Positive story, needs to be shared!

We hear many stories about minority youths (I dislike this term, but is a point of reference) struggling to make it out of high school and into college. We hear a lot of negative, how the deck is stacked against them, and that they have no chance.

“Shaun Harper -- director of the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania -- attracted considerable attention last year for a study in which he identified successful black male college students and examined the factors that led to their success. This new study is in a way the flip side of that research -- as his focus was on students in New York City high schools who could succeed in college (although he also included a group of New York City high school graduates who were in college for comparison purposes)”.

“An overall theme of the work is that there are many minority male students who are succeeding academically, but are doing so off the beaten track of colleges to magnet schools or the suburbs”.

Read the whole thing here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/30/new-study-explores-qualities-help-black-and-latino-males-succeed-high-school

What this study is telling us is there is hope, there always has been (just have to focus on it), there is positivity happening within all the noise, and that there are common characteristics that propel students to succeed, for example:

·         Parental value of education

·         High expectations, expect them to achieve

·         Teachers who were authentic in caring

It is all about the student, we set the example, and if the example we set as a whole is good, they can achieve.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele

The ETeam