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JSnrtlanh (Dhseruer NW C ollege C areers Page 20 s p e c ia l Inly 4. 2012 e d i t'i o n Equal Academic and Athletic Access out our nation.” While best known for its empha sis on gender equality in sports, the law has been in stru m en tal in a d v an cin g women’s rights in many other areas. P resident O bam a, who coaches his daughter Sasha’s basketball team, commented that “Title IX isn’t just about sports. From addressing inequality in math and science education to preventing sexual assault on cam pus to fairly funding athletic pro grams, Title IX ensures equality for our young people in every aspect of their education. It’s a springboard for success.” The Associated Press reports, before Title IX, fewer than 300,000 high school girls - 1 in 27 - played sports. Now more than 3 million The promise of Title IX by M arc H. M orial The nation recently celebrated the 40th an niversary of Title IX, the landm ark Education Amendments of 1972, w hich m andate that girls and women receive equal ac cess to academic and athletic op portunities in our nation’s schools and colleges. A White House press release noted that, "At a time when many universities barred the admission of women, and when female sports teams were scarce, Title IX marked a momentous shift for women’s equality in classrooms, on playing fields, and in communities through high school girls - 1 in 2 - play sports. More than 191,000 females played NCAA sports in 2010-11. Title IX is also responsible for the increasing num bers of women in the nation’s law and medical schools. E ducation S ecretary Arne Duncan is right when he says “Title IX is one o f the great civil rights success stories in edu cation.” But it is also true that g ir ls an d w o m en are s till underrepresented in m any areas of education and there rem ain gaps in Title IX enforcem ent that must be closed. A report by the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), notes that “In the last three fiscal years, OCR received nearly 3,000 Title IX-related complaints - more than ever before in a similar period - and launched more than 35 investigations.” The study also found that while girls make up 49 percent o f high school enrollm ent, they still only com prise 42 percent o f athletes. And o f the 10,000 schools in the study that offer single-sex athlet ics, 57 percent offered few er ath letic team s for girls than for boys. In addition, while women out num ber men in the population and in college graduation, they remain w oefully underrepresented in the STEM fields — the growth indus tries o f the future. According to OCR, in 2008-09, wom en earned few er than 18 p ercen t o f all bachelor’s degrees in com puter and inform ation sciences, and wom en from underrepresented m inorities earned less than seven percent o f bachelor’s degrees in those fields. Less than four per cent o f degrees in engineering were aw arded to w om en from underrepresented m inorities. C learly , the pro m ise o f T itle IX has not yet been fu lly re a l ized. W e ap p lau d the O bam a A d m in istratio n for tak in g steps to im prove enfo rcem en t and fu r ther clo se g en d er gaps. A nd we w ill in ten sify our ow n effo rts in su p p o rt o f q u ality ed u catio n for all, in clu d in g g reater access to c o m m u n ity -b ased STEM le a rn ing fo r A frican A m erican boys and g irls. Title IX has served the nation well for the past 40 years. We must uphold the spirit and the letter of the law for the next 40 years and be yond. Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive officer o f the Na tional Urban League. Schools and Leaving Judgment Behind school teachers— books like Mike Rose’s Possible Lives and Gloria Ladson-Billings’ The Dream-Keepers. Just read the titles. They are books of hope, the stories of excellent school teach ers. Ladson-Billings, whose book is sub titled “Successful Teachers of African Ameri can Children,” describes professionals who honor their students’ home culture, help children understand their world and equip Teaching to the test J an R esseger The blogosphere went wild recently w hen R euters re ported that the Bill and Melinda Gates F o u n d atio n has granted $1.4 million to u n iv ersity re searchers to investi gate the use of bio metric, galvanic skin response bracelets to measure whether teachers are engaging stu dents’ interest. This is one more step in the move to de- professionalize teaching, part of the idea that it doesn’t help teachers to go through the college certification process. Today’s so- called education reformers believe we need to replace “qualified” (certified) teachers with “effective” teachers, as measured by stu dents’ standardized test scores or perhaps galvanic skin responses. W e’ve come to trust counting and mea suring instead of our judgment and our hearts. 1 like to browse among college bookstore shelves stocking the required books for stu dents studying to be professional, certified by Though the chapters offer a number o f portraits o f good teachers, there is no single profile o f the Good Teacher...I recommend no final list o f good practices...Such profiles and lists have value...but they also have a tendency to be...reduced to slogan or commodity. Author them to improve it. She celebrates teachers who understand themselves as members of their communities and simultaneously life long professionals called to nurture children steadfastly, creatively and thoughtfully. For four years. Rose traveled the United States, visiting classrooms where fine teach ers in cities, towns, and even a one-room P o rtlan d (Dhseruer E d ito r - in -C h ie f , P ublisher : Established 1970 Charles H. Washington EniTOR.Michael L e ig h to n A ssistant to P ublisher , P i b ik ■ R eiations : C reative D irector : M a rk W a sh in g to n P a u l N e u fe ld t A ssistant to P ubusher , O ffice M anager /C lassifieds : A ssistant P ubusher : commodity.” These books, published in the mid- 1990s, have becom e classics. I encourage you to read them , although the students learning to be school teachers still read The D ream -K eepers and Possible Lives, because many o f us outside the colleges of education no longer understand teach USPS 959-680 --------------------- ing as the kind of profession these books present. O ur understanding o f teaching has changed, as our understanding o f pub lic education itself has narrowed. In a recent graduation address at T each ers College o f Colum bia U niversity, Linda D arling-H am m ond, a Stanford U niversity expert on teaching, declared, “The new scientific m anagers like to rank and sort students, teachers and schools, rew ard ing those at the top and punishing those at the bottom while issuing m ultim illion- dollar contracts for testing and data sys tems to create more graphs, charts and report cards on which to rank and sort.” She continued, “The new scientific m anagers cleverly construct system s that solve the problem o f the poor by blam ing the teachers and schools that seek to serve them, calling the deepening levels o f se vere p o v erty an ‘e x c u s e ,’ rew ard in g schools that keep out and push out the highest-need students.The United States now has a far higher poverty rate for chil dren than any other industrialized coun try. Our leaders do not talk about these things. They sim ply say of poor children, ‘Let them eat tests.’” Jan Resseger is minister fo r Public Edu cation fo r the United Church o f Christ. 47 47 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR 97211 The Portland Observer welcomes freelance submissions. Manuscripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property ol the newspaper and cannot be used in other publications or personal usage without the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition of such ad. © 2008 THF. PORT LAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland Observer-Oregon's Oldest Multicultural Publication-is a member of the National Newspaper Association -Founded in 1885, and The National Advertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc. New York, NY. and The West Coast Black Publishers Association Lucinda Baldwin Leonard Latin A dvertising M anager , P ubuc R eiations : school in M ontana’s Grasshopper Valley inspire children to explore and work together. Rose begs us not to look for a one best measurable way to replicate good teachers: “Though the chapters offer a number of portraits of good teachers, there is no single profile of the Good Teacher.... I recommend no final list of good practices.... Such pro files and lists have value.. .but they also have a tendency to b e... reduced to slogan or Tony Washington S taff W rit t k /P hotographer : Mindy Cooper CALL 503-288-0033 FAX 503-288-0015 Qen'S@pyrtIqndvbserv(r,cçrr, ads@portlqndobserver.com subsi ription@portlandobsetver,com P ostmaster : Send address changes to Portland Observer, P0 Box 3137, Portland, OR97208
