The Council of the Great City Schools added gender to the lens through which it examines the achievement gap and found African-American boys lag far behind their white counterparts and African-American girls, according to a new study — “A Call for Change: The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools” — released by the council last week.

“An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another,” The New York Times reports. “But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.”

The new report follows report on the status of young African-American males released by the Schott Foundation in August. (more…)

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Photo: Schott Foundation

A new report — ”Yes We Can” — from the Cambridge-based Schott Foundation compiles disturbing statistics about the status of young Black males. Fewer than half graduate from high school in four years. The key to turning this trend around, the report notes, includes “universal, well-planned and high quality preschool education for all three- and four-year olds,” as well as “intensive early literacy” programs in high-poverty schools and for students from poor families.

The report singles out New Jersey as the lone state with a significant Black population where more than 65% of Black males graduate from high school with their entering cohort. Credit for the Garden State’s success, the report states, goes to the Abbott plan, the comprehensive school restructuring devised and implemented after a series of rulings from the New Jersey Supreme Court, which found in favor of plaintiffs in a 1981 lawsuit alleging the state’s school funding formula unconstitutionally denied low-income children equal access to education. A cornerstone of the Abbott plan, instituted after a 1998 court ruling, is greatly expanded access to high-quality preschool in the state’s low-income districts. For more information on the Abbott plan and early education, see “Education Reform Starts Early,” a white paper published in December 2009 by the New America Foundation,  and “Lessons From New Jersey,” an article in the July/August issue of American Prospect magazine written by the former assistant commissioner in the New Jersey Department of Education responsible for implementing Abbott. Other Abbott components include increased per pupil spending in low-income districts, intensive literacy and other supplemental programs for at-risk students,  health and social services, smaller class size and improved facilities. The Schott report’s recommendations echo the ingredients of Abbott.

The Schott report also gives state-by-state information on the status of young Black males. In Massachusetts, 52% of Black males graduated high school with their entering class, compared with 78% of White males. On the National Assessment of Education Progress, 80% of Black boys and 51% of White boys scored below proficient on the fourth grade reading test. See MCAS trends by race for information on how Black,  Asian, Latino and White third graders in Massachusetts performed on the state-administered MCAS reading test.

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Photo: Urban Institute

A new brief from the Washington-based  Urban Institute – “Childhood Poverty Persistence: Facts and Consequences” – presents a sobering look at the life outcomes of children who are born into poverty or spend at least half their childhood in poverty. “This study,” the brief notes, “is the first to highlight the relationship between poverty status at birth and children’s poverty persistence and subsequent adult outcomes.”

At some point, more than a third (37%) of children live in poverty, which the federal government defined as $22,050 for a family of four in 2009. Ten percent of children are persistently poor. That means they spend 9-18 years – at least half their childhood – in poverty. Almost half (49%) of children who are born into poverty are persistently poor. For children who are born into poverty, the chances of negative outcomes are disturbingly high:

• One-fifth (22%) do not graduate from high school, compared with 7% of children who are not born into poverty.

(more…)

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