contexte de l'oppression...

Academic achievement data from four previous Student Success Skills (SSS) studies were aggregated and examined to determine if there were differential effects in improved test scores among White, Latino, and African American students. Results showed that posttest scores for the treatment group were significantly higher than the comparison group in math as well as reading. There were no interactions or main effects for ethnicity. White, Latino, and African American students showed similar gains after SSS participation.

The between minority youth and the majority population in the United States is well documented (Johnston & Viadero, 2000). In order to reduce this and avail children of poverty of the most effective educational techniques, Project Follow Through was conducted in the 1960's. The research that compared a variety of educational approaches found Direct Instruction techniques to be the most effective along all measures. Since that time there have been numerous studies that have demonstrated the great benefit of Direct Instruction procedures for the education of minority youth. Yet, few school systems use the procedures. The article discusses arguments for and against the adoption of Direct Instruction techniques and makes a plea for minority educators to lead a movement that will lead to widespread espousal of the procedures. Key words: direct instruction, academic achievement, dissemination, inner - city students. THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM Since the 1970's the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)--also popularly known as the Nation's Report Card--has been assessing K-12 students throughout the U.S. in their skills across common academic disciplines. These scores are then differentiated by subgroups such as age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender to show comparative trends in academic performance. From the time these and other similar assessments have been enacted, a significant disparity has been apparent between the academic of White students and students in minority groups--Black, Latino, and Native American, specifically. This achievement gap has been well-documented and tracked carefully over the years; the 1970's and 80's showed marked progress in narrowing the in several important subject areas, but this relative progress has since stalled (Johnston & Viadero, 2000; National Center for Education Statistics, NCES, 2001). Kober's (2001) analysis of the points out that the 1999 NAEP statistics in both trend assessments and main assessments reveal a persistent disparity between the academic of White majority students and Black, Latino, and Native American minority students. At every age and subject level, Black and Latino students trailed White students--sometimes by several equivalent academic years or grade levels. In the 1998 NAEP main writing assessment, 8% of Black 4th graders and 10% of Latino 4th graders scored at a Proficient level, compared to the 27% of White 4th graders. Similarly, the NCES reported in 2001 that Black students overall had lower math and reading scores than White students at every grade level. Even within integrated, middle-class suburbs the Black-White has been documented to persist (Johnston & Viadero, 2000). At the same time, Black and Latino students are making up a larger and larger percentage of the school-age population. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Black and Latino children will make up 34% of the school-age population in 2010. In many urban school districts, these groups already comprise more than 80% of the student population (Kober, 2001). Furthermore, elementary and high school academic scores have been shown to correlate strongly with high school completion, college enrollment, and labor market outcomes (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Johnston & Viadero, 2000; NCES, 2001). Recent studies have found that the academic between Blacks and Whites could statistically account for most of the eventual wage differential between the two groups (NCES, 2001). Johnston & Viadero cite data compiled by the RAND Corp. that found Latino children will be 2.6 times more likely to grow up in poverty than White children in the year 2015, a ratio that has steadily increased over the past decade. These repercussions are compounded by the changing marketplace, which demands more educated workers for a society revolutionized by technological changes and worldwide globalization. …

Public elite and specialized high schools in New York City have a very low enrollment of Black and Latino students. Project 2011 is an intensive preparatory instructional program to improve acceptance rates for Black and Latino children to the eight specialized public high schools in New York City. Initiated and funded by District 17 and 18 of the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) and supported by Kaplan K12 Learning Service, Project 2011 offers curriculum and training for the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT), which is the only eligibility criterion for acceptance to New York City specialized high schools. Pre-test and post-test assessments that were administered to participating students indicated that the program significantly improved students' performance on a practice test. Implications for student achievement and factors that influence their scores on the SHSAT, standardized tests, and school work are discussed.Keywords: specialized high schools, SHSAT, high schools, high school admissions process, equal educational opportunityLITERATURE REVIEWSince the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling over half a century ago, concerns over equal educational opportunity continues to be widespread (Muller, Riegle-Crumb, Schiller, Wilkinson, & Frank, 2010). Many studies reveal circumstances that restrict access to education in academically competitive public high schools due to the use of a singular assessment to determine placement. New York City (NYC) Public School system's elite and specialized high schools are strongly impacted by inequality and access to education (Gootman, 2006; Mazie, 2009; Santos, 2012). The resulting impact on Black students is strongly evident in the research (Banchero, 2012; Deresiewicz, 2008; Muller et al., 2010).The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 addresses the issue of equal access to education and calls for a movement to increase academic standards (Mazie, 2009). In accordance with NCLB, many cities, like New York City, have been recognized for addressing the racial achievement gap in early education. However, they have not been as successful at the high school level, particularly at their top public schools, which require an entrance (Gootman, 2006). According to Dobbie and Fryer (201 1), exam schools make up over half of U.S. News and World Report's top 100 American high schools, and 20 out of 21 high schools designated as the 'public elite' by Newsweek (p. 1). Governments, such as China, Malaysia, Romania, Singapore, and Turkey, also use entrance exams to determine admission into their secondary schools (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011). The existence of exams schools in the U.S. has sparked intense debate on issues of educational inequality, particularly among political philosophers who are knowledgeable of public education systems and recognize the need to move beyond discussions of civic education to promoting educational parity (Mazie, 2009).Equal educational opportunity for all students is particularly important because research shows a direct correlation between academic success in high school and SES of future generations (Muller et al., 2010). Muller et al. (2010) recognized stratification in educational opportunity that extended beyond expected socioeconomic status (SES) differences to race. Specifically, the study mentions African American and Latino students' differential educational opportunities in comparison to their White counterparts. Furthermore, unequal public funds for education have always been a problem in the United States. Even private funds raised by the parent-teacher associations (PTAs) are impacted by the socioeconomic status of their communities (Mazie, 2009). Schools in lower SES communities are often deprived of basic and necessary educational materials. Compounding matters, Johnson, Richeson, and Finkel (2011) posit that students from lower SES environments, which are disproportionately Black and Latino, also encounter negative psychological influences. …

There are, no doubt, promising practices that schools can adopt to improve minority students' chances to succeed. But, according to Mr. Evans, the gap has far more to do with social and economic factors that schools cannot control. Focusing on the schools allows us to avoid looking at the fundamental changes that will be required to eliminate the gap. THE gap, the persistent disparity between the performance of African American and Hispanic students and that of white and Asian American students, is perhaps the most stubborn, perplexing issue confronting American schools today. Closing the gap is widely seen as important not just for our education system but ultimately for our economy, our social stability, and our moral health as a nation. The conventional wisdom has it that the gap is a school problem. This belief is invitingly simple, allowing a narrow focus on schools that suits the current passion for accountability through testing. But it is fatally shortsighted. It misunderstands and mistreats schools and, more important, black and Hispanic students. When we set the gap and schooling itself in the broader context of how children grow up, it becomes clear that the issue far transcends the classroom. Its roots lie well beyond the reach of schools, and so the underlying dilemma will require much, much more than school-based strategies and programs. Educators must do all they can to pursue promising approaches for reducing the gap. But holding them, almost alone, accountable for closing it is a doomed strategy that can only disserve our most vulnerable children. The Case Against Schools Two facts about the gap are clear: its origins lie neither in students nor in schools. Skin color, ethnic status, poverty -- none of these, by themselves, determine a student's performance. There are black and Hispanic students everywhere, including those whose families are poor, who succeed impressively. Nor, for their part, do schools create the disparity. Substantial numbers of black and Hispanic students begin kindergarten well behind other students in academic readiness. Both sets of facts are equally important, but most achievement gap critics emphasize the former and minimize the latter. They blame educators for failing to eliminate the gap and indeed for enlarging it. Reduced to its core, their logic is: all children are created equal, but all children are not performing equally in school; the gap typically worsens as children advance through the grades; the fault must therefore be the schools', so the solution must lie in school; the necessary knowledge and tools are available, and schools must be pressed to apply them. This critique actually targets two gaps, urban and suburban, and operates at two levels, structure and practice. The most obvious issues are found in the schools with the largest minority enrollments. Predominantly urban, many of these schools are, by almost any measure, less congenial to learning than others, because, proportionally, they have more teachers who are inexperienced, poorly trained, and uncertified; more textbooks that are outdated; fewer computers; larger class sizes; and buildings that are in worse repair and more marked by violence. The Education Trust has detailed egregious practices by incompetent teachers in these schools.1 Other advocacy groups have concentrated on inequities in the resources, materials, and physical conditions of high-minority, low-performing schools. The collective case is indisputable: the students who most need our best teachers and best learning environments rarely have access to either. At bottom, these problems really involve the structural characteristics of urban schools, and they reflect economic and political realities that are mostly beyond the power of those schools to remedy. For example, high-minority, low-performing schools hire fewer top-quality teachers than others and have greater turnover -- not because they want to, but because they can't attract and retain better candidates. …

Interviews and participant observation are used to describe how ethnic minority students in an urban high school experience discrimination. The findings suggest critical variations among students that contributed to a hostile school environment. Asian American students discussed physical and verbal harassment by peers, while Black and Latino students reported discrimination by adults, such as teachers, police, and shopkeepers. Findings suggested a circular process whereby teachers preferred the Asian American students, often basing their preference on model minority beliefs, and the African American and Latino adolescents resented that teacher bias and thus harassed the Asian American students. Asian American and Latino students also expressed intraracial tensions around issues of language, immigration, and assimilation. Findings underscore the importance of exploring adolescents’ subjective experiences of discrimination.

High school students who spend long hours in paid employment during the school year are at increased risk of lower grades and higher substance use, although questions remain about whether these linkages reflect causation or prior differences (selection effects). Questions also remain about whether such associations vary by socioeconomic status (SES) and race/ethnicity. This study examines those questions using nationally representative data from two decades (1991-2010) of annual Monitoring the Future surveys involving about 600,000 students in 10th and 12th grades. White students are consistently more likely than minority students to hold paid employment during the school year. Among White and Asian American students, paid work intensity is negatively related to parental education and grade point averages (GPA) and is positively related to substance use. Also among Whites and Asian Americans, students with the most highly educated parents show the strongest negative relations between work intensity and GPA, whereas the links are weaker for those with less educated parents (i.e., lower SES levels). All of these relations are less evident for Hispanic students and still less evident for African American students. It thus appears that any costs possibly attributable to long hours of student work are most severe for those who are most advantaged--White or Asian American students with highly educated parents. Working long hours is linked with fewer disadvantages among Hispanic students and especially among African American students. Youth employment dropped in 2008-2010, but the relations described above have shown little change over two decades.

Prediction of students' performances on licensing examinations using age, race, sex, undergraduate GPAs, and MCAT scores.

We conducted a series of multiple linear regressions to examine the predictive ability of race on introductory mechanics final exam scores when controlling for ACT math scores and physics placement test scores. When we followed a common method of categorizing students as URMs and non-URMS for our analysis, we found that students who earned comparable scores on the ACT math test and the physics placement test performed similarly on the final exam. However, when we established separate groups for Non-Hispanic White American, Asian American, African American, Hispanic, International, Multi-Race, AIAN, and NHPI students, we found that African American and Asian American students, and to a lesser extent, Hispanic students, under-performed in their physics course relative to their prior test scores. We conclude that there is still work to be done at the university level to provide a learning environment supportive of students of all backgrounds.

Using data from a nationwide sample of middle school students, the correlates examined in this study include measures of socioeconomic background, self-reported school grades, and perceptions of peer status with respect to academics, behavior, and athletics. The analyses were conducted separatelyfor male andfemale Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White American students. With the exception of Black females, athletic status yielded stronger correlations with perceived popularity among peers than any other variables considered. For Black females, the strongest single predictor of popularity was academic status. SES background and grades were significant predictorsfor Hispanic and White students only. The regression models considered werefound less effective at predicting popularity among Black students than among the other groups.