CBCF AND SCHOLARS CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO ON EDUCATING BLACK MALES

Washington, DC-The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation will release Challenge the Status Quo: Academic Success among School-age African American Males from 2 – 4 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 5, at the UNC-Charlotte Center City Campus during a symposium held in conjunction with the Democratic National Convention (DNC). Written by Ivory A. Toldson, Ph.D., senior research analyst at CBCF and Howard University professor and Chance Lewis, Ph.D., of UNC-Charlotte, Challenge the Status Quo examines a comprehensive strategy to ensure equitable resources, college and career readiness, and fair discipline practices for school-aged black males.

The report challenges conventional wisdom on educating black males and uses national data to provide a picture of a productive school environment. In the report, the authors assert that schools should work to have a collective GPA of more than 3.0, have near 100 percent student participation in an extracurricular activity, have at least 25 percent of their black males in honors classes and less than six percent in special education, and suspend less than 10 percent of their black male students for any reason. Currently, of U.S. public schools serving mostly African-American and Hispanic students, only 65 percent offer Algebra II, 40 percent offer Physics and only 29 percent offer Calculus. Black students are the most likely to have teachers who go though "alternative certification programs," have less years of experience and lower salaries. Also black males are the least likely to be placed in honors classes and the most likely to be placed in special education classes. More than 1 in 4 black males are suspended.

Elsie L. Scott, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer for CBCF said, "as you review this report, we hope that you actively imagine ways that we can collectively challenge and change the way public education is offered to young black males."

The report also reveals the admissions criteria and black representation of every "flagship" university in the United States, to demonstrate how many black public school students are systematically disqualified from their states' most selective public institutions of higher education because of their addresses. "In Challenge the Status Quo, Toldson and Lewis reveal how states, districts and schools conspire to educationally malnourish some of the nation's schoolchildren," said Leslie Fenwick, dean of Howard University's School of Education.

Developed with funding from the Open Society Foundation's Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Challenge the Status Quo is available at www.cbcfinc.org. Hard copies of the report will be distributed at the DNC and during CBCF's Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., Sept. 19 – 22, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.