Review of Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling . R. L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy. Reviewed by Paul L. Tractenberg (original) (raw)
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School Community Journal, 2004
After over 40 years of education reform policies and strategies, America continues its need for systemic education reform. e greatest challenge confronting the nation remains within large urban metropolises where large numbers of minority students attend underfunded and low-performing schools with low standardized test scores and high dropout rates. African American children and youth constitute over 50% of all students in urban school systems. e social work profession has a long history of advocacy with urban minority students dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. Yet, the appropriate body of knowledge that either conceptually or empirically documents practice methods by school social workers practicing within urban school settings with African American students does not exist. In a solution-oriented presentation with implications for school social work practice, advocacy, and research, the author will first review past and present education reform measures. e discussion then turns to ways in which the social work profession can address major issues of education reform with a clear understanding of the educational needs of urban African American children and youth using macro, mezzo, and micro practice measures.
Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2013
HEN I THINK of the word shift it elicits a strong sense of profound change. Throughout my practice as a school social worker, I began to eventually understand the power that a shift can have within the school walls, between the students and school staff, and among parents and the communities where they live. A shift in discipline policies and procedures can have a dramatic effect on how students' inappropriate behaviors are dealt with in schools. A shift in curricular goals could impact upon the teaching and learning process. A shift in a school system's ability to maintain accreditation can create anxiety about inferior schooling and depreciated property value among the residents and business leaders in the community. As I reflect on the influence shifts have on schooling, I recollect a profound shift that I experienced. 1 It was August and my child was failing 9 th grade biology. Okay…he wasn't actually failing. He had a "C" average, but in our home, anything less than an 80 is failing. After going online and reviewing his grades, I discovered three zero's in the place where grades should be marked for homework and class work. "Charlie, where is your binder for biology?" "Why?" "Just give me the binder." "Okay.
Opposing Innovations: Race and Reform in the West Philadelphia Community Free School, 1969-1978
History of Education Quarterly, 2023
This article uses oral history, archival material, and published primary sources to examine the competing conceptions of "innovation" at work in the creation and operation of the West Philadelphia Community Free School (WPCFS) from 1969 to 1978. One of the longest-running initiatives in the School District of Philadelphia's experimental Office of Innovative Programs, the WPCFS stood at the crossroads of conflicting imperatives for "innovation." These included: (1) institutional interests in advancing "humanizing" pedagogy; (2) Black activists' interests in operating a community-controlled school for students of color in West Philadelphia; and (3) teachers' interests in balancing their commitments to "humanizing" instruction and a surrounding community with different educational priorities. We highlight two instances where the frictions between these uses of "innovation" became pronounced in the WPCFS-debates over "free time" and the 1973 teachers' strike. These incidents clarify how the burden of reconciling opposing innovations fell unevenly on the teachers and community members-often in ways that pitted the groups against one another-and exacerbated raced and classed inequalities in the school and district. While the account focuses on the 1960-1970s, we suggest that the WPCFS is relevant for us today, offering insights for the present into the longer discursive history of "innovation" as a lever for school reform, and into its impacts on educational equity.
Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Floors: Black Women's Experiences in Education Reform Leadership
2016
To my extended support group-family and close friends-who provided love and moral support, read drafts and provided critiques, and served as a soft place to land and comic relief when I needed it most. I am blessed to have people in my life so dedicated to my success. The completion of this dissertation would not be possible without the Black women educational leaders who participated in this study. You welcomed me into your lives, homes, and schools, and are now lifelong friends. I consider each of you models of Black excellence and #BlackGirlMagic. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Lastly, to the young people who are the reason for and keep me in this work, my students. You are a part of my heart, adding so much to the person I am today while continuing to make me better. You will be the creators of the equitable future that I cannot yet imagine. You keep me woke and lit. Thank you for your magic, your excellence, your light. Thank you for giving me hope. I love you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………. iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Strong Black Women's Meeting: "Don't let the title fool you."……………………………………….1 Urban Education Reform in Black and White………………………………………………………………….
The Missed Education of the Negro: An Examination of the Black Segregated Education Experience in Southampton County, VA 23836, 2022
Abstract Latorial D. Faison The Missed Education of the Negro: An Examination of the Black Segregated Education Experience in Southampton County, Virginia 1950-1970 Despite numerous efforts to reform American public schools to provide more equitable outcomes for minority students, the needs of many African American students stand neglected at alarming rates in public schools in America. This qualitative study examined the Mid-Twentieth Century Black segregated education experience in rural Southampton County, Virginia, from 1950 to 1970 to explore student perceptions of the Black segregated education experience. This researcher holds that graduates of numerous Black schools in the segregated South prove that Black educators defied systemic odds to nurture, cultivate, and commission Black achievement and excellence in students of color during one of the darkest eras in history. The purpose of this study was to ascertain resolutions to three critical issues in public schools: widening achievement gaps for African American students, a lack of culturally relevant teaching, and the absence of essential links and connections to the African American community. Theories that frame this research are Identity Development Theory, the Theory of Eurocentricity, and Critical Race Theory (CRT). These theoretical approaches assist in revisiting segregated education history to understand the dynamics of existing educational disparities, inform practice, and promote more successful outcomes for African American students. Sixteen in-depth participant interviews explore perceptions of the Black segregated education experience in rural Southampton County, Virginia. Through phenomenology, critical ethnography, narrative portraiture, and poetic analysis, the researcher highlights the nuances of a unique educational experience and reviews and analyzes data from a cultural aspect. This study addresses the academic challenges of educating African Americans with regard to history, race, and culture. This research supports the hypothesis that when minority students have more equitable, inclusive, and culturally relevant educational experiences, academic, social, and professional success and achievement are more likely outcomes. Keywords: education, history, identity, race, culture, Black history, racialization, cultural wealth, segregation, student development, student identity, the Black community, culturally responsive teaching, Black achievement, Black-only schools, secondary education, oral history, oral narratives, civil rights, culturally relevant teaching, pedagogy, diversity, POC, equity, inclusion, Negro, Colored, Critical Race Theory, CRT, Jim Crow, Riverview High School, training schools, training centers, students of color, people of color, BIPOC, African American, Native American, Nottoway, Southampton County, Virginia, Courtland, Virginia State University
2017
This history examines attitudes toward and responses to school desegregation within an established, closely knit network of African-American communities in Prince George's County, Maryland, from 1954, immediately after Brown v. Board of Education, through the first year of the destabilizing busing era. Optimistic about the opportunities and social equality desegregated schooling might afford their children, black residents of this county nonetheless recognized the value of segregated schooling in securing a general sense of well being within both their children and their communities. Thus, for two decades they approached school desegregation with expectation and ambivalence, asserting collective agency to influence the school board's decision making, prevent the closing of black schools, and affirm their racial and cultural identity.