This article's primary interest is an exploration of the complexities of educational and social conditions encountered by African American males in public schools. It focuses on the ability and effectiveness of comprehensive school reform to overcome the barriers to learning that hinder the urban Black male student, such as concentrated poverty, drug use, and violence. Current trends in comprehensive school reform tend to overlook the importance of cultural relevancy and student/teacher cultural synchronization in educating Black males. As such, this article argues that efforts for the reform of policy and practice be conjoined with the recruitment of educators and school staff. Specifically, this article addresses the effectiveness of recruiting well-educated African American male teachers to teach in schools with large populations of African American male students.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Balfanz, R., & Legters, N. E. (1998). How many truly awful urban high schools are there? Some early estimates. Unpublished manuscript, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
2.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America. New York: Basic Books.
3.
Boykin, A. W. (1986). The triple quandary of schooling Afro-American children. In U. Neisser (Ed.), The school achievement of minority children (pp. 57-92). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4.
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
5.
Clune, W. H., & White, P. A. (1988). School-based management: Institutional variation, implementation, and issues for further research. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Center for Policy Research in Education.
6.
Cohen, D. K. (1988). Teaching practice: Plus que ca change. In P.W. Jackson (Ed.), Contributing to educational change: Perspectives on research and practice (pp. 27-84). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing Corporation.
7.
Cohen, D., & Spillance, J. (1992). Policy and practice: The relations between governance and instruction. In G. Grant (Ed.), The review of research in education (pp. 3-49). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
8.
Cooper, R. (1996). De-tracking reform in an urban California high school: Improving the schooling experience of African American students. Journal of Negro Education, 65(2), 190-208.
9.
Cooper, R. (1999). A promising example of urban school reform: De-tracking in a racially mixed high school. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 4(3), 259-275.
10.
Cooper, R. (2000). Urban school reform from a student of color perspective. Urban Education, 34(5), 597-622.
11.
Cooper, R., & Datnow, A. (2000). African-American students' success in independent schools: A model of family, peer, community, and school influences. In M. Sanders (Ed.), Schooling students placed at risk: Research, policy, and practice in the education of poor and minority adolescents (pp. 187-206). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
12.
Cooper, R., & Slavin, R. E. (2001). Cooperative learning programs and multicultural education: Improving intergroup relations. In F. Salili & R. Hoosain (Eds.), Research on multicultural education and international perspectives (pp. 15-33). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
13.
Cuban, L. (1990). Reforming again, again, and again. Educational Researcher, 19(1), 3-13.
14.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2000). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence [Electronic version]. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(1).
15.
Delpit, L. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press.
16.
Deutsch, M., & Brown, B. (1964). Social influences in Negro-White intelligence differences. Journal of Social Issues, 20, 24-35.
17.
Dusek, J. B. (1975). Do teachers bias children's learning? Review of Educational Research, 45(4), 661-684.
18.
Elashoff, J. D., & Snow, R. E. (1971). Pygmalion reconsidered. Worthington, OH: Charles A. Jones Publishing Company.
19.
Elmore, R. E. (1996). Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 1-26.
20.
Elmore, R. E., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1988). Steady work: Policy, practice and the reform of American education. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
21.
Entwisle, D. R., & Hayduk, L. A. (1978). Too great expectations: The academic outlook of young children. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
22.
Epstein, J. L. (1995). School, family, community partnerships: Caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 76, 701-712.
23.
Firestone, W. A. (1989). Educational policy as an ecology of games. Educational Researcher, 18(7), 18-23.
24.
Garibaldi, A. M. (1992). Educating and motivating African American males to succeed. Journal of Negro Education, 61, 4-11.
25.
Gibbs, J. T. (Ed.). (1988). Young, Black, and male in America: An endangered species. Dover, MA: Auburn House.
26.
Hare, B. R. (1987). Structural inequality and the endangered status of Black youth. Journal of Negro Education, 56(1), 100-110.
27.
Harris, W. G., & Duhon, G. M. (1999). The African American male perspective of barriers to success. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
28.
Holland, S. H. (1991). Positive role models for primary-grade Black inner-city males. Equity and Excellence, 25(1), 40-44.
29.
Irvine, J. J. (1990). Black students and school failure: Policies, practices and prescriptions. New York: Greenwood.
30.
Jencks, C., Smith, M., Acland, H., Bane, M. J., Cohen, D., Gintis, H., et al. (1972). Inequality: A reassessment of the effect of family and schooling in America. New York: Basic Books.
31.
John, V., & Goldstein, L. (1964). The social context of language acquisitions. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 10, 265-275.
32.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson R. T. (1981). Effects of cooperative and individualistic learning experience on interethnic interaction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 444-449.
33.
Jordan, W., & Cooper, R. (2003). High school reform and Black male students: Limits and possibilities of policy and practice. Urban Education, 38(2), 196-216.
34.
Jordan, W. J., McPartland, J. M., Legters, N. E., & Balfanz, R. (2000). Creating a comprehensive school reform model: The talent development high school with career academies. Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk, 5(1/2), 159-181.
35.
Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. New York: Harper Perennial.
36.
Kunjufu, J. (1986). Countering the conspiracy to destroy Black boys (Vol. 2). Chicago: African American Images.
37.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dream-keeper: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
38.
Lee, V. E., & Loeb, S. (2000). School size in elementary schools: Effects on teacher's attitudes and student achievement. American Education Research Journal, 37(1), 3-31.
39.
Lou, R. (1994). Teaching all students equally. In M. Allen (Ed.), Teaching from a multicultural perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
40.
Lusi, S. (1997). The role of state departments of education in complex school reform. New York: Teachers College Press.
41.
Mojkowski, C., & Fleming, D. (1988). School-site management: Concepts and approaches. Andover, MA: Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands.
42.
Murphy, J. (1992). Restructuring America's schools: An overview. In C. Finn & T. Rebarbert (Eds.), Education reform in the 1990s (pp. 3-20). New York: Macmillan.
43.
National Association of Secondary School Principals. (1996). Breaking ranks: Changing an American institution. Reston, VA: Author.
44.
Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
45.
Oakes, J., Lipton, M., & Jones, M. (1995, April). Changing minds: Deconstructing intelligence in de-tracking schools. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco.
46.
Peters, M. (1981). Parenting in Black families with young children: A historical perspective. In J. McAdoo (Ed.), Black children: Social, educational, and parental environments (pp. 211-224). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
47.
Petrie, H. G. (1990). Reflections on the second wave of reform: Restructuring the teaching profession. In S. L. Jacobson & J. A. Conway (Eds.), Educational leadership in an era of reform (pp. 14-29). New York: Longman.
48.
Polite, V. C., & Davis, J. E. (1999). African American males in school and society: Practices and policies for effective education. New York: Teachers College Press.
49.
Rist, R. C. (1970). Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education. Harvard Educational Review, 40(3), 411-451.
50.
Sanders, M. G. (1996). Building family partnerships that last. Educational Leadership, 54(3), 61-66.
51.
Sanders, M. G. (1998). The effects of school, family and community support on the academic achievement of African American adolescents. Urban Education, 33(3), 385-409.
52.
Sanders, M. G. (2000). Schooling students placed at risk: Research, policy, and practice in the education of poor and minority adolescents. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
53.
Schofield, J. S. (1991). School desegregation and inter-group relations: A review of the literature. In G. Grant (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 17, pp. 335-409). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
54.
Sleeter, C., & Grant, C. (1994). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class and gender. New York: Macmillan.
55.
Smith, M. S., & O'Day, J. (1990). Systemic school reform. In M. B. Ginsburg (Ed.), Politics of education association yearbook, 1990 (pp. 233-267). New York: Taylor & Francis.
56.
Tatum, B. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1-24.
57.
Wang, M. C., & Gordon, E. W. (Eds.). (1994). Educational resilience in inner-city America: Challenges and prospects. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
58.
Winfield, L. F. (1991). Resilience, schooling, and development in African American youth: A conceptual framework. Educational and Urban Society, 24, 5-14.
