Bridging the Teaching Chasm between Mainstream Cultured White Teachers and Inner City African American Children

Sherman N. Miller

EDD Student at the University of Delaware

4/7/2005

Abstract

            Meta-analysis and non-meta analysis reports are studied to develop teaching strategies to aid mainstream white teachers in teaching elementary algebra to inner city African American students. These teaching strategies are presented from the point of view of strategies an African American mathematics instructor found in the literature that become teaching recommendations to white instructors in bridging the cultural divide between today’s public school teachers and African American inner city poor students. A list of recommendations is offered as teaching guides where mainstream public school teachers may pick items that they feel comfortable using in their classroom.

Introduction

The 1954 US Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that knocked down the infamous 1896 US Supreme Court “separate but equal” ruling that legitimated racial segregation in the United States of America. One can argue that the Black leaders fell victim to the delusion of believing desegregation was tantamount to obtaining racial integration in schools when it came to educating Black children. The Black leaders’ dream was to garner the opportunity for Black children to be in the same classrooms as white children.

Fifty years of purported desegregation has shown racial desegregation means Black children can sit in the same classroom with White children, but it does not signify that they will get educated to the same level as middle class whites.  Richard Rothstein goes beyond the debate over races differences underpinning achieve gaps in public between black and white Americans. He argues the case that the student’s class also must be considered a significant contributor to why there is an achievement gap between black and white Americans. (Rothstein) Hence, the black belief in desegregation has been a misguided quest where some Black children find themselves in a strange white public school environments struggling with gaining positive receptivity. This means that teachers must believe that every student can learn and be motivated to understand their students’ backgrounds to teach them. Thus, the major hole in the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling was teacher accountability [accepting responsibility for the academic development of all of their students] simply was not there for every student.   

            The aftermath of missing accountability for Black children is felt in the degradation of the Black family structure over the last fifty years. Douglas J. Besharov and Andrew West offer the disquieting statistics in the US. They write, “The proportion of births to unwed mothers has risen steadily since 1950, so that now almost one-third of all American children are born out of wedlock … From 1950 to 1997, the proportion increased of births to unmarried white women (non-Hispanic) increased almost twelve fold, from 2 percent to 22 percent. The African American proportion increased fourfold, from 18 percent to a striking 69 percent.” (Besharov and West p. 99)

Today, the African American male is vilified and relegated to a ward of the criminal justice system. The Cybercast News Service reports on the bleak outlook for African American males when it comes to being incarcerated. “… The Bureau of Justice Statistics report reveals that a black child born today faces a strong likelihood of spending as least some time in prison. Black men had a 32.2 percent chance of going to prison in 2001, while white males had a 5.9 percent chance and Hispanic men had a 17.2 percent chance.” (CNSNews.com, 2004)

Cybercast News Service went on: “In 2001, for example, 16.6 percent of black males were current or former inmates, compared to just 2.6 percent of white males.” However, this article is short on solutions to this socioeconomic dilemma in Black America.

          The Reverend Eugene F. Rivers, III (Co-founder, Boston TenPoint Coalition) speaking at the 14th National Conference on Preventing Crime in the Black Community, speaks to many black Americans misguided beliefs in the valuation of education and its impact on their finding themselves persona non grata in the economic mainstream. He writes, “Forty years after the beginning of the civil rights movement, younger Black Americans are growing up unqualified for gainful employment, even as slaves. Given the demands of a radically new labor force, these young people are ill-equipped to get a job. They buy what they want and beg for what they need--$200 sneakers, $100 gold, Fubu, and can't read a book.”
            ”A Black boy has a one in 3,700 chance of getting a Ph.D. in mathematics, engineering or the physical sciences, one in 766 chance of becoming a lawyer, and a one in 395 chance of becoming a physician. A Black boy has a one in 195 chance of becoming a teacher, but his chance is one in two of never attending college. Even if he graduates from high school, he has a one in nine chance of using cocaine, a one in 12 of having gonorrhea, and a one in 20 of being in prison while in his 20's.”   

Rivers gave a glimpse of how poor education is demoralizing Black America. However, there is a need to look at marrying age Black males prisoner’s educational plight for these men are the fathers of many of the children in public schools today. Caroline Wolf Harlow, writing for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, reported, “Males between the ages of 20 and 39 dominate the State prison population; they constituted about two-thirds of all State prison inmates in 1997. Approximately 21% of the State prison population was white males between ages of 20 and 39, 33% were black males in that age range, and 12 percent were Hispanics. In the general population these groups constituted a significantly smaller percentage of the total population—22%.  White males ages 20 through 39 were 17% of the general population, black and Hispanics of any race about 3% each.

“Within the 20 through 39 age group, male inmates consistently had lower academic achievement than their counterparts in the general population. Young white and black male inmates were about twice as likely as their counterparts in the general population to have not completed high school or its equivalent—(14% versus 28% for whites and 16% versus 44% for blacks). Young Hispanic males’ educational achievement did not differ by such magnitude; 52% in prison and 41% in the general population did not have a high school diploma or its equivalent.” (Harlow, p. 6)  

The dire statistics presented heretofore are rooted in the non-education of African American children in elementary school. Victoria L. Bernhardt writes, “In many states, the prison systems look at the number of students not reading on grade level in grades two, three, or four to determine the number of prison cells to build ten years hence. … The fact that the prison system can use this prediction formula with great accuracy should make us all cringe, but the critical point is that if business can use educational data for predictions, so can educators.” (Bernhardt, p. 2)

The above data suggest that the lack of a good education in Black America is tantamount to committing socioeconomic suicide. It becomes enchanting to merely blame white America for this havoc but that would be to say blacks hold no accountability for their own crisis. However, there is a need to understand the mindset of the public school white teachers to have an opportunity to help to solve the black socioeconomic crisis. Patricia Wasley offers some insight on the white teachers’ mindset in their having to teach nonwhite students. She writes, “Although most teachers worked hard to ensure that their students were successful, many grew to believe that poor children and children of color do not achieve as well as their more privileged White counterparts because they saw these differences play out in their own classrooms. It is also true that teachers teach the way they were taught themselves... As students, many teachers were taught by teachers who did not believe that all children could learn. The bell curve, then, became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy influencing teachers around the country for decades.” (Wasley, p136-137)

          It is important that indirectly we do not label all white teachers as racists because some may unintentionally do things that have a racist connotation and some minority students may possess haughty-eyed mannerism that make it very difficult for any teacher to go out of their way to help these children. This student haughty mannerism may impede the teacher’s efforts by the student’s misbehaving classroom decorum becoming tantamount to de facto teacher intimidation. However, Deborah Meier shares the unintended consequences of teachers’ racist actions on students. She writes, “We agreed that racist words or actions—even unintentional or arguably misinterpreted ones—that affect our students and families are not private voluntary questions but rather central to school talk. Addressing these questions is an obligation that comes with membership on the teaching staff. We needed, after all, to direct our colleagues’ attention to all behaviors we think inappropriate to a strong learning environment. Our personal struggle with racism, anti-Semitism, feminism, and so on can be private, but overt manifestations of bias affect kids and family. … But what our students and families, and the public, need from us is not for us to overcome all our biases but for us to be willing to look closely and carefully at how our attitudes and assumptions affect our teaching practices.” (Meier, p. 83) 

Chuck Noe, writing in a January 9, 2004, article for NewsMax.com entitled, “ Bush Decries Democrats’ ‘Soft Bigotry of Low Expectation,’” presents President Bush’s poignant comment to the opponents of No Child Left Behind Act. “President Bush, in a searing speech Thursday night touting his administration’s accomplishments and laying out the challenges ahead, fired some of his heaviest ammunition at the Democrat and education establishments: ‘We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations.’”

It is low expectations of minority students that depress today’s upward mobility of students of color. A chasm exists between the backgrounds of many public school students of color and their White teachers. Hence, now it is incumbent for educators of color to recommend techniques that White teachers may employ to teach children of color. This present work offers recommendations directed at teaching algebra to African American students from eighth grade through college. The holistic education goal is to help eliminate the soft bigotry of low expectations that is undermining socioeconomic progress in nonwhite America.  

Methodology

            Literature searches will be conducted for meta-analysis reports that offer recommendations on teaching mathematics to public school eighth grade and higher children. Teaching recommendations for teaching college undergraduates studying algebra will also be included.

Where meta-analytic reports show an effect size of 0.2 or greater on test items, it will be included in the recommendations.  However, 0.5 effect sizes and greater will be encouraged for use without regard to race.  

            Recommendations that transcend grade levels will be offered from non-meta-analytic reports where a demonstrated success is shown at one institution over a period of at least three years. 

            Variables other than the course content will be the focus of the report. It is assumed that the teachers have sufficient mathematical background to teach algebra at the college level or algebra II at the high school level. 

            Recommendations on cooperative learning will be broached.

Research Hypotheses

            The teachers using the findings of the research have adequate course content to meet the standards of a “highly qualified” public high school teacher.

            There are non-course content teaching recommendations in the literature that can be interpreted through the cultural prospectus of teachers of color that offer the basis for a teaching guide for White teachers having difficulty teaching inner city nonwhite students. 

Discussion

            Since the hope is to foster a cultural change, the role of the teachers of color becomes how to help the White teachers accept their teaching recommendations with a positive mindset versus seeing these new ideas as an admission of their own failure teaching nonwhite students. Teachers of color need to paint a vision of all teachers being able to work with children of color regardless of their cultural upbringing or past biases. Hence, teachers of color may want to embrace the teachings of Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee in their book entitled, “Primal Leadership,” as they build a vision of White teachers successfully raising children of color to mainstream standards. 

One of the teachings of Goleman, et al, that appears apropos for the current work is, “For a vision to be compelling, it needs to touch people’s hearts. … Tuning people in to a meaningful vision has integrity at its heart: People need to feel as they can reach for the organization’s dream without compromising their own dreams, their own beliefs, and their values.” (Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, p. 220-221). Thus, the focus of our effort will be on sustained evolutionary change in the teachers’ new thinking and not revolutionary change that is wrought with resistance. 

            Goleman, et al, argue a people first strategy to make things happen. They continue, “When a leader focuses on people, emotional bonds are created that are the ground in which resonance is sown—and people will follow that leader in good times and bad. Resonance creates an invisible but powerful bond between people based on a belief in what they are doing and a belief in one another. For that to happen, people need to connect with one another in real time—not just online—around their work. They need to talk, laugh, share stories, and –just perhaps—build a dream together.” 

The Goleman, et al, comments suggest that teachers of color may want to develop emotional links with their White counterparts before the White teachers will show positive receptivity to their teaching recommendations for children of color.

 It is important to point out specific mindsets that may make this teacher of color recommendations’ effort fail. Goleman, et al, offer several rationales for failure, but let us hone in on only one. They write, “Attempt to change only the person, ignoring the norms of the groups they work in every day and the larger surrounding culture in play.”  (Goleman, et al, p. 232) These comments further suggest the need of an evolutionary change that expands beyond the mere individual to encompassing the mores of the group. 

 Findings

          Before offering teaching recommendations for children of color, it is important to make a case that the effort is not a futile quest. The projected success or failure of the No Child Left Behind Act offers us a futility gauge on the public school educational system bringing children of color up to mainstream standards. Disquieting comments such as those Thomas J. Kane and Douglas O. Staiger report in a Brooking Institute publication chapter entitled, “Unintended Consequences of Racial Subgroup Rules” suggest the futility in meeting NCLB goals because of minority children’s presence in high numbers in some public schools.  

          Kane and Staiger write, “… However, also without regard to how states define proficiency, the failure rate is likely to be two to four times higher in states in the South and West with large minority populations, because of the subgroup rules. The single most important determinant of the difference in failure rates between states is likely to be the racial composition of their schools. While it is true that submitting a school improvement plan or being required to offer vouchers for supplemental educational services are not overwhelmingly onerous requirements, they will be imposed at different rates in the various states simply because of the racial composition of the states’ schools. Moreover, the consequences will become even more severe in five years when schools enter restructuring.” (Kane and Staiger, p. 175)

            The Kane and Staiger defeatist assessment need not become a self-fulfilling prophecy because there are schools with high numbers of poor minority students that are succeeding. This author reported in an August 26, 2004, article that was released to the news media, entitled, “A Recipe to Close the Achievement Gap,” on a successful effort of a highly minority school that has closed the achievement gap. 

Amistad Academy Success Story

In this article this author wrote, “On August 25, 2004, PBS.org aired a program on a charter school in Connecticut called Amistad Academy that has figured out how to close the achievement gap between Whites and minorities of color.  … Amistad students are not cherry-picked as is made very clear in their program statement. ‘All of Amistad's students are chosen through the same lottery system as other public middle schools in the district. That means Amistad cannot skim high achievers. It has the same student mix as any other New Haven school. Currently, the demographics of the students are as follows: 66 percent of students are African American, 33 percent are Latino, and 2 percent are white. Additionally, 87 percent of students qualify for federal free or reduced lunch.

            “The high academic performance of Amistad children is a beacon of light in a valley of educational darkness. The PBS report included, ‘Improvements for students at Amistad have been nothing short of dramatic compared to their peers in New Haven or Connecticut. Take the CMT scores for the 2004 graduating class  …

“There was actually a decrease in mastery from sixth to eighth grade for New Haven and Connecticut students. But Amistad students’ scores soared in those same two years, from 33 percent of mastery in math as 6th graders to 75 percent as 8th graders. Amistad showed even greater improvement in reading, where 8th graders achieved 80 percent of mastery. And in writing, Amistad students blew everyone away-at 85 percent of mastery compared to 62 percent for Connecticut and 34 percent for New Haven. …’”

Amistad offers four items in their accountability contracts with students, teachers, and parents that should buttress efforts to deal with upgrading minority students’ educational development. They report:

q       “We will offer a high-quality education for all of our students.

q       “We promise to appreciate, support, and respect every student.

q       “Teachers will assign productive, worthwhile homework each night to reinforce and support skills and concepts learned in class.

q       “We will enforce Amistad Academy’s REACH values consistently and fairly. When students are detained or suspended, or when students deserve recognition for their accomplishments, we will inform their parents promptly and fully.”

These four Amistad contract items should be embraced in high school algebra instruction as well as for the eighth-grade population in middle schools. Items numbers one and two are also a mindset that college professors may want to hold; otherwise, they are succumbing to the de facto acceptance of the bell shaped curve frame of mind where it is okay to write off a significant portion of the students taking their algebra courses.

Technology is evolving very quickly; so the issue becomes how does one use it effectively in the classroom. In this work, we will restrict ourselves to a discussion of the calculator use. Recommendations for classroom usage of calculators are offered by Ray Hembree and Donald J. Dessart in the article entitled, “Effects of Hand-Held Calculators in Precollege Mathematics Education: A Meta-Analysis.” Two of their recommendations are:

1.      “Calculators should be used in all mathematics classes of Grades K—12.

2.      “Students in Grade 5 and above should be permitted to use calculators in all problem-solving activities, including testing situations. This recommendation is based on these two observations:

a.      Calculators greatly benefit student achievement in problem solving, especially for low- and high ability students.

b.      Positive attitudes related to the use of calculators may help to relieve students’ traditional dislike of word problems.” (Hembree and Dessart, p. 97)

The Hembree and Dessart meta-analytic research makes the above suggestions appear plausible. However, a couple of reservations need to be included in the decision to used calculators. Students need to understand the times tables and manual multiplication if they are going to learn fractions. Students must also learn to do division manually. If students merely concentrate on learning the calculator, they will not be able to recognize when they have wrong answers to their problems. Furthermore, as professionals, in the world marketplace, tomorrow’s workers may have to make estimates without the aid of a calculator. 

Cooperative Learning

            The idea of using group learning activities especially for students coming out of an inner city background might offer students some comfort in their educational environment where the teacher may lack an appreciation for “hood” culture. Robert E. Salvin offers the key element to making cooperative learning work in an article entitled, “Research on Cooperative Learning and Achievement: What We know, What We Need to Know.” 

In discussing cooperative learning, Slavin writes, “A few reviewers … have recommended against the use of group rewards, fearing that they may undermine long-term motivation. There is no evidence that they do so, and they certainly do not undermine long-term achievement. Among multi-year studies, methods that incorporate group rewards based on individual learning performance have consistently shown continued or enhanced achievement gains over time. …” (Slavin, p.10)

            Cooperative learning should work well with inner city high school students and college level students if it requires individual responsibility on the part of the students. This teaching technique may be ineffectual if one or two students do all of the work and the others merely ride along to get the grade. Personal student accountability is paramount to the success of a cooperative learning strategy.

Non-Content Variables

            It is easy to become captivated with the need to discuss content knowledge that one can forget that there are many other non-content issues that impact students’ learning.  Ray Hembree did a meta-analysis entitled, “Effects of Noncontent Variables on Mathematics Test Performance.” He reports on the efforts in 120 reports of research. Table A gives the results of his findings that are significant for students in grade eight and above. (Hembree, p. 206 – 208) This table offers a list of non-content items that may be included in a plan to help teach minority children.