News
Let’s Dump “At Risk” and Other Useless Labels
By Jazelle Hunt
Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Although
most today’s headlines focus on Black edu-
cational failures, there are many positive
achievements by Black students that often
go overlooked, according to a new study.
A recently released report from the
National Black Child Development Institute
takes a confident and constructive look at
our children. “Being Black is Not a Risk
Factor: A Strengths-Based Look at the State
of the Black Child” presents a collection of
expert essays, national data, and spotlights
effective community organizations, in an
effort to highlight African American chil-
dren’s assets. The report challenges the tone
in which our children, families, and aca-
demic outcomes are discussed.
In the first expert essay, Natasha Cabrera,
associate editor of Child Development and
Early Childhood Research Quarterly and
professor of human development explains,
“…We know more about maladaptation
than adaptation among minority children.
We know more about why minority children
fail than we know about why they succeed.
The result is an unbalanced picture that
overemphasizes the deficits and pays little
attention to the assets or strengths that
minority parents and children bring to the
table.”
And those assets are plentiful. For exam-
ple, the report points to numerous recent
studies that have noted African American
preschoolers’ unique aptitude for oral-narra-
tive skills, which can be used to promote lit-
eracy gains.
African American preschoolers and
kindergarteners also exhibit strong self-reg-
ulation and social-cognitive skills, the kind
that allow kids to play well with others and
understand proper classroom behavior. In
older studies, some dating as far back as the
1930s, Black infants master motor skills
(such as head posture and crawling) faster
and better than their non-Black peers.
Cabrera points out that not surprisingly,
children with strong family orientation and
White peers.
Obviously, they would gain more from
being inside the classroom rather than being
expelled.
According to the 2011 National Assess-
ment of Educational Progress, the standard-
ized test by which children are nationally
measured, the average reading score for
Black fourth graders is 205. A score of 208
is the basic level (238 is proficient, and 268
is advanced). Math was not much better –
‘Being Black is Not a Risk Factor: A Strengths-
Based Look at the State of the Black Child’
presents a collection of expert essays, national
data, and spotlights effective community
organizations, in an effort to highlight African
American children’s assets
cultural pride tend to do well in school.
Another essayist, Carol Brunson Day,
asserts that, “Being labeled ‘at risk’ is like
being voted least likely to succeed. For
where there is no faith in your future suc-
cess, there is no real effort to prepare you
for it.”
Black student success is often hampered
by unreasonable disciplinary actions.
The Department of Education’s Office of
Civil Rights reports that African American
students are three-and-a-half times more
likely to be suspended or expelled than their
the national average is 225 – above basic
(which, for math, is a score of 214), but well
below proficient (a score of at least 249).
Efforts by educational reformers often fall
short.
According to A. Wade Boykin, one of the
study’s expert essayists, many reforms are
based on “benevolent pathology” – in which
Black students’ “disadvantaged” life experi-
ences weaken the possibility that they can
succeed academically, or learn at all.
Consequently, these students are labeled
and relegated to intervention programs;
from there, they are expected to learn to
approximate their mainstream-schooled
peers. As this approach demoralizes and
further hinders “disadvantaged” children,
their failure (and that of future children who
share their life experience) becomes nor-
malized.
Boykin writes, “When children fail in
school, so often there are no raised eye-
brows, there is little outrage and there is no
handwringing. It is expected and it is nor-
mal. Yet when especially poor Black chil-
dren do well in school, it is met with
surprise.”
So what should be done?
Carol Brunson Day calls for an emphasis
on cultural knowledge and pride, one that
begins with, and is led by, members of the
culture. Another contributor, Iheoma U.
Iruka, believes that supporting and embrac-
ing parents as partners will go a long way
toward closing academic achievement gaps.
Others advocate teacher training and pro-
fessional development programs that embed
skills and strategies for embracing and
teaching Black children, especially boys.
Still, other contributors champion concerted
refinements to programs for expecting
mothers, early education programs, and pre-
K through third grade curricula.
As one essayist concedes, some of these
recommendations will require generous
funding and/or complete revolution of the
public education paradigm. But other sug-
gestions will only require and change in
attitudes and a willingness to be consistent.
See LABELING on page 7
We honor the many
accomplishments of
African Americans
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Page 6 The Seattle Skanner November 13, 2013
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