Academic Gap Widens With Poverty; Parents Organize to Educate their Children; Use Library Card to Free Thousands of Black Men; 3 Ways to Save Black Boys

Making Progress; Moving Forward! Achievement Gap Widens Parents Are Organizing Use A Library Card to Free Blacki Men 3 Ways To Save Black Boys Concerned Chrisitan Men Feed and Mentor 300 Boys Links: The Black Star Project's website: blackstarproject.org Black Star Jounral: blackstarjournal.org Become a Member: Click Here Event Calendar: Click Here Like us on Facebook:       Achievement Gaps Tied to Income Found Widening     By Lesli A. Maxwell March 7, 2012   The fractious debate over how much schools can counteract poverty's impact on children is far from settled, but a recently published collection of research strongly suggests that until policymakers and educators confront deepening economic and social disparities, poor children will increasingly miss out on finding a path to upward social mobility.   The achievement gap between poor children and rich children has grown significantly over the past three decades and is now nearly twice as large as the black-white gap, according to Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. He examined data on family income and student scores on standardized tests in reading and math spanning 1960 to 2007.    Read More...       Parents Are Building Organizations to Help Educate their Children     Whether they're organizing events, buttonholing legislators, or simply trading ideas and information, a growing number of "parent unions" are attempting to stake out a place in policy debates over education in states and districts, amid a crowded field of actors and advocates.   As the term implies, some of these organizations see themselves as countering the political might of teachers' unions, though others see the labor groups as allies. Still other parents' unions are less concerned with teacher and labor-management issues than with advancing their own tightly focused-or very broad-agendas. Those agendas include improving school gifted-and-talented programs, for instance, and closing achievement gaps between minority and white students.   Read More... Use A Library Card and Help Free Hundreds of Thousands of Black Men Incarcerated in America   Join the movement to stop the American system of The New Jim Crow by checking a book out of your local library or by buying and reading a paperback copy of The New Jim Crow. All high school and college students must read this book!     Read More...    3 Ways to Save America's Black Boys   By Mike Green  March 8, 2012   Here are three ways to save America's Black boys: Change their language Invest in their creativity Mentor them into the mainstream   Read More... Concerned Christian Men Mentor and Feed 300 Boys with Monthly Man/Boy Breakfast The Concerned Christian Men (CCM) was founded in October 1996 by George D. Glenn, a Harvard-educated native Chicagoan (graduate of Senn High School). CCM's initial and continuing focus has been to provide strong "Black Male" leadership and guidance to young Black boys living on the South Side of Chicago to assist them in becoming positive, contributing members of their communities. CCM's Flagship activity is the monthly Man-Boy Breakfast that over 29,000 men and boys have attended since 1996 (140 breakfasts). Since April 2002 the breakfasts are held at Simeon Career Academy, a state-of-the-art vocational and academic high school. We average over 300 men and boys for our Man-Boy breakfasts.   Read More... .  Create A "Black Men of Honor" College Fair in Your City by Calling 773.285.9600 Read More... In Chicago, New Deadline to Run For Your Local School Council Is March 23, 2012   What Research Says:   Researchers Karen Smith Conway, professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, and her colleague Andrew Houtenville, senior research associate at New Editions Consulting, found that parental involvement has a strong, positive effect on student achievement.  "Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement," Conway said.   Nomination forms are due in schools Friday, March 23, 2012, 3:00pm.   Please call 773.553.1400 for more information.    . One of the best options for educating Black students in America -- Saturday University     Please call 773.285.9600 to learn how to start a Saturday University in your city.  We have 15 free Saturday Universities operating in and around Chicago.  Please call 773.285.9600 to register your child for free academic enhancement or for more information about Saturday University.   Read More...