This week, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR)  made a announcement that it has reached an agreement with the state of Alabama that will aid all students, particularly African-American ones, in accessing advanced placement classes. The Lee County School District entered in to the historic first-time agreement, which aims to bolster higher-level learning and increase college opportunities for students.

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The plan has a few key points that Lee District intends to roll out immediately, including addressing the dearth of Black students in advanced or AP classes and higher-level courses, finding out why Black students are faced with barriers, introducing dual-enrollment courses with the local community college at the predominantly Black high school, and offering transportation between buildings.

Lastly, material will be produced to encourage students of all levels and backgrounds to embrace AP courses, pursue higher-level courses, and consider going to college. The OCR will be deeply involved in helping Lee County get the program rolling.

From the OCR’s assistant secretary Catherine E. Lhamon:

We look forward to working with the Lee County School District administrators to ensure that all students have equal access to a quality education and are pleased that the district has taken positive steps to increase college-ready access through raising the enrollment of Black students in AP and other higher level courses. The Lee County School District has been a partner throughout this process and I applaud the steps the District is taking to help ensure their compliance with our civil rights laws to serve all students.

To learn more about the Lee County School District plans, click here.

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Vickie McBride gave birth to her son at the tender age of 13, but that did not deter her from earning her PhD–or his, for that matter.

Last August, Vickie and her son, Maurice, walked across the stage at a graduate ceremony in Minneapolis, Minnesota and were handed their doctorate degrees from Capella University, WRDW-TV Augusta 12 reports.

Given their journey, Maurice said he could not have ever imagined the day he would earn such a high academic honor. “Never in a thousand, million, trillion years [did I expect to get my PhD],” Maurice said. “The thought of becoming a doctor anyone was far fetched.”

Maurice’s awe at his own success was only outdone by his mother’s achievement.

“I never thought I would get chance to see my mother walk across the stage and then she turned around and saw me walk across the stage,” he said.

Growing up in the small town of Waynesboro, Ga., Vickie said  being a teenage parent was taboo. She remembers some of the older people in the community ”whispering” about her, but that did not stop her from continuing her education. Vickie’s mother, a retired teacher, took care of Maurice while she attended school.

“As a teenager I continued my education, Vickie said. ”(Dropping out) was never an option.”

She eventually went to college and even earned a graduate degree all while raising Maurice and three other children.

“I had to figure out how to work and how to parent and how to manage school all at the same time.” she said.

Maurice had his own rocky road to his PhD. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 and started hanging out with the wrong people. His behavior got him in a juvenile probation facility. But he said his faith helped him turn his life around.

“I picked up the bible and I started reading and I was like it all makes sense,” he said. ”I see how it actually comes to fruition. I see how I ended up here.”

Here is more on how the two decided to be mother and son PhDs:

He got his GED and then pursued a music career. He signed a record deal with Capital Records, but he never stopped his education. It was something that was instilled in him by his mother and grandmother.

“As a recording artist I also attended school online,” said Maurice.

He kept going after he left the music world. He went on to graduate school, becoming a professor at Paine College and then one day he called his mom.

“I said ‘hey I think I’m gonna get my PhD. You wanna do this with me?’ ‘No that’s okay. You bumped your head, but you can go ahead and you can do it. I’m done with school’,” he recalled.

After talking it over, they decided to do it together. Vickie graduated with her PhD in K-12 Education and Maurice in Organizational Management from Capella University.

“I didn’t let my situation define who I was. I defined my situation. I looked at my situation and I told situation this is where we are going and this is what we are doing,” said Vickie.

A proud day for both a mother and a son.

“I was so proud of him because I knew where he had come from,” said Vickie.

“This is who she really is despite what she’s been through,” said Maurice. “This is how I’ve always seen her and now I’m like ‘hey look this is her’ with the cape and the supermommy uniform.”

And they want their story to be a lesson to those struggling now.

Maurice wants his mother to write a book about their life story and has even asked her to go for a law degree. She kindly said she’d sit that one out and be in the audience for that graduation.

But Vickie does has some encouraging words for those who think their life’s circumstances are too much to overcome.

“For those who have gone through [tough situations],” Vickie said. “You can be successful. You can be anything. You can do anything once you make up your mind that that is what you want to do. Set a goal and go for it.”

Wellesley College named Dr. Paula A. Johnson its new president Thursday, the Boston Globe reports.

Johnson will become Wellesley’s 14th president and the first African-American to lead the elite women’s liberal arts college. She takes over in July, replacing H. Kim Bottomly, who is resigning after nine years.

According to the Globe, Johnson has a sense of “special responsibility” as the school’s first Black president and supports the college’s focus on diversity.

She plans “to not only strengthen and deepen that diversity, but also ensure that our residential experience is taking full advantage of that diversity, that our young women are really experiencing all the richness that that diversity brings on campus,” the newspaper reports.

The Massachusetts college, Hillary Clinton’s alma mater, has about 2,400 students. Its racial mix is 5 percent Black, 9 percent Hispanic, 22 percent Asian, and 6 percent biracial or multiracial, according to the Globe.

Last year, the all-women’s school announced it would begin accepting transgender students who identify as women.

The Globe says a Wellesley search committee unanimously selected Johnson for the position.

Via the Boston Globe:

“Even among a superb group of candidates, Dr. Johnson stood out through her record as a scholar and leader, together with her passion for women’s advancement, education, and well-being, the energy and insights she conveyed in our discussions, and her enthusiasm for Wellesley,” Debora de Hoyos, chairwoman of the search committee and a college trustee, said in a statement.

Johnson, 56, is currently a Harvard Medical School professor and the former chairwoman of the Boston Public Health Commission.

SOURCE: Boston Globe | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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A year-long investigation by USA Today revealed “fundamental defects” in how school officials screen teachers.

According to the newspaper’s report, some teachers with a history of serious misconduct are slipping through the cracks. For example, USA Today pointed to a case in which Georgia revoked the teacher’s license of an educator who exchanged nude pictures and inappropriate text messages with a female student. Despite losing his license, he managed to continue teaching by simply moving to another state.

Part of the problem, as USA Today’s reporters discovered, is that 11 states pass the work of conducting comprehensive criminal background checks to local school districts, which often lack the necessary resources.

The newspaper conducted interviews and open-records law reviews nationwide to gather database information. What it discovered is that the “patchwork system of laws and regulations” leaves schoolchildren vulnerable to teachers with a past record of misconduct.

Here’s what USA Today found:

• States fail to report the names of thousands of disciplined teachers to a privately run database that is the nation’s only centralized system for tracking teacher discipline. Without entries in the database, troubled and dangerous teachers can move to new states — and get back in classrooms — undetected. 

• The names of at least 9,000 educators disciplined by state officials are missing from a clearinghouse operated by the non-profit National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. At least 1,400 of those teachers’ licenses had been permanently revoked, including at least 200 revocations prompted by allegations of sexual or physical abuse. 

• State systems to check backgrounds of teachers are rife with inconsistencies, leading to dozens of cases in which state education officials found out about a person’s criminal conviction only after a teacher was hired by a district and already in the classroom.

SOURCE: USA Today | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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So This Happened: Texas Teachers Hand Out “Ghetto” Award Certificates To 8th Graders

Some experts say that kids need more recess—not more test prep—to excel in school.

NPR recently visited Eagle Mountain Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, and discovered that more time on the playground could be the key to improving test scores.

Eagle Mountain is participating in a project modeled after the Finnish school system, which typically places toward the top of international education rankings. The experiment involves giving first-graders four 15-minute breaks for unstructured outdoor play—far more than most schools provide.

Debbie Rhea, a professor of kinesiology at Texas Christian University, is one of the leading proponents of increased playtime. She visited Finland for six weeks to find out what schools there are getting right.

Finnish children start school at age 7. A first-grader there spends 4.5 hours in school; three hours in class and 90 minutes at play. By contrast, American first-graders spend seven hours in school, but unstructured outdoor playtime often is not a scheduled part of the day, according to Education Week.

Eagle Mountain tripled its recess time for the ongoing experiment, from 20 minutes to an hour. The teachers initially feared that time away from the classroom would negatively impact test scores.

Instead, the teachers have seen “a huge transformation,” according to NPR. The students are more focused and better behaved in class. At the midpoint of the school year, the teachers said their kids are ahead of schedule.

So, what’s going on here? Some experts say that giving students breaks for physical activity makes a huge difference.

“If you want a child to be attentive and stay on task, and also if you want them to encode the information you’re giving them in their memory, you’ve got to give them regular breaks,” Ohio State University pediatrician Bob Murray told NPR.

Murray’s evidence – based on brain imaging – supports what the Eagle Mountain teachers observed, NPR reports.

Rhea views her program as a way to change how American educators think about teaching children. She told NPR: it’s better to let kids be kids.

SOURCE: Education Week | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

Some 15,000 guests joined Teach For America at its Washington, D.C. gathering in February to celebrate the organization’s quarter-century anniversary. On this milestone, the group’s army of teachers, alumni, and allies – now numbering 50,000 – commemorated the past, but fixed their eyes on the future.

At the top of TFA’s agenda going forward is recruiting teachers of color to meet the needs of the nation’s exploding Latino student population and African-American pupils who are struggling to close the academic achievement gap.

The ballooning growth of Latinos and the simultaneous decline of the White population have resulted in a significant demographic shift among students. The 2014 – 2015 academic year marked the first time that minority schoolchildren—Latino, African-American, and Asian—outnumbered their White counterparts, Education Week reported.

However, the teaching force has failed to keep pace with this major shift. According to U.S. News, only 17 percent of educators are people of color.

The problem, according to numerous studies, is that minority students perform academically better under the guidance of teachers of their own race or ethnicity.

A study reported by the Washington Post states:

“We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout and pass rates between white and minority students falls by roughly half when taught by a minority instructor. In models that allow for a full set of ethnic and racial interactions between students and instructors, we find African-American students perform particularly better when taught by African-American instructors.”

Why do minority students tend to perform better with teachers who look like them? The study reported in U.S. News says teachers of color are often better motivated to teach in racially segregated, poor schools. What’s more, they typically have higher academic expectations of their pupils and better understand their culture.

With that in mind, TFA is committed to recruiting 2,400 Latino undergraduates and professionals over the next three years to teach in predominantly low-income Latino schools.

From its inception, the group has recruited college graduates to teach in under-performing urban and rural schools for a two-year commitment.

“We’ve learned that great teachers come from all backgrounds, and that teachers who share the background of their students can have a profound additional impact,” said Elisa Villanueva Beard, TFA’s CEO.

Beard added that the group plans to build strong partnerships in the Latino community to reach its recruitment goal and to meet the needs of the growing Latino student population.

TFA also has an African-American Community Initiative that focuses on teacher recruitment and community relationship building. Stacey Cleveland, a senior manager of the Initiative, has been on the frontline of this effort.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to our communities,” she stated, referring to how the organization addresses the educational needs of poor minority communities across the nation. “Here in St. Louis, we’re dealing with failing schools and busing issues because many of our schools are closing. So school choice is an issue for many parents.”

When asked what difference it makes having a Black teacher in the classroom, Cleveland pointed to her 11-year-old son for explanation. She said her fifth-grader, who now has a Black teacher for the first time, views his instructor as a role model and “changed his level of respect from the first time the teacher walked into the classroom.”

Dr. Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund, said he benefited immensely from having a Black teacher during his schooling. He also recalled having two White teachers who encouraged him and others who “discouraged me actively.”

“I don’t think that only Black teachers are good for Black students, but they can be an incredible force,” stated Lomax, who has served as a TFA board member for 18 years. “They can be incredible role models when students see someone who looks them.”

Lomax, a former literature professor and college president, said he learned about TFA “from day one” and has supported its mission. As head of UNCF, he personally calls college presidents to endorse TFA and encourage them to open their doors to the organization’s teacher recruitment efforts.

TFA’s 2015 teaching corps is diverse, comprising 65 percent people of color or low-income backgrounds. About one-third of them are the first in their family to attend college. Cleveland said several years ago the corps was mostly White and from the middle or upper class.

But recruiting teachers has become more challenging in the past two years since the economy began to rebound. “Now prospects have more career options,” she stated. “Many companies are competing with us for recruits. They want the coveted Black college graduates to meet their diversity goals.”

This is what TFA recruiters often hear: “I could see myself in a classroom one day, but right now I have to make a financial decision.”

TFA established a partnership in September with Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, which will aid in its effort to recruit Black men to teach. The organization is seeking not just teachers, but also leaders. About 84 percent of TFA alumni continue working in a community leadership role after completing their two-year teaching obligation.

Lomax, a Morehouse graduate, said he recalls being taught in college that individuals have the power to make a difference. “We saw that in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” he stated. “The desire to lead is one of the values of the African-American community, so the message to lead by teaching resonates. That’s a key concept of Alphas.”

He’s optimistic that the organization will meet its recruitment goals, especially after interacting with recent graduates from his alma mater who are planning to start charter schools and work on school boards in their own communities.

Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind, created an opportunity for Secretary of Education John King to “reset the tone of conversation about teachers,” says the Washington Post.

“I think there’s just such an urgency around making sure that teachers feel valued in our society. It’s one of the things I worry a lot about,” King told the Post. “I want young people to see a future for themselves as teachers.”

In January, King delivered a speech at a Philadelphia high school in which the newspaper said he apologized for the federal government’s role in making educators feel “attacked and unfairly blamed,” by linking their evaluations to student test scores.

The new federal education law gives more authority to state and local governments. It also makes teachers a partner in the development and implementation of new education policies.

King told the Post that his department will pay attention to the views of classroom teachers and underscored the importance of initiatives like Teach to Lead. His predecessor, Arne Duncan, launched that initiative, which is a partnership with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to support teacher leadership.

SOURCE: Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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A trial begins Monday that could compel Florida to remodel its education system, the Miami Herald reports.

Attorneys for the state and Citizens for Strong School, a nonprofit group, will present opening statements at the non-jury trial in Tallahassee, expected to last for five weeks.

Citizens for Strong Schools v. State Bd. asks the judge to decide whether Florida has failed to provide a quality public education, as the state’s constitution requires.

Richard Milner, director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh, will testify for the plaintiff. He told the Miami Herald:

“Schools in Florida are largely still not integrated, with rich white communities providing far better education than poor black schools. There are still major inequities in public education in Florida, and this lawsuit threatens to expose that.”

The group contends that lawmakers are violating a 1998 Florida constitution amendment that directs the state to make education a “paramount duty” and to operate a “high quality” public school system.

Citizens for Strong Schools argues that public school funding is fundamentally flawed. The education advocacy group points to federal data showing that Florida is among the states with the lowest level of per-pupil funding, according to the Herald.

The state counters that it has a topnotch public school system. Meghan Collins, a state Department of Education spokeswoman, said the lawsuit overlooks the state’s educational successes, the Herald reports.

If the judge sides with the plaintiffs, lawmakers may have to redesign education funding and take other steps to level the field for all students. Milner told the Herald that this could become a landmark case, triggering education reform nationwide.

This lawsuit comes on the heels of a decision by the Kansas Supreme Court that the Wichita Eagle said “threw state government into turmoil.”

In February, the court ruled that the education system was unconstitutionally unfair to students in low-income districts and ordered the legislature to fix how it funds school districts by the end of June.

SOURCE: Miami Herald | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty | VIDEO SOURCE: Inform

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Hip-hop may sound like useless noise to some people. But to Austin Martin, rap is a gateway to expanding vocabulary.

The Brown University junior created Rhymes with Reason. It’s an interactive vocabulary program that utilizes rap lyrics to help high schoolers prepare for college entrance exams.

His method for teaching college-level words often raises eyebrows, but Martin is unfazed.

“Hip-hop is vocabulary rich,” he asserted in an interview with NewsOne. “It’s often cast as not intellectual, but that’s not true. Rappers are using words that are found on the SATs.”

In his initial research, Martin discovered 67 of the top 100 SAT words in hip-hop lyrics. He now has a collection of more than 500 vocabulary words, which he’s introducing in classrooms.

NPR accompanied Martin to an eighth-grade class at Community Preparatory School in Providence, R.I. for a test of his website. He plays this short clip from a rapper: “So rude that your mentality is distorting your reality.”

Focusing on the word “distort,” he asks, “OK, so in this example, when they say ‘so rude that your mentality is distorting this reality,’ what do you think he means?”

The students then have no trouble understanding the meaning of “distort.”

But Martin doesn’t stop there. He challenges them to illustrate their comprehension by creating their own rap lyric with the word. Martin told NewsOne it took them less than a minute to create an original rap lyric using the word in context.

Martin, 20, explained that his program doesn’t rely on memorization, but triggering a memory of applying new vocabulary words.

He said, “What this does is bridge the gap between academics and interest in hip-hop.”

The idea is rooted in Martin’s high school days, when he wished there was a way to learn the periodic table as easily as he learned rap lyrics.

Martin recalls that he wasn’t “a five-star student”—more interested in sports and hip-hop culture than books. It wasn’t until high school that Martin began reaching the potential everyone believed he had.

“Black boys are smart, but not in a way that’s rewarded in academics. I was one of those kids,” he told NewsOne. “We have to meet them where they are.”

The Ivy Leaguer is a business major. “I’m more of an entrepreneur who’s interested in education with the goal of helping children of color get into college and succeed,” he explained. “That’s a large part of my inspiration.”

He has an ambitious agenda: “My number one goal is to make as large of an impact as possible. I want to change the face of education, open doors for more programs like this—put a creative spin on education that focuses on children of color achieving academic dreams.”

Martin tested Rhymes With Reason at five schools so far, and hundreds of teachers reach out to him. He’s in the process of developing data on his program’s effectiveness and fine-tuning the program as he moves forward.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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Oakland Schools Teach Manhood Courses To Black Boys

There’s great concern about the teaching profession. Dwindling numbers are entering the pipeline as the retention rate skyrockets, and a wave of baby boomer educators retire.

Many are particularly anxious about the few number of Black men in the profession. But a number of organizations are creating pathways for young Black male teachers to enter the classroom. WWNO-Radio reported recently on one of those efforts.

On March 30, the Honoré Center for Undergraduate Achievement hosted an open house for prospective Black male teachers. The program offers full scholarships to Southern University in New Orleans. In exchange, the students pledge to teach for two years after graduating.

The program’s director, Warren Bell, spoke with WWNO about the urgency:

“This nation and our community in particular needs more African-American males to manage some of those classrooms where they themselves came from. We have no problem with other folks moving to New Orleans to come in and teach. But to have so few people from the New Orleans community, that’s the piece we want to address.” 

Upon announcing a major initiative to recruit Black men, the U.S. Department of Education said less than 2 percent of public school teachers are African-American males.

At the beginning of the 2015 – 2016 school year, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that minorities comprise a majority of public school students, and the number of White students is expected to continue to decline.

The problem, according to numerous studies, is that minority students perform academically better under the guidance of teachers of their own race or ethnicity.

A study reported by the Washington Post states:

“We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout and pass rates between white and minority students falls by roughly half when taught by a minority instructor. In models that allow for a full set of ethnic and racial interactions between students and instructors, we find African-American students perform particularly better when taught by African-American instructors.”

What makes the Honoré Center noteworthy is that it recruits from communities where most young Black men go to prison more frequently than college. They take prospects who were not necessarily the best scholars, and fashion them into educators who are uniquely qualified to teach the next generation of Black boys in urban communities.

But nationwide, there are challenges to not just recruiting Black male teachers, but also retaining them. Many Black male teachers find themselves isolated in school districts. Dr. Travis Bristol, a research and policy fellow at Stanford University, highlights the many difficulties that Black men must overcome.

In research published by the Schott Foundation, Bristol says Black male teachers have one of the highest turnover rates and offers recommendations to policy makers and school administrators based on his study of Black male teachers in Boston Public Schools.

Dr. Travis Bristol’s recommendations for recruiting and retaining Black Male teachers

Target Black male students: Create opportunities for Black male high school juniors and seniors to experience teaching.

Give specific attention to retaining Black male teachers: Resources and leadership of the high-poverty, high-minority schools must be improved.

Target Black male teachers for professional development: Many of them are isolated and need socio-emotional support.

Encourage schools to have more than one Black male teacher: To deal with loners’ isolation, districts should identify schools with one Black male teacher and strongly encourage administrators to hire additional Black men.

Racial and gender awareness training for all administrators: These sessions could be designed and run by male teachers of color in seminars.

Enlarge scope of school districts’ diversity offices: These offices should have the responsibility of reviewing all cases where Black male teachers are excessed or dismissed.

SOURCE: WWNO-Radio, Schott Foundation | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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New Study Confirms A Teacher’s Race Matters

Research from Johns Hopkins University reinforces the case for recruiting and placing more Black teachers in predominantly African-American schools.

According to the Washington Post, the study says race has a significant impact on the level of achievement teachers expect from their students—raising fresh concerns about the consequences of teachers’ unconscious bias on the stubbornly persistent achievement gap.

Johns Hopkins economist and study co-author Nicholas Papageorge said in a statement that researchers found Black and White teachers had systemic disagreements in how they evaluated the same student.

He added: “If I’m a teacher and decide that a student isn’t any good, I may be communicating that to the student. A teacher telling a student they’re not smart will weigh heavily on how that student feels about their future and perhaps the effort they put into doing well in school.”

The study found that White teachers are 30 percent less likely than a Black teacher to believe the same Black student would graduate from a four-year college. Differences in expectations for high school graduation was even dimmer—40 percent.

When the student in question is a Black boy, all the disparities are greater. But Black female teachers stood in their corner. The study discovered that Black female instructors are by far the most optimistic about Black boys succeeding academically.

The Post noted that this study builds on previous evidence of how a teacher’s race could affect their regard for students, as well as evidence of race-based bias in grading.

SOURCE: Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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We too often overlook the impact of good teachers. They not only educate students, but also mold them. Their influence can last well beyond the school year.

Use National Teacher Appreciation Week, May 2 – 6, to celebrate the men and women who bring their passion for education to the classroom every day. Whether you’re a principal, parent, or student, here are a few ideas on how you can show some love for your favorite teacher.

1. PTAs could give the teachers’ lounge a facelift. A fresh coat of paint and good quality donated furniture shows concern for teachers’ comfort during the school day.

2. School administrators could purchase business cards to acknowledge that teachers are indeed professionals.

3. It may be conventional, but thoughtful, to present teachers with a coffee mug bearing his or her name.

4. The personal touch of a handwritten thank you note is a classic way to express appreciation.

5. Volunteer to help out a teacher who seems tireless, but probably needs a break.

6. Get students involved by creating a poster using the children’s own expressions of appreciation for their teacher.

7. Purchase a quality hardcover of the teacher’s favorite book and have each student sign the copy.

8. Send a shout-out about how much you appreciate your child’s teacher by taking out a newspaper ad and presenting a framed copy.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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Education Secretary John King On A Mission To Elevate Teacher Status

Teachers want to be recognized as professionals. U.S. Education Secretary John King told NewsOne he’s championing that cause.

King, who earned confirmation as education secretary in March, understands the challenges and lack of respect teachers sometimes receive. His career began as a social studies teacher; he wants to use his new position to elevate the men and women standing in front of classrooms every day.

Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind, created an opportunity for the secretary. He explained to NewsOne that the new federal education law shifts more authority to states and local school districts. At the same time, it incorporates teachers as partners.

King’s department is collaborating with the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development to promote a key initiative: Teach to Lead. It gives educators a voice to fundamentally change the culture of schools and teaching.

“The idea is to empower teachers to lead from the classroom,” King stated. “Too often teachers feel that they have to leave the classroom to address policy issues. We wanted to create a pathway for teachers to develop initiatives while staying in the classroom.”

In addition to giving teachers a voice, King said it’s paramount to elevate the profession by supplying teachers the skills they need for the 21st century classroom. Public schools are now majority minority, which creates a need for educators who can adapt and excel in this new diverse classroom environment. King underscored the increasing number of English learners entering the education system and noted that many teachers he speaks with say they’re unprepared. As classrooms become filled with more students of color, the secretary said there’s a need for greater cultural awareness. He praised residency programs that bring teachers into the communities where their students live.

King recalled that when he served as New York Education Commissioner, school districts in the state required new teachers to work a 6 to 8-week internship in a community-based organization where they would teach.

“So, they were volunteering at domestic violence shelters or Big Brothers Big Sisters program, where they would get to know the issues and challenges in the community,” he said.

He also noted the need for a more diverse teacher workforce. King said only 18 percent of our teachers are people of color, and just 2 percent of them are Black men. “So, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” King emphasized.

Elevating the profession includes giving new teachers the practical experience they need to succeed in those first few years, when many decide to leave the profession. He points to some districts that have established effective residency programs, where inexperienced teachers get support from a strong mentor.

So far, the Education Department and its partners have held seven Teach to Lead summits, most recently in New Orleans at the end of April. The next summit is planned for July 23-24 in Minneapolis.

SOURCE: Teach to Lead | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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Few African-Americans reach the highest levels in chemistry. According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Blacks earn about 2 percent of all chemistry doctorates. However, one professor is making significant headway in changing that.

Under Professor Isiah M. Warner’s leadership and full buy-in of the chemistry faculty, Louisiana State University leads the nation in producing the highest percentage and number of African-American Ph.D. recipients in chemistry. Black students represented 19 percent of LSU’s chemistry Ph.D.s from 2005 to 2009. The Journal reported there were no chemistry Ph.D.s awarded to Black students at 10 of the 50 top chemistry departments during that same period.

Professor Warner told NewsOne that before he arrived at LSU more than 20 years ago, the university never had more than three African-Americans enrolled in its chemistry doctorate program at one time. In fact, up to that point, the university had graduated a total of six Black chemistry Ph.D.s in its history. The program now averages between 25 to 30 Black students each year working toward their doctorate.

Professor Warner, as the Boyd Professor and Philip W. West Professor of Analytical & Environmental Chemistry, is the newly minted 2016 SEC Professor of the Year and has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Warner wasn’t destined to be counted among the nation’s top chemists. In fact, his upbringing in the rural town of Bunkie, Louisiana during the Jim Crow era had him slated to achieve little in the way of higher education.

“I’m the first in my immediate family to get a high school diploma, let alone a college degree,” he told NewsOne.

But through the guidance and mentoring of his many teachers, particularly his high school music and English teachers, Warner graduated as valedictorian of Carver High School in Bunkie. His English teacher was instrumental in steering him toward earning an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Southern University, where he had a full scholarship.

School segregation put Warner at a huge disadvantage. He said the Black high school in town received old textbooks that were obsolete, “with five or six names crossed out in them,” from students at the White high school. His school offered algebra, but he never heard of calculus until college, and there was no one to teach physics.

“Upon entering college, I felt that Louisiana had placed me five or six years behind White students as a result of my obsolete textbooks,” he said. “But I was in a very nurturing environment. Southern University could take you where you were and bring you up to be competitive.”

Warner explained that key individuals at each step of the way helped him to earn his Ph.D. (from the University of Washington) and excel in his academic career.

“And so, I felt a need to pay it forward,” he said.

In addition to his role as a Boyd Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Warner serves as LSU’s vice president for Strategic Initiatives. Its core mission is to prepare the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) leaders. Some of the programs include a partnership with the 100 Black Men of Metro Baton Rouge for the ACT Prep Academy, the Upward Bound Program, and the LA-STEM Research Scholars Program. Through its range of several programs, LSU helps to prepare and enable a diverse group of high school students to succeed in college, and support others to earn doctorates.

Students will flourish if you nurture and encourage them, he underscored. His work has shown that kids from underperforming high schools can succeed in STEM fields.

He explained: “It’s that nurturing environment, giving them tools, and building their confidence—making them believe they could do anything they want to do. That’s what I had along the way. At every step, I had someone telling me I could do it.”

Warner said about 40 percent of the undergraduate students who participated in the LA-STEM Program graduate with at least a 3.7 grade point average. He noted that the overall graduation rate in STEM for this program is about 89 percent, which is more than twice the national average.

“And there’s hardly any distinction between whether the students are male, female, Black, or White,” he stated about this undergraduate program. “Basically, the success rate is about the same.”

With regard to the graduate program in chemistry, it took time to get everyone onboard. Dr. Warner recalled that while serving as chair of LSU’s chemistry department, some White students were complaining that he was bringing “inferior students” into the Ph.D. program and thus devaluing their degree.

He admitted that the African-American students had lower GRE scores, the standardized test for graduate school admission. However, he agrees with the educational testing service that administers the test: the GRE should not be the sole criterion for admission to graduate school.

Warner said as a result of rumors, he organized a retreat, led by a facilitator, to get things out in the open. He said his Black students were “astounded” to learn what their White classmates thought about them. The Black students, he said, got together and committed to working hard and had great success.

“I tell my students it doesn’t matter what your background is. What matters is how hard you are willing to work,” he stated.

Dr. Warner advises students to find role models and mentors who will “guide them through a very treacherous path” that many are unprepared to navigate alone.

In his own life, he counts his wife among his many mentors. “She comes from a family of educators. Her mother and father were school teachers,” the professor said.

In a lighthearted moment he said, “She taught me how not to be country. I guess I can say that she took the country out of me.”

His wife, who loves to dance, was dismayed to learn when they were dating that he couldn’t shake a leg.

“So she put on some music and said, ‘let me see you move with the music,’” he recalled. “She said, ‘OK, I can work with that.’”

Today, everyone envies the couple’s dance moves.

PHOTO CREDIT: Louisiana State University

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How can administrators accurately predict which teacher candidates will succeed? Well, there’s software for that. And two of the largest companies in the industry have joined forces.

PeopleAdmin announced that it acquired TeacherMatch. They will combine to offer “the industry’s most comprehensive talent management platform and analytical solutions” that administrators could use to make hiring decisions, according to a joint statement.

The combined company will operate under the PeopleAdmin name.

TeacherMatch brings to the partnership its proprietary screening tool, Educators Professional Inventory, which the company says can accurately predict which teacher candidates “are most likely to deliver academic growth for their students.”

Austin, Texas-based PeopleAdmin develops human resources software exclusively for education and government clients. The company says it serves school districts that together hire more than a third of the teachers in the nation.

TeacherMatch brings more than 800 of its own customers, which include four of the five largest school districts, to the table.

In a statement, PeopleAdmin CEO Kermit S. Randa said, “Districts are recognizing the need to adopt the most proven, innovative solutions available as hiring becomes more competitive and talent management strategically more important.”

Randa told the Washington Post:

“At the end of the day you want to get the best people, you want to get them up to speed as fast as possible, you want to engage them and have them perform at their best.”

The Post called it “a controversial concept” that software can predict which teachers will succeed in the classroom.

Despite the doubts, many school districts are getting onboard. The company’s statement pointed to one of its satisfied customers: Jason D. Hammond, the human resources director at Phoenix Elementary School District #1.

“As a customer of both (PeopleAdmin and TeacherMatch), I see this partnership bringing us new technologies and services that will help us be more efficient, stay compliant, hire the best teachers and focus more on our mission of giving students the best chance to succeed.”

Hammond stated to the Post that his school district ranks teacher applicants based on their TeacherMatch survey score:

“We’re moving away from that gut feeling, or just needing something to fill a position, and moving more into that scientific realm.”

According to the newspaper, Hammond’s school district began using TeacherMatch in 2013, in the hope of stemming its tide of teacher turnovers. He said using the software helped the district to identify and retain effective teachers.

SOURCE: PeopleAdmin.com, Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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School Board officials in Ft. Myers, Florida face a federal lawsuit filed by four African-American educators on Friday, accusing the board of employment discrimination, The News-Press reports.

The lawsuit claims that the school board engages in a “pattern and practice” of not hiring Blacks for administrative jobs, often alleging that they’re less qualified than White candidates or manufacturing criticism against Black candidates to disqualify them.

District officials declined to answer questions about the lawsuit because its policy is not to comment on pending lawsuits, said the News-Press.

All the plaintiffs said they were “eminently qualified” for administrative positions:

Gwynetta Gittens is a former finalist for the Golden Apple, a national award program that recognizes teacher excellence. The newspaper said she completed the Florida Education Leadership Program in 2011. Gittens also volunteered for three summer internship programs and school committees.

Plaintiff Jerald Thompson is a teacher in the district who earned his doctorate degree in 2007, and began applying for assistant principal positions since 2012.

Stephanie Lawrence’s futile attempts to get an administrative position began in 2013. She holds an undergraduate degree in management and a master’s degree in human resources. Lawrence continued her education to earn a specialist degree in education leadership.

The fourth plaintiff, Preston Towns, held an assistant principal position but was demoted to teacher after getting a poor performance review. Towns said the demotion was retaliation for his racial discrimination complaints, according to the News-Press.

Those cases add up to a clear pattern of systemic discrimination against African-American applicants for administrative positions, says Benjamin Yormak, the attorney representing the plaintiffs.

Yormak issued this statement, via the News-Press:

“We believe the evidence will show that the discrimination starts at the very top and trickles its way down, preventing African-American upward mobility and depriving our children of the best educators and administrators. When Golden Apple nominees and people with Ph.Ds are not getting hired because of the color of their skin, there is a problem.”

News-Press said the plaintiffs seek several remedies, including compensatory damages and an injunction to stop the school board from further discrimination.

SOURCE: The News-Press | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty 

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Saving Tomorrow, Today: Redeveloping Our Community Schools, a four-city tour to stimulate discussion and strategies for improving schools, will come to Baltimore on June 15.

The city’s public school system is in the middle of a leadership transition. Sonja Santelises will take over as CEO on July 1 from Gregory Thornton, less than two years into his four-year tenure, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Two years ago, the newspaper reported that test scores had the largest one-year drop in the decade since the Maryland School Assessments began. It was the second consecutive year that test scores fell, with grades particularly low in math.

Santelises must manage a school system that’s in financial trouble. At the beginning of this year, officials were preparing for a $25 million decline in state funding because of reduced student enrollment, according to The Sun.

Meanwhile, Baltimore faces a $60 million budget deficit that impacts its public school system. School officials announced the elimination of 171 positions to help close the budget gap.

Elected officials, education advocates, and community stakeholders criticized Thornton for his “lack of vision,” The Sun stated.

The incoming CEO is prioritizing the district’s finances and building bridges to city and community services. Santelises also wants to focus on improving low-performing schools and staffing.

The town hall meeting is organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, and the University of Phoenix. It begins at 6 p.m. at Douglas Memorial Community Church, located at 1325 Madison Avenue in Baltimore.

SOURCE: Baltimore Sun | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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New York City asked a federal judge to throw out a teacher’s lawsuit, which claimed that she was fired over her lesson plan about the five Black teens wrongfully convicted of a violent gang rape in Central Park, NBC News reports.

Convicted in 1989, the so-called Central Park Five were exonerated in 2002 of raping a White female investment banker. DNA evidence backed up the confession of the actual rapist. The city ultimately settled a federal lawsuit with the five men for $40 million, but that didn’t end the divisive turmoil. Many New Yorkers of color point to that case as evidence of police misconduct and ongoing systemic injustice.

Jeena Lee-Walker, the teacher at the center of the controversy, claimed that she received negative performance reviews because her lessons on the Central Park Five appeared biased in favor of the wrongfully convicted Black teens.

In her lawsuit, Lee-Walker said her students—mostly Black and Latino—connected with the case.

“I think because [the students’] instinctual reaction was, like, ‘Oh my God, this is such an injustice, cops are bad’ — just very emotional responses— maybe that was part of what the administrators felt fearful about or unbalanced,” she told NBC.

The city said Lee-Walker’s assistant principal legitimately feared that her lessons would anger students of color. School officials did not prohibit the former English teacher from discussing the case in class, but they said she had to “be fair and evenhanded.”

In its petition to dismiss the case, the city said Lee-Walker would have to prove in court that her presentation on the Central Park Five was protected First Amendment speech and that her dismissal was retaliation for how she presented the case, NBC reported.

The teacher’s attorneys argued in court documents that her lecture is political speech, protected under the First Amendment.

The lawsuit states, via NBC:

“So long as the teacher — consistent with the overall goals of the curriculum — instructs her students without manufacturing history or misleading them, there is no legitimate governmental interest in restraining a teacher’s classroom instruction over fears that students will ‘riot’ or otherwise lose control while learning about an historical event.”

However, the city’s motion to dismiss argues that Lee-Walker’s lesson was not protected by the First Amendment because she was performing her duties as a teacher in the public school system.

SOURCE: NBC News | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter

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The head of a Chicago-based education nonprofit is among 33 social innovators to win a 2016 Echoing Green fellowship.

Jacob Allen, co-founder and chief executive of pilotED, was selected from a pool of more than 2,000 applicants from 120 countries, according to a statement.

These social entrepreneurs are addressing many of the world’s most daunting challenges, such as global warming, racism, and water scarcity. Each fellow will receive up to $90,000 in seed money and gain access to a global network of funders.

“As an institution that sees entrepreneurship as a means to disrupt narratives and create pathways for social change, Echoing Green is so inspired by the talent and vision held by each member of the 2016 class,” said Echoing Green President Cheryl L. Dorsey in a statement.

PilotEd, launched in 2013, offers a unique curriculum to Black and Latino students from low and moderate-income families.

Allen told DNA Info that the school’s approach is to intersect the standard curriculum with lessons that the students can relate to, such as mapping out the number of gangs in their neighborhood, or comparing the chemical elements in blond hair to curly black hair.

The former Teach for America educator explained the approach to DNA Info:

“We’re making everyday issues that our students experience a part of the learning experience. The first thing that happened was that students were engaged more, because they weren’t reading about White blond-hair, blue-eyed individuals. They were actually reading and learning about themselves. Number two, it turned from ‘I am the problem or the victim’ to ‘I am a part of the solution.’”

Allen explained to the Daily Whale, a Chicago-based information site for the business and government sectors, that pilotEd also offers services and programs to the community.

What’s also unique is that the school devotes 25 percent of class time to talk about what success looks like. PilotED helps its students “get in the shoes” of successful people in the community.

“By giving them role models, community engagement opportunities, and embracing a healthy self-image narrative, our students see what it takes to succeed, and can emulate those behaviors,” Allen told the Daily Whale.

Allen plans to use the Echoing Green funding to develop pilotED’s training center and training manual for teachers. A portion will also go toward funding its community outreach activities — from distributing food to helping people “keep their lights on,” according to DNA Info.

SOURCE: Echoing Green, DNA Info, Daily Whale | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter

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Students in low-income school districts face another challenge in closing the digital divide.

An Education Week survey found that teachers who are least confident about education technology tend to work in high-poverty and urban schools.

The study, based on a survey of 700 teachers, is part of a larger survey on educators’ perspectives on the present and future status of educational technology in K-12 schools. Overall, the main study found that teachers “face systemic challenges in adapting their instruction to new technologies in transformative ways.”

Teachers who are less confident about classroom technology are less likely to use a range of classroom technology tools, compared to teachers in more affluent school districts who expose their students to the latest computer applications.

The teachers who are dubious about education tech also reported greater barriers to using technology in the classroom. These barriers include too few computer devices in school, a lack of teacher training, and not enough guidance from school leaders.

These findings, according to the researchers, “offer yet another reason to worry about the evolving digital divide in K-12.”

The Pew Research Center quantified an aspect of the divide dubbed the “homework gap.” Pew estimated last year that about 5 million households with school-age children can’t afford Internet service.

With many teachers giving assignments that require internet access, not having broadband at home creates a significant disadvantage, which the researchers say disproportionately affects Black and Latino children. President Barack Obama has proposed an initiative called ConnectALL to address that issue.

Education Week’s survey painted a picture of these teachers who have no confidence in classroom technology.

Surprisingly, they are no different from the teachers working in affluent school districts: Both groups of educators largely embrace innovation; they have similar demographic backgrounds, and have comparable experience levels.

So, what made the difference? It was the teaching environment that influenced the educators’ perceptions, according to the researchers.

SOURCE: Education Week | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty, Twitter

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