News & Updates

The Expanded Success Initiative School Design Fellowship will design and launch a breakthrough high school model whose outcomes are measured by college and career success for Black and Latino young men and women.  The model will result in the launch of eight new high schools that pilot the new design, proposed…

On January 10, 2013, Education Week released its annual Quality Counts publication. This year’s report, Quality Counts 2013: Code of Conduct—Safety, Discipline, and School Climate, considers the impact that a school’s social and disciplinary climate have on students’ ability to learn. The report includes analysis of issues such as peer relationships,…

In the past week we have been exposed to yet two more tragic incidents in the world of professional sports. There was the murder suicide in the Kansas Chiefs organization and the DWI vehicular homicide involving two Dallas Cowboy teammates and friends.  Most all would agree that these incidents continue…

I’ve just finished three different pieces that include lists of successful practices of inner city schools. The first is a book, Sweating the Small Stuff by David  Whitman in which Whitman describes 6 schools ( 4 charters; a parochial high school; and a neighborhood public high school) that have narrowed the achievement…

I've always been a bit wary of bringing the street into the classroom; not because I thought it was a bad idea to use outside experiences to raise student interest but rather because it is too often simplisticly implemented. Back in 1969 I was a reading teacher at an experimental…

(Re) Authorizing Literacy Practices for African American Boys by Alfred W. Tatum, Ph.D. University of Illinois at Chicago The education of young children has been discussed for more than two centuries in the United States. However, we are in our infancy discussing instructional practices and methods that advance the reading…

On November 6, 2012, Education Week featured an article entitled, "Suspended in School: Punished But Still Learning" to highlight schools in Baltimore, Los Angeles, and the state of Minnesota that have taken a different approach to school discipline. This issue of harsh school discipline disproportionately affects students of color, with African-American…

Ivory A. Toldson, Ph.D. “Among the nearly 40,000 black male 9th graders currently in honors classes, 2.5% have been told they have a Learning Disability, 3.3% Autism, and 6% ADHD... Black males with and without disabilities can excel in schools that have adequate opportunities for diverse learners and a structure…

Pedro Noguera, Director of New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education  in a recent opinion piece for Ed Week and Phi Delta Kappan argues that there is no research that shows that single sex schools-particularly for young men of color-in themeselves improve these students academic success. Noguera did find, however, a…

It’s interesting what makes news or what makes an event news. If it’s not picked up the main stream presss it doesn’t make it very far. It’s now almost two months since the President issued his Executive order - White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans - but there are…