AFTER DOCUMENTING LAST FALL how poorly the Boston Public Schools were doing in educating black and Latino males, researchers went looking for individual schools that were doing a good job, with the hope of replicating their best practices across the system. But the researchers say they didn’t find any best practices.
“We didn’t find any schools doing well with black and Latino males,” said Rosann Tung, one of the researchers from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
So Tung and her colleagues identified four schools – two high schools, a pre-K through 8 school, and a pre-K through 5 institution – that were doing comparatively better than their peers and studied them. They discovered each institution had some of the hallmarks of a quality school, but none did a good job of supporting black and Latino males. (The names of the schools were not identified in the report.)
The four case studies were released on Tuesday as part of a two-phase report on the status of black and Latino males commissioned in 2013 by the Boston Public Schools. The study was conducted by the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston and the Annenberg Institute and paid for by the Barr Foundation.
The first phase of the report documented an alarming achievement gap for black and Latino males, with less than a quarter of each group scoring proficient or higher on the English MCAS test in 2012, compared to 57 percent for white males and 49 percent for Asian males. Far fewer Black and Latino males were graduating within four years and paltry percentages (less than 9 percent) were enrolled in the city’s selective exam schools.
The second phase focused on what schools were doing that was working with black and Latino males. The researchers found no schools that were doing significantly better with that group, so they focused on four that were doing comparatively better. Even so, three of the four had lower attendance rates than the statewide average and all four had proficiency rates on standardized math and English tests that were lower than the state average. The two high schools had a higher rate of suspensions and significantly lower four-year graduation rates than statewide averages.
In a briefing with reporters, Tung said researchers found each of the four institutions had a number of positive attributes, including a caring school culture, a safe learning environment, engaged families, individualized instruction, and teachers and staff who take collective responsibility for the success of students.
But the researchers say none of the schools focused specifically on supporting black and Latino males. Andresse St. Rose, of the Center for Collaborative Education, said interviews with school officials revealed a reluctance to discuss race, little knowledge of the cultural background of their students, and little or no professional development on culturally responsive practices.
“Many of the adults [at the schools] we interviewed described themselves as color blind,” St. Rose said, suggesting teachers treated their students as if they were all the same.
St. Rose said critical race theory suggests teachers should do just the opposite, engaging students directly on race and gender issues and using the cultural backgrounds of students to spur interest in the subjects they are studying. “It’s another way to engage students and keep them interested,” St. Rose said.
The report cited one instance in which a teacher misfired on a multicultural education approach by having students celebrate a Mexican holiday even though no students of Mexican descent were in the teacher’s class.
“Scholars suggest that being explicit about the impact of racism in schools and society and developing an antiracist school culture in which people of color feel a sense of belonging and empowerment will lead to better outcomes for students of color,” the report said. “In contrast to this wisdom, the predominant mindset about race and gender in the case study schools was one of invisibility.”
The researchers also urged school officials to set high expectations for black and Latino male students, to provide teachers with training and curriculum advice on cultural issues, and to recruit teachers and principals who reflect the makeup of the student body.
The student population of the Boston system is 41 percent Hispanic, 36 percent black, 13 percent white, 8 percent Asian, and 1 percent other or multiracial. Teachers, by contrast, are 62 percent white, 21 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent Asian. Principals are 48 percent white, 21 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian. At three of the four case-study schools, the principals were black.
John McDonough, the acting superintendent of the Boston schools, said the education of black and Latino males is a national problem. He said the research is a signal that Boston is addressing the problem directly. “Boston will not wait for someone to solve this problem for us,” he said.
The belief boys should be strong allows aggressive treatment from infancy to create more anger and fear so they will be tough. This is coupled with much less kind verbal interaction and less mental/emotional support knowledge for fear of coddling. It is this treatment which creates the extra layers of average stress. These layers remain in the mind and take away real mental energy from academics so those boys will have to work two or three times as hard to receive the same mental reward.
This aggressive less supportive treatment creates social/emotional distance/distrust of others parents and teachers. It creates lags in social vocabulary and other communication we as girls are given on a continuous basis. The higher average stress creates more activity for stress relief not genetics. The higher average stress creates higher muscle tension which hurts handwriting more pressure on pencil and tighter grip hurting handwriting motivation to write early fatigue.
The total effect including less care and support creates much more failure and a feeling of hopelessness especially with our false genetic models firmly in place. Also to make it even tougher for boys is the granting of love and honor feelings of self-worth only on some condition of achievement status or image. This was designed to keep Male esteem and feelings of self-worth low to keep them striving and even be willing to give their lives in time of war for small measures of love and honor from society. Males not achieving in school or other areas are given more ridicule and discipline to make them try harder. Support is not given boys for fear of coddling. Many boys as you would expect thus falling behind in school then turn their attention to sports and video games to gleam small measures of love and honor not received in the classroom. The belief boys should be strong and the false belief in genetics creates a blatant mental denial of the differential treatment which is creating the lower academics lower esteem and other problems many boys are facing today. So strong is the belief boys should be strong there is an almost emotional cannibalism allowed upon boys and men who appear weak in some way by society: parents teachers others even from many girls and women especially in the media.
Note this is not about showing feelings or openness from boys and men it is about support care and respect for boys even when appearing weak in some way. Remember aggressive treatment is increased for any sign of weakness and the much wariness boys feel for parent and teachers who feel it necessary and more freely allowed to use more aggressiveness for any sign of weakness or vulnerability. This is condoned by many in society today.
As girls we are treated much better and so enjoy more hope and care from society. Since we as girls are given by differential treatment much more continual positive – mental social/emotional support verbal interaction and care from an early age onward this creates quite the opposite outcome for girls when compared with the boys. We enjoy much more care and support and care from society from infancy through adulthood and receive love and honor simply for being girls. This creates all of the good things. We enjoy lower average stress for more ease of learning. We enjoy much more freedom of expression from much protection that makes us look more unstable at times. Of course we can also use that same freedom of expression to give verbal silent abuse and hollow kindness/patronization to our Male peers with impunity knowing we are protected. We enjoy much lower muscle tension for more ease and ability in handwriting and motivation to write. We enjoy much more positive trust/communication from parents teachers peers and more support for perceived weaknesses. We are reaping a bonanza in the information age. The lower the socioeconomic bracket the much more amplified the differential treatment from infancy and more differentiated over time through adulthood. Now with girls and women taking over many areas of society we are enjoying even more lavishing of love and honor from society while the boys and men are now failing more so and are now given even more ridicule and abuse by society. Mind you this is also now coming from many girls and women using our still protected freedoms of expression and more so with false feelings of superiority. My learning theory will go to all