Theresa Perry

Lisa Delpit

Robert P. Moses

Ernesto Cortes, Jr.

Joan T. Wynne

In 2005, famed civil rights leader and education activist Robert Moses invited one hundred prominent African American and Latino intellectuals and activists to meet to discuss a proposal for a campaign to guarantee a quality education for all children as a constitutional right—a movement that would “transform current approaches to educational inequity, all of which have failed miserably to yield results for our children.” The response was passionate, and the meeting launched a movement. This book—emerging directly from that effort—reports on what has happened since and calls for a new scale of organizing, legal initiatives, and public definitions of what a quality education is. Essays include · Robert Moses’s historically rooted call for citizens, especially young people, to make the demand for quality education · Ernesto Cortés’s view from decades of work organizing Latino communities in Texas · Charles Payne’s interview with students from the Baltimore Algebra Project, who organized to make historic demands on their district · Legal scholar Imani Perry’s nuanced analysis of the prospects of making a case for quality education as a right guaranteed by the Constitution · Perspectives from scholars Lisa Delpit and Joan T. Wynne, and by teachers Alicia Caroll and Kim Parker, who provide examples of what quality education is, describing its goal, and how to guide practice in the meantime

Creating a Grassroots Movement to Transform Public Schools

Quality Education as a Constitutional Right

From the X cap to the lyrics of hip-hop music, Malcolm X has captured the imagination of America's youth. Teaching Malcolm X offers vibrant, multicultural approaches for teaching and understanding Malcolm's speeches and writings in elementary, high school, and university level classes. This book brings together a dazzling array of perspecties on Malcolm X. Contributors discuss the importance of X as a historical figure and cultural hero, and provide guidelines for teaching about Malcolm X in a wide variety of educational settings and academic disciplines. Addressing such topics as feminsim and nationalism, Black rage, imprisonment and the Black community, and freedom through literacy, Teaching Malcolm X gives educators the practical techniques, tools, and resources they need to integrate Malcolm X's legacy into discussions of American history, politics, race, and culture--back cover.

Teaching Malcolm X

In the winter of 1996, the Oakland school board's resolution recognizing Ebonics as a valid linguistic system generated a brief firestorm of hostile criticism and misinformation, then faded from public consciousness. But in the classrooms of America, the question of how to engage the distinctive language of many African-American children remains urgent. In The Real Ebonics Debate some of our most important educators, linguists, and writers, as well as teachers and students reporting from the field, examine the lessons of the Ebonics controversy and unravel the complex issues at the heart of how America educates its children.

Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children

The Real Ebonics Debate

Claude Steele

Young, Gifted, and Black is a unique joint effort by three leading African-American scholars to radically reframe the debates swirling around the achievement of African-American students in school. In three separate but allied essays, Theresa Perry, Claude Steele, and Asa Hilliard place students' social identity as African-Americans at the very center of the discussion. They all argue that the unique social and cultural position Black students occupy, in a society which often devalues and stereotypes African American identity, fundamentally shapes students' experience of school and sets up unique obstacles. And they all argue that a proper understanding of the forces at work can lead to practical, powerful methods for promoting high achievement at all levels. Theresa Perry argues that African-American students face dilemmas, founded in the experience of race and ethnicity in America, that make the task of achievement distinctive and difficult. (For instance: "How do I commit myself to achieve, to work hard over time in school, if I cannot predict when or under what circumstances this hard work will be acknowledged and recognized?") She uncovers a rich and powerful African- American philosophy of education, historically forged against such obstacles and capable of addressing them, by reading African-American narratives from Frederick Douglass to Maya Angelou. She carefully critiques the most popular theoretical explanations for group differences in achievement. And she lays out how educators today-in a postcivil rights era-can draw on theory and on the historical power of the African-American philosophy and tradition of education to reorganize the school experience of African-American students. Claude Steele reports stunningly clear empirical psychological evidence that when Black students believe they are being judged as members of a stereotyped group rather than as individuals, they do worse on tests. He finds the mechanism, which he calls "stereotype threat," to be a quite general one, affecting women's performance in mathematics, for instance, where stereotypes about gender operate. He analyzes the subtle psychology of stereotype threat and reflects on the broad implications of his research for education, suggesting techniques-based again on evidence from controlled psychological experiments-that teachers and mentors and schools can use to counter stereotype threat's powerful effect. Asa Hilliard's ends essay, against a variety of false theories and misguided views of African American achievement, and focuses on actual schools and programs and teachers around the country that allow African-American students achieve at high levels, describing what they are like and what makes them work. Young, Gifted, and Black will change the way we think and talk about African American student achievement and will be necessary reading on this topic for years to come.

Promoting High Achievement among African-American Students

Young, Gifted and Black

Jim Fraser

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Teaching in the Multicultural Classroom

Freedom's Plow

The volume brings together a dazzling array of perspectives on Malcolm X to discuss the importance of X as a cultural hero and provide guidelines for teaching Malcolm-related material at elementary, high school and university levels.

Theresa Perry

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