Robert Murphy Training Goals Give historical overview of African - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Robert Murphy

Training Goals

 Give historical overview of African American male

experience

 Examine the possibility of a school to prison

pipeline for African American males

 Address key issues preventing African American

males academic and social connectivity.

Opening Activity

 What day of the year is a military command?

The Overview

What Schools Do now

• Feed
• Educate
• Teach Character
• Clothe students
• Provide afterschool activities
• Health Services
• Opportunities for travel

What’s in a name?

Black—Synonyms

• 1. dark, dusky; sooty, inky; swart, swarthy;

sable, ebony. 4. dirty, dingy. 5. sad, depressing, somber, doleful, mournful, funeral. 7. disastrous, calamitous. 9. sinful, inhuman, fiendish, devilish, infernal, monstrous; atrocious, horrible; nefarious, treacherous, traitorous, villainous.

SOURCE: Dictionary.com

What’s in a name?

 Black?—Antonyms

• 1. white. 4. clean. 5. hopeful, cheerful.

 SOURCE: Dictionary.com

 “One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro,

two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

 W.E.B. DuBois

Sobering Findings, African American Males:

Do not have the same

• pportunities as their

male or female counterparts

Have higher infant

mortality rates

Have limited access to

health care

Are more likely to live in

single-parent homes

Are less likely to

participate in early childcare programs

Are less likely to be raised

in a household with a fully employed adult

Are more likely to live in

poverty

Are less likely than their

peers to be employed

Council on Great Schools, 2010

Data in Maryland

Who are our students? Maryland Public School Enrollment

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 African American Asian White Hispanic 1993 2000 2010

3rd grade MSA Reading

3rd Grade Reading Statewide – Disaggregated by Gender

3rd Grade Mathematics Statewide – Disaggregated by Gender

8th Grade Reading Statewide – Disaggregated by Gender

8th Grade Mathematics Statewide – Disaggregated by Gender

In Maryland, 10% of AA males are proficient or advanced in literacy on NAEP

Teacher Expectations

Four experimental studies examining teachers’

treatment of Black and White students-

Coates 1972 Feldman & Orchowsky 1979 Rubovits & Maher, 1973 Taylor, 1979

All four experiments found that teachers were

less supportive of Black than White students

4-year Graduation Rates by subgroup and gender

External Factors

Mobility

Maryland mobility 2009

What does the Research say

 Rumberger and Larson (1998) found that high

school students who make a non-promotional change are twice as likely not to graduate.

 Xu, Hannaway, and D’Souza (2009) found that

non-promotional moves are associated with lower mathematics performance for African American and Hispanic Students.

Mobility Continued

 A 2004 Maryland State Department of Education

Report concluded, “Among non-FARMS students, even a single non-promotional transfer had a negative impact academically and this effect increased with the number of transfers.”

 The report states, “These data suggest that some

non-promotional transfer students not currently identified as at-risk may in fact be at-risk and could benefit from academic support programs”.

Two Types of Mobility

 Planned/Structure

 Family moving  Divorce (w/ agreement)  Career  Military

 Unplanned/Unstructured

 Displacement (Natural

Disaster, Fire, etc..)

 Economic Reasons  Unstable Housing  Family Problems (abuse-

substance, physical, etc..

 Divorce

Habitual truancy

A student is considered a habitual truant if he or she

meets ALL of the following criteria:

The student was age 5 through 20 during the school year; The student was in membership in a school for 91 or more

days; and

The student was unlawfully absent for 20% or more days in

membership

Impacts of Mobility

 Attendance  Habitual Truancy  Connectedness/Engagement  Performance

African American men historically

Low Skill Low Academic

>

Incarceration Rates

 More young (20-34) African American men without a

high school diploma or GED are currently behind bars (37 %) than employed (26 %)

 One in nine African American children (11.4 %) have

an incarcerated parent

 One in twelve black men between the ages of 18-64 is

incarcerated

Source: Pew Charitable Trusts 2010

Development of the Alternative Culture

 Many African American’s development of

people“hood”/community was in direct opposition to white social identity.

 Thus various boundaries and boundary maintaining

behaviors developed.

 Whereby many black students attribute high academic

achievement to “acting white.”

 Negative peer pressure as a unique barrier to academic

achievement.

 Black students particularly males adopt differing strategies

• n how not to be labeled by peers

Source: John Ogbu (1978,1983,1987)

Disparate disciplinary treatment

Zero Tolerance

The most widely implemented school

discipline policy in the United States.

Zero tolerance policy assigns explicit,

predetermined punishments to specific violation of school rules regardless of situation or context of behavior.

Is Disciplinary Removal Effective?

30-50% of students suspended are repeat

• ffenders

 “Suspension functions as a reinforcer...rather than as

a punisher” (Tobin, Sugai & Colvin,1996)

Use of suspension correlates with

 School dropout (school level) (Raffaele-Mendez;

Ekstrom, 1986)

 Juvenile incarceration (state level) (Skiba et al)

Alternative Explanations of Disciplinary Disproportionality

Do black students misbehave more?

 No supporting evidence  May in fact be treated more severely for

same offenses

 Student perceptions of disparity

What Behaviors are Students Referred For? By Race

• White students

referred more for:

Smoking Vandalism Leaving w/o permission Obscene Language

• Black students

referred more for:

Disrespect Excessive Noise Threat Loitering

Of 32 infractions, only 8 significant differences:

What Might Be Causing Disciplinary Disproportionality?

Doesn’t appear to be related to AA

enrollment

Perhaps correlated with overuse of

suspension and expulsion

May originate at classroom level

 No differences at office level (Skiba et al.,

2002)

 “Violations of implicit interactional codes”

(Vavrus & Coles, 2002)

What Else Might Be Causing Disciplinary Disparities?

Classroom Management

“Violations of implicit interactional codes” (Vavrus &

Coles, 2002)

Interactions of some teachers/some students?

Cultural Disparities

Cultural misinterpretations Lower or different expectations

Influence of stereotypes

How are African American boys perceived? Different standards of “boys will be boys” Differential standards for “respect”, “loitering”, “threat”

Maryland Data Unduplicated count

• f number of students suspended
• r expelled by race

Digging Deeper in the data in- school suspension only

Maryland Out of school suspensions

Maryland Out of School Suspension Data 2010

African American students represent

60,843/97,460 or 62.4% of all out of school suspensions in Maryland.

African American males are estimated to be

70% of African American suspensions equaling almost 43,000 out of school suspensions.

Maryland Out of School Suspension Data 2010

Almost 18,000 African American males last

year were suspended for Disrespect/Insubordination/ Classroom disturbance

Almost 14,000 African American males last

year were suspended for Attack/ Threats/ Fighting

Maryland records Manual Disciplinary Codes

 701 Disrespect

 Making inappropriate or offensive gestures, symbols,

and/or comments others in any format (writing, verbal and/or electronic).

 702 Insubordination

 Refusing to follow directions of teachers, staff, or

administrators.

Maryland records Manual Disciplinary Codes

 704 Classroom Disruption

 Behavior that interferes with the learning of others in a

classroom or other learning environment.

 705 Inciting/Participating in Disturbance

 Causing and/or participating in behavior that is

disruptive/detrimental to the safe and orderly operation

• f a school.

Maryland records Manual Disciplinary Codes

 403 Verbal Threat or Physical Gestures that

Threaten a Teacher, Staff or Other Adults

 Threatening language (verbal or written/electronic;

implicit or explicit) or physical gestures directed towards a staff member or anyone else other than a student. (Threat assessment may be necessary

 404 Verbal or Physical Threat to Student

 Threatening language (verbal or written/electronic;

implicit or explicit) or physical gestures directed toward another student.

Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004)

Engagement is defined as:

Emotional- Encompasses positive and negative reactions to teachers, classmates, academics, and is presumed to create ties to an institution and influences willingness to do the work.

Engagement is measured as:

Emotional- Self reported related to feelings of frustration, boredom, interest, anger, satisfaction; student-teacher relations, work orientation

Implications

 Class clown  Aggressive “hard” character  Athletic character  Invisible character

Class Clown

 He wants attention  Often just likes to make people happy  Doesn’t have bad intentions is clowning for fun or

status

Aggressive/ Hard

 Feels isolated  Has been hurt  Efforts come from a defensive, self-protective

posture

 Sometimes can’t turn off the character

Athletic

 Gifted athletically  Often will coast through school particularly

(stereotypically football or basketball)

 Gets connection needs met through athletic

prowess

Invisible

 Unless something happens you won’t know he

exists

 Survival skills (peers internally and externally)  Typically those who perform well academically

and don’t have any other character to blend with academic performance

Impacts

Impacts of Dropping Out

Universal Secondary Tertiary

• Global
• Group
• Personal

Universal Economic Impact

 Less tax revenue for federal government  Lesser educated and skilled population

(companies move abroad)

 Stretching resources  Poverty rates

Universal Social Impacts

Health Crime Social Services Economic

Secondary Impacts

 Less tax revenue for state government  Lesser skilled population ( companies move to other

states)

 Stretching resources  Poverty  Incarceration costs

Tertiary Impacts

 Students who do not graduate from high school

 Use social services more  Have more health problems  Are more likely to be incarcerated and criminal activity  Impoverished  Girls more at–risk for poverty than guys

Maryland dropouts

Over 50% of Maryland’s current public assistance

clients are dropouts.

75% of the individuals received by the Maryland

Division of Correction report themselves as high school dropouts.

 Maryland State Department of Education Taskforce on Dropout Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery 1998

Things that work

Interpersonal Strategies

 Encourage staff to express care  Equip staff with skills necessary to provide effective

feedback.

 Encourage staff to examine possibly developing

relationship plans

Interpersonal Strategies

 Getting the non-traditional leaders on your side  Making lessons real for them  Consistent enforcement of rules

Interpersonal Strategies

 Speak and smile consistently  Do not confront in group

Operational Strategies

 Establish staff norms  Use staff meetings to develop and shift

culture/expectations

 Recognize staff for emphasizing quality relationships.

Operational Strategies

 Create opportunities that facilitate relationships  Empowerment- develop classroom constitutions, etc..  Establish classroom norms

Operational Strategies

 Creating African American Male steering committee  Anonymous suggestion boxes  Review the data!

Operation Strategies

 Riddles as warm-ups (in class or school-wide w/

incentives)

 Surveys  Stepping outside of the “Green Zone”.

Models for Progress– Ideas in the Literature and in Practice Around the Counties

 Mentoring  Partnerships  Single-Gender Schooling  Male Role Models  Wraparound Services

Thank You

Contact Information

 Robert Murphy  Specialist, School Completion and Alternative

Programs

 Maryland State Department of Education  200 West Baltimore Street  Baltimore, MD 21201  Office: 410-767-0305  Email:Rmurphy@msde.state.md.us