[regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire

  • From: stell5@xxxxxxx
  • To: regional school <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:24:24 -0400 (EDT)


Yvonne, 



Do you have any reliable and verifiable information on any of the following: 



    • Typical class size at the school 
    • Total number of students at the school 
    • How long it has been open 
    • Whether a union is present or not 
    • The age, experience, and pay of teachers 
    • Hours and conditions of work of teachers 
    • Teacher, staff, and student turnover rates 
    • The for-profit company or philanthropies such a school is potentially 
affiliated with 
    • The facilities available or lacking at the school 
    • If any of the members on the board of trustees is elected or ran publicly 
for their position 
    • The background and cultural capital of the parents of these students 
    • The admissions process at the school 
    • The number and percentage of special ed students attending the school 




Usually, only a tiny amount of some of this info is available on a website and 
even then it often does not resemble what actually happens at a school. 



Regards, 

Shawgi 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yvonne M. Villareale" <yvonne.villareale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: "regional school" <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2010 7:56:33 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [regional_school] Re: Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire 

Success story of an all male, urban charter school in Chicago. The young men 
they interviewed were incredibly bright, motivated, articulate, and very PROUD 
of their accomplishments--many, if not all, coming from areas of concentrated 
poverty. Success like this can be realized when schools take chances and side 
step mainstream methods. Good luck to the all male charter school starting next 
year. Hope you get the support you need to be as successful. 

Yvonne Villareale 

http://www.urbanprep.org/100percent/ 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews/ct-met-urban-prep-college-20100305,0,3299917.story
 


Four years ago, Bryant Alexander watched his mother weep. 

She stared down at a muddle of D's and F's on his eighth-grade report card and 
threatened to kick him out. He had barely passed elementary school, and high 
school wasn't even on his radar. 

"Something just clicked," Alexander, now 18, said. "I knew I had to do 
something." 

On Friday, Alexander proudly swapped his high school's red uniform tie for a 
striped red and gold one ­ the ritual at Englewood's Urban Prep Academy for 
Young Men that signifies a student has been accepted into college. 

As the Roseland resident and 12 others tied their knots, Chicago's only public 
all-male, all-African-American high school fulfilled its mission: 100 percent 
of its first senior class had been accepted to four-year colleges. 

Mayor Richard Daley and city schools chief Ron Huberman surprised students at 
the all-school assembly Friday morning with congratulations, and school leaders 
announced that as a reward, prom would be free. 

The achievement might not merit a visit from top brass if it happened at one of 
the city's elite, selective enrollment high schools. But Urban Prep, a charter 
school that enrolls all comers in one of Chicago's most beleaguered 
neighborhoods, faced much more difficult odds. 

Only 4 percent of this year's senior class read at grade level as freshmen, 
said Tim King, the school's founder and CEO. 

"There were those who told me that you can't defy the data," King said. "Black 
boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to jail. 
Black boys don't go to college. Black boys don't graduate from college. 

"They were wrong," he said. 

Every day, before attending advanced placement biology classes and lectures on 
changing the world, students must first pass through the neighborhood, then 
metal detectors. 

"Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low graduation rates, teen pregnancy ­ you name 
it, Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the school's director of 
college counseling, who was born and raised in Englewood. 

He met the students the summer before they began their freshman year during a 
field trip to Northwestern University , the first time many of them had ever 
stepped foot on a college campus. At the time, Hutchinson was Northwestern's 
assistant director of undergraduate admissions. Inspired by what he'd seen, he 
started working for Urban Prep two months later. 

"I'm them," he said Friday as he fought back tears. "Being accepted to college 
is the first step to changing their lives and their communities." 

Hutchinson plays a major role in the school, where college is omnipresent. 
Students are assigned college counselors from day one. To prepare students for 
the next level, the school offers a longer than typical day ­ about 170,000 
minutes longer, over four years, than other city schools ­ and more than double 
the usual number of English credits, King said 

Even the school's voice-mail system has a student declaring "I am 
college-bound" before asking callers to dial an extension. 

The rigorous academic environment and strict uniform policy of black blazers, 
red ties and khakis isn't for everyone. The first senior class began with 150 
students. Of those who left, many moved out of the area and some moved into 
neighborhoods that were too dangerous to cross to get to the school, King said. 
Fewer than 10 were expelled or dropped out, he said. 

At last count, the 107 seniors gained acceptance to a total of 72 different 
colleges, including Northwestern University, Morehouse College, Howard 
University , Rutgers University and University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. 
Alexander was accepted to DePaul University . 

While college acceptance is an enormous hurdle to jump, school leaders said 
they know their job isn't done; they want to make sure the students actually 
attend. 

To that aim, King said, staff made sure that every student has completed the 
dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid, lest the red tape deter them. 

Later in the year, the school plans to hold a college signing day where every 
student is to sign a promise to go to college, he said. Staff will stay in 
touch through the summer and hopefully in the first years of school. 

"We don't want to send them off and say, ‘Call us when you're ready to make a 
donation to your alma mater,' " King said. "If we fulfill our mission, that 
means they not only are accepted to college, but graduate from it." 

For now, students are enjoying the glow of reaching their immediate goal. 

Normally, it takes 18-year-old Jerry Hinds two buses and 45 minutes to get home 
from school. On the day the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana was to 
post his admission decision online at 5 p.m., he asked a friend to drive him to 
his home in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. 

He went into his bedroom, told his well-wishing mother this was something he 
had to do alone, closed the door and logged in. 

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" he remembers screaming. His mother burst in and began crying. 

That night he made more than 30 phone calls, at times shouting "I got in" on 
his cell phone and home phone at the same time. 

"We're breaking barriers," he said. "And that feels great." 


At 04:13 PM 3/19/2010, you wrote: 


My research and familiarity with this subject is why I am a co-founder and 
co-applicant for the University Preparatory Charter School for Young Men, 
scheduled to open in Sept 2010, here in Rochester, NY. Check out the website 
at: www.Upreprochester.org . I belief we each can make a difference by doing 
something and not be paralyzed by the games people play with labels when it 
comes to the important issue of educating our young people. No matter how much 
we talk about the issues, if we do not act, nothing will change; for the future 
will not wait for us to figure it out!! And in turn, we cannot sacrifice the 
future. Thanks for sharing, good reading. Peace. 
Hussain B. Ahmed, Ed.D. 

--- On Thu, 3/18/10, NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx> wrote: 

From: NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx> 
Subject: [regional_school] Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire 
To: regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010, 8:40 PM 


Wish I knew how to forward this interview video - you'll have to put the web 
address in your browser. 
It's definitely worth it! 

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/whyboysfail/2010/03/cep_report_on_gender_gaps_released.html?print=1
 

Also: in the EducationWeek piece below, Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the 
Center on Education Policy - a Washington-based research and advocacy group 
that just released results of their gender gap study, says: “Something is 
going on in our schools holding back boys.� 

Yes, yes, yes!!!! And the why is so obvious to those of us with knowledge about 
brain development who've been closely observing PreK and Kindergarten 
classrooms over the past 15 years! Finally someone is speaking out and has 
found a national audience!! According to Richard Whitmire, it all started about 
20 years when the Governors got together to upgrade standards! (Sound 
familiar?) Moving second grade literacy standards into Kindergarten back then 
did not take into account the hard wiring of the male brain! And it's just the 
tip of the iceberg! 



Education Week
Published Online: March 17, 2010 

Boys Trail Girls in Reading Across States 


By Erik W. Robelen 

A new study on gender differences in academic achievement, offering what it 
calls “good news for girls and bad news for boys,� finds that, overall, 
male students in every state where data were available lag behind females in 
reading, based on an analysis of recent state test results. At the same time, 
in mathematics, a subject in which girls have historically trailed, the 
percentages of both genders scoring “proficient� or higher were roughly the 
same, with boys edging out girls slightly in some states and girls posting 
somewhat stronger scores in others. 

In certain states, such as Arkansas, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Vermont, the 
gender gap for reading proficiency was 10 percentage points or higher, based on 
2008 test data. 

“The most pressing issue related to gender gaps is the lagging performance of 
boys in reading,� says the report, released today by the Center on Education 
Policy , a Washington-based research and advocacy group. 

In a conference call with reporters, Jack Jennings, the group’s president and 
chief executive officer, noted that whether looking at student outcomes at the 
elementary, middle, or high school level, male rates of proficiency were lower 
than for females across all states studied in 2008. (Forty-five states had data 
available for all three levels.) 

“There is a consistent achievement gap,� he said. “Something is going on 
in our schools holding back boys.� The report does offer some encouragement 
for boys in reading, suggesting that as a group, they are making some gains 
over time, and that the gender gap has narrowed in many states. 

For instance, in 38 out of 44 states, the percentages of 4th grade boys scoring 
proficient or higher climbed between 2002 and 2008. Also, in 24 out of 44 
states, the gender gap for 4th graders in the percentage of students scoring 
proficient or higher narrowed over that time period, though it widened in 
another 14 states. 

When looking at the data another way, however, based on changes in the average 
of test scores, the gaps between boys and girls in reading “widened across 
all three grade levels [elementary, middle, and high school] as often as they 
narrowed.� 

‘Clear and Startling’ Differences 


The new report from the Center on Education Policy is part of a series of 
studies the organization has been conducting that examine trends on state tests 
since 2002, when the federal No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by 
President George W. Bush. 
Math 

Percentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in Math on State Tests, 2008 
[]

Reading 

Percentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in Reading on State Tests, 
2008 
[]
SOURCE: Center on Education Policy 

The center notes that one reason for the report’s focus on the rate of 
students deemed “proficient� is that the designation is the key indicator 
used to determine whether districts and schools have made adequate yearly 
progress under the federal law. However, as the report emphasizes, each state 
uses its own tests to gauge proficiency and also sets its own cutoff score for 
what it judges proficient. 

The report says that research has long noted historical differences in the 
achievement of boys and girls in reading and math, though considerable recent 
research suggests there is no longer a gender gap in math achievement. 

With its state-by-state analysis, the report is able to identify those states 
that appear to struggle the most with gender gaps in reading. In Arkansas, the 
gap was 13 percentage points at the elementary level and 14 percentage points 
at both middle and high school in 2008. On state tests in Hawaii that year, 
boys came in 14 percentage points behind at the elementary level, 13 in middle 
school, and 16 in high school. 

In the conference call, Mr. Jennings noted that even Massachusetts, a state 
known for its strong academic standards and performance, has a sizable gender 
gap, at 13 percentage points for elementary students in 2008. 

Some other states, however, such as Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, and Virginia, 
had much smaller reading gaps at all levels. In Virginia, for example, the 
gender gap for boys was 3 percentage points at the elementary and middle levels 
and just 1 percentage point in high school. 

In most cases, the gender gap in state math achievement did not exceed 5 
percentage points, the 2008 data show. 

Susan B. Neuman, an education professor at the University of Michigan who 
specializes in literacy development, called the new study “an extraordinarily 
important document.� 

Ms. Neuman, a former U.S. assistant education secretary under President Bush 
who was invited to participate in the conference call but was not involved in 
the study, emphasized the findings with regard to boys’ achievement, noting 
that it is a relatively recent trend. 

“We’ve been talking about closing the achievement gap in so many different 
ways, ... but we have not focused on the gender gap, which is very clear and 
startling in this report.� 

She added, “I think we have to re-evaluate our curricula, re-evaluate how we 
are managing our classrooms.� 

Vol. 29, Issue 27 

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/27gender.h29..html?tkn=QUWFFACOCp9dRJixqIXUzDtAjsWu8TC2Ewmg&cmp=clp-edweek
 

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