African-Americans in Education through History

1
African-Americans in Education through History

• Justin Barnhart,
• Alysia Martin,
• Amy Bargiel,
• Jennifer Bennedict,
• Shannon Murphy

2
African American Population as of 2000 Census

• There are 34,658,190 African Americans living in
  the United States
• African Americans Comprise 12 of the total U.S.
  Population
• Ohio Total Population 11,353,140
• Ohio African American Population 1,301,307
• 11.5 of Ohios Population is African American

3
Where The African American Population Lives
4
Educational Attainment 25

• 73 African Americans High School Diploma or
  Higher
• 80 Total U.S. Population High School Diploma or
  Higher
• 14 African Americans Bachelors Degree or Higher
• 24 Total U.S. Population Bachelors Degree or
  Higher

5
Income According to 2000 Census

• Median Family Income African Americans 33,255
• Median Family Income Total U.S. Population
  50,046
• African Americans Below the Poverty Level 54
• Total U.S. Population Below the Poverty Level 24

6
3rd Grade Reading Proficiency in Ohio 2007-2008

• Racial Gaps Begin at an Early Age
• African American Children Had The Lowest
  Percentage of Passage on 3rd Grade Reading
  Achievement Test
• African American 56.4 Passing Rate Across Ohio
• White Non-Hispanic 82.7 Passage on the Same Test

Source The Ohio Department of Education
7
You Have to See it to Believe it!
8
10th Grade OGT Reading Results in Ohio 2007-2008

• African American Students Still Struggle More
  Than Any Other Race of Student
• Only 68.9 Passed
• Asian Students Were The Highest With 91 Passage
• White Students Achieved Second Highest With 88.8
  Passage
• African Americans Lagged Far Behind All Other
  Races

9
You Have to See it to Believe it 2!
10
Standardized Testing and African American Students

• African Americans are Trailing Behind All Other
  Races in Every Tested Category
• The Most Challenging Subjects are Math and
  Science
• Both in High School and Elementary African
  Americans are Falling Behind

11
Results for the Elementary Grades Ohio
Achievement Test
12
Ohio OGT Results 2007-2008 by Race
13
Minority Students are Responding to Intervention
in High Numbers

• When Looking At The Improvement in Passing Rates
  Minorities are Out Performing the Dominant
  Culture
• African Americans are Third in Improvement at
  4.75
• American Indians Lead the Way at 5.55
• White and Asian Americans Lag Behind With Less
  Than a 2 Growth From the Previous Year

14
You Have to See it to Believe it 3!
15
Why Do You Think Minorities Are Responding Better
to Intervention?
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16
Education of African Americans
Kelly Miller, the first African American to
attend John Hopkins University
17
African American Education Prior to Civil War
(before 1861)

• Successful strivings of Negros for enlightenment
  under the most adverse circumstances.
• Slaves needed to be taught, but question
• How far would their education go?
• 1760-struggles for rights aroused
• Many could not look past the horrendous acts done
  to slaves
• Many believed they were at least entitled to
  freedom of body.
• Eventually Baptists and Methodists allowed access
  to the Negro population both bond and free.

18

• Three advocates for education
• Masters of Slaves
• Sympathetic persons
• Missionaries

19
Why education of slaves led to new opportunities
in America.

• The growth and expansion led to rapid educational
  development in African Americans.
• Masters felt that educated slaves
• proved useful and trustworthy
• were better laborers and artisans
• good at administrative abilities
• Able to manage the large plantations and business
  establishments

20

• Added to poetry, math, science, and philosophy,
  especially with the free in the North
• Some were employed to teach the white children

21
Segregated schools started not as a negative

• Certain educateos advocated to establish special,
  colored schools.
• They were not meant to separate, but rather a
  movement to meet the needs of people just
  emerging from slavery.
• Educators saw the need to move beyond just
  religion.
• Courses in industries, literature, math
• Girls specialized in swing and French

22
1930s

• Education now radically segregated
• It was the law in many places especially the
  South
• African Americans often lived in the poorest
  parts of the communities
• Neighborhood schools suffered inability to raise
  funds to pay teachers salaries and maintenance
• African Americans unrepresented on school boards
• Unable to push for better school funding

23
1930s Educational Stats

• Average pupil expenditure 80
• African Americans15
• Nationally 25 of all students were African
  American, but they only received 12 of all
  educational revenue and only 3 of funds budgets
  for transportation .

24
Brown vs. Board of Education1950-still radical
segregation

• Schools defined as equal, but the African
  American schools were far inferior to the white
  counterparts.
• Topeka, Kansas-Linda Brown
• NAACP-National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People
• 1951-NAACP requested injunction that would forbid
  the segregation of Topekas public schools

25

• District Court for the District of Kansas
• Heard case June 25-26, 1951
• NAACP argued the segregated schools sent the
  message to black children that they were inferior
  to whites.
• Board of Education defense
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• Appealed to Supreme Court on Oct. 1st 1951 and
  heard December 9, 1952
• 14th Amendment
• Supreme Courts decision

26
Milestones in African American Education

• 1856-Wilberforce University, the first black
  school of higher learning owned and operated by
  African Americans, founded by the African
  American Episcopal Church.
• 1869 Howard Universitys law school becomes the
  country's first black law school.
• 1876-Meharry Medical College, the first black
  medical school.

27

• 1881-Spelman College, the first college for black
  women.
• 1944-Frederick Douglass Patterson establishes the
  United Negro College Fund to help support black
  colleges and black students.
• 1954-Brown vs. Board of Education

28

• 1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal
  troops to ensure integration of the all-white
  Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. The
  Little Rock Nine were the first black students to
  attend the school.
• 1968-San Francisco State University becomes the
  first four-year college to establish a black
  studies department.

29

• 2003-In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court
  (5-4) upholds the University of Michigan Law
  School's affirmative action policy, ruling that
  race can be one of many factors considered by
  colleges when selecting their students because it
  furthers a compelling interest in obtaining the
  educational benefits that flow from a diverse
  student body.

30
Question

• Does affirmative action policies still force
  that segregation in the minds of decision makers?

31
Legal Decisions for African-Americans in Education
32
Early Cases

• 1849 Robert vs. City of Boston
• 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
• separate but equal
• 1908 Private schools required to be segregated

33
Cumming v. Richmond (GA) County Board of
Education1899

• The Supreme Court allows a state to levy taxes on
  black and white citizens alike while providing a
  public school for white children only.

34
Desegregation

• 1952-1954 Brown v. Board of Education
• 1955-1960 Federal judges hold more than 200
  desegregation hearings

35
The Right Direction

• 1940 Equal pay for African-American and white
  teachers
• 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964

36
Enforcing Brown

• 1968 Court orders to dismantle segregated
  school systems
• 1969 All deliberate speed no longer
  constitutional
• 1971 Court allows busing, magnet schools,
  compensatory education
• 1972 Splinter districts refused

37
Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1

• De jure state mandated segregation
  (unconstitutional)
• De facto segregation that is the result of
  private choices (not unconstitutional)

38
Still Finding the Right Direction

• 1982 Court rejects tax exemptions for private
  schools that discriminate
• 1986 Once a school reaches the Green factors,
  it can return to local control
• 1992 Court rules that schools can meet these
  factors in an incremental fashion

39
More Recent Developments

• A report from Harvard's Civil Rights Project
  concludes that America's schools are
  resegregating. 2002
• A study by Harvard's Civil Rights Project finds
  that schools were more segregated in 2000 than in
  1970 when busing for desegregation began. 2003

40
Question

• Why do you think schools are more segregated now
  than they were in 1970?

41
Comparing and Contrasting the Education of
African Americans With the education of the
dominant Group
42
Education from Slavery to Present Day

• Slavery was made a lifelong system.
• There were massive hegemonic structures
  operating at all levels.
• These structures included philosophical
  abstractions claiming racial and intellectual
  superiority of whites through legal controls,
  work scheduling, and resident patterns down to
  micro level policies of interactions between
  whites and blacks.

43

• It was believed by white Southerners that
  everyone should have access to the Christian
  Bible.
• Planters would educate the slaves from revised
  Bible passages that supported capture and
  involuntary servitude.
• Enslaved children learned from their parents and
  they learned numbers, counting, the alphabet and
  spelling from white children while playing
  school.

44

• Education of white children was largely in the
  hands of private groups. While, education of
  Negroes was almost non existent.
• The education of African Americans was even
  forbidden in some states.

45

• The segregation in education was viewed as
  resulting in, the Negro children, as a class,
  receiving educational opportunities which are
  substantially inferior to those available to
  white children otherwise similarly situated.
• This led to the view of separate but not equal
  regarding conditions of education and schools of
  African Americans to the schools of white
  children.

46

• Today there are still messages in education that
  reinforce white supremacy.
• Acting white is term used in the African
  American community. This is used to define
  African Americans who act out the norms that are
  generated, imposed, and maintained by the larger,
  dominant community.

47

• Early on, students are taught hegemonic values of
  white supremacy by the way we teach.
• Unfortunately, stories and texts fail to
  publicly acknowledge a multiplicity of voices
  and this negates the idea of a multiple ethic
  that includes the black self.

48
Educational Concernsand Controversies
49
African Americans tend to be over-represented in

• Special Education Programs
• Juvenile Justice system as offenders
• Incarceration rates
• Poverty rates
• Unemployment
• Discipline referrals resulting in suspension or
  expulsion

50
African Americans tend to be under-represented in

• Programs for the Gifted and other advanced
  courses
• School activities other than sports
• Teaching counselors, administrators
• Graduation rates
• Science and Technology classes
• Higher level Mathematics

51
African American students are getting left behind

• In 1997 Washington State gave the first
  Washington Assessment of Student Learning to
  students.
• 73 of African American students did not meet the
  standard in Reading.
• 95 did not meet the standard in Math.
• 69 did not meet the standard in Writing
• 55 did not meet the standard in Listening

52
Years later, African American students still
struggle

• In 2004-2005 only 37.7 of 4th grade African
  American students met the standard in Math
  leaving more than 63 who did not.
• 23.5 of7th grade students met the standard in
  Math, 74.7 did not
• Only 14 of 8th graders met the standard in
  science, 86 did not.
• 53.3 of 10th graders met the standard in
  reading.

53
Achievement Gaps

• Before children even enter Kindergarten, there is
  an achievement gap between African Americans and
  Caucasians. This achievement gap continues
  through adulthood.
• Research shows that when African Americans and
  Caucasians attend schools together, African
  Americans typically achieve lower grades

54
A Slight Decrease

• Between 1970 and 1990 the Achievement Gap
  decreased by about 40 and then stopped.
• Possible reasons for this sudden stop
• Biased testing
• Discrimination
• Anxiety
• Disparities in income and family structure
• Cultural differences

55
The Later Years of the Achievement Gap

• A Recent study of upper-middle class community
  Shaker Heights, Ohio found that about 80 of
  white students and fewer than 3 of African
  American students pass with honors (3.0 GPA or
  above)

56
African American Vernacular English

• Also known as
• Ebonics
• or Black English

57
Deficient Theory

• This theory proposes that the minds of minority
  children are lacking a quality that makes them
  unable to speak Standard English.
• Standard English would be considered English that
  is commonly accepted among a society.

58
Black English

• Black English was supposedly considered the
  attempt of African Americans to speak Standard
  English.
• It was considered an inferior dialect.
• However, African Americans were not the only ones
  to use this dialect.

59
Amended Resolution of the Oakland School Board on
Ebonics

• The original Resolution was written in December
  of 1996. The amended version was written a month
  later in January of 1997.

60
Amended Resolution of the Oakland School Board on
Ebonics

• States that it is based on studies that believed
  that African Americans possessed and utilized
  their own language
• Recognized that some African American students
  used Ebonics as their primary speech, and
  therefore qualified for ESL.
• Wanted to remedy the low stat and national norms
  by creating a program featuring African American
  Language Systems to move them from their initial
  language to traditional English

61
Amended Resolution of the Oakland School Board on
Ebonics

• Wanted to create a program for teachers and
  instructional assistants to certify them in a
  methodology of African Language Systems to help
  students move onto English.
• Wanted to implement the best possible program for
  combined purpose of acquisition and mastery of
  English skills while respecting and embracing the
  legitimacy and richness of the language patterns
  of Ebonics or African Language Systems.

62
Teaching Techniques that will benefit African
American students as well as your other students

• Link Classroom Content with the students past
  experiences.
• Focus on the whole child rather than just
  cognitive growth
• Use and get to know your students cultural norms
  and patterns.
• Use cultural relevant teaching.

63

• Have high expectations to help form
  self-efficacy.
• Stretch the borders of the classroom. (Reach out
  to the community)
• Pedagogy must provide a way for students to
  maintain their cultural integrity while
  succeeding academically.

64

• References
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  Bowling Green St. Univ. Lib., OH. 23 October
  2008 lthttp//0-web.ebscohost.com.
  maurice.bgsu.edu/ehostgt.
• (1997). Brown et al. v. Board of Education
  Topeka et al., Vol.1 Issue 1, 1-10. Retrieved
  Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Bowling Green
  St. Univ. Lib., OH. 23 October 2008
  lthttp//0-web.ebscohost.com. maurice.bgsu.edu/ehos
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• Watkins, William H., Lewis, James H., Victoria
  Chou. (2001). Race and education the roles of
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  students. Boston Allyn and Bacon.

65

• Holladay, Jennifer (Spring 2004, Updated 2007).
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66

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67

• Ohio Department of Education. Retrieved October
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68

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