Customer Reviews

Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students

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I'm currently researching strategies for successful SAT work with low scoring students. Having read the academically oriented "Black White Test Score Gap", I decided to pick this up to find some additional strategies for working with low scoring students.

This book is divided into three essays and they have three distinct focuses. Theresa Perry's essay is very philosophical. She argues that there is a literacy tradition in black America that is often overlooked as we seek solutions to educational problems. "Freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom" is a tradition that shows how in slavery times and the segregated 20th century we have seen literacy as a key for full citizenship. Perry looks at narratives to find common themes in stories that argue for literacy as a black value.

I found this essay helpful because I can recall my own awakenings reading "Roots" and "Autobiography of Malcolm X" where I felt more empowered and assertive as I realized that my struggles and frustrations were common to the black experience. I felt that the theory and philosophy of this essay was stronger than the solutions, however. I would also like to have seen how mathematical and technological literacy could have been incorporated into this theory.

Claude Steele's "Stereotype Threat" essay is an update on some things he's written in magazines and is a more accessible version of an essay that he authored in "Black-White Test Score Gap". I found this essay to be far more helpful than the more technical description of his work in "Black White Test Score Gap". Here he argues that we have to address self-imposed pressures of high scoring students to help them succeed in testing environments and help them work more efficiently. This articulation of his theory seemed to be aimed more for the educators applying his ideas than the psychologists assessing them. As a teacher, I felt included in the discussion.

Asa Hilliard's presence in this volume was peculiar for me. He's an Afrocentrist and uses the term "Africans" to describe black Americans. Personally, I don't like that term because I value the unique jazz and cultural contributions of black Americans over an afrocentric past. He details success stories at the elementary level and is highly critical of the educational literature. This essay bothered me because it did not offer much that I could use as a high school teacher. Also, this seemed to argue for "superteachers" without speaking to the supply and demand of the highly qualified and highly trained labor he seeks. Yes, it's good to detail how wonderful a school is that you consulted for and how these successes should be researched. This essay basically said "we need better teachers", but did not do enough to show me how we would get them or how he has unique training and empowerment models. I felt this was the weakest of the three essays although I'll probably look up some of the model schools and teachers he mentions at some point.

All in all, this is a good book for educators to read. I'd focus on Steele's essay and the first half of Perry's essay first and skim the second half of Perry and all of Hilliard second. Those who are more Afrocentrist and elementary educators will find Hilliard's essay more helpful than I did.

Decent book, I recommend it with qualifications.

3.5 stars.

This book has useful information for individuals working to improve educational systems at all levels. The first chapter makes explicit a part of the context of the African American educational experience in the US--the long, resilient tradition of the quest for literacy. This history is well-known among African American educators, but is useful to white allies who can use the reminder and the specifics, and critical to others who may slide too easily into negative group stereotypes.

I love Claude Steele's work on stereotype threat and value his comprehensive summary chapter here. It adds concrete strategies to the body of experimental research he has contributed to the scholarly literature. Hilliard's chapter has an even greater number of useful strategies and makes the important point that educators should aim for excellence in the academic performance of their African American students, not just performance that equals the performance of whites. His presentation of numerous examples of classrooms that produce enthusiastic, knowledgeable, skilled learners is a must-read among educators who find themselves blaming students and families for low performance. Good instructors are in short supply and will continue to be a problem in the foreseeable future, but there are many strategies and thought patterns in this book that schools can immediately put into place to support the success of African American learners. In fact, when instructors understand the major themes of this book, they will naturally be better teachers of all children. I'm passing this book on to state educational administrators.

The authors present persuasive and enlightening infomation in three distinct essays. Perry presents background historical material on the African American tradition of literacy as well as a theory of promoting high achievement currently; Steele's essay addresses "stereotype threat" and how it affects academic performance, and Hilliard explains how good teachers facilitate excellent students. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what the issues in closing the African American achievement gap are really about.

This was probably THE best book I've read in a long time. This book is not just for educators. It is written in a way that makes it informative to ANYONE interested in African-American history or how the history of a group in the country can affect how the group interacts with other institutions. Also, this is not a long book, nor is language TOO difficult so I feel that ANYONE should be able to read this. The book consists of three essays, one of which is broken into three parts.

The first essay, by Perry, is three parts. I absolutely LOVED this entire section. It does an exceptionally good job of supporting her argument that there always has been an African-American philosophy of education and proposes that this philosophy is actually probably the best tool there is to increase achievement of African-American students. I just thought the evidence Perry gave of this African American educational philosophy was very thorough.

The second essay discusses Steele's theory of stereotype threat, with which I was already very familiar. His essay does a good job of describing the concept to those who AREN'T already familiar with it and adds a bit more for those who already know it. Basically, stereotype threat is a concept to explain how ANY person (not just black people) can experienced decreased performance (not just in school, but anywhere) because of the real threat of fulfilling a negative stereotype. The essay discusses research he and others did with blacks, women, white men, as well as others. The essay also did a good job explaining how race and racism can still impact the performance of blacks who are not economically disadvantaged.

The last essay, which was by Hilliard, was actually my favorite. Hilliard had very innovative ways of thinking about how we measure achievement among ALL groups in terms of education and how past prejudices have shaped our ways of dealing with achievement today. Hilliard makes mention of various successful methods that have been used in working with those who supposedly couldn't be worked with. This essay was my favorite because rather than simply informing, it posed many questions to the reader about the status quo in the world of education.

Not as quick a delivery as two other things ordered at same time. Sister is happy with book though.

If you're looking for a book that combines substantive praxis in exploring the gap between African American and either European American or Asian American achievement, you should look elsewhere. Unfortunately but predictably given the authors' own research and ideological agendas, this book only serves to deal in tired platitudes which tend toward a victimhood mindset even as it strives to present a solid legacy of Black academic aspirations.

In reminding us of this legacy, it begs the question: Whither has it gone? As a former inner-city magnet high school program teacher and professor of education, may I submit that many if not most African American parents are as guilty as any other segment of society for not passing on this legacy. For far too many Black youth, education is all about "getting by." Unlike essays in "The Black-White Test Score Gap," this book does not critically examine the root causes for the persistent underachievement of this racial minority. And, predictably, it sidesteps the question of just how it is possible that first and second generation Asian American students who often speak English as a second language manage to score better than Black students even on verbal sections of the SAT and ACT.

Claude Steele's notion of the stereotype threat is of course not without its merit but it does not explain much of this underachievement. Several of my former students who participated in his study with Joshua Aronson at Stanford University were among the very top students in their graduating classes. They were given all of the encouragement which this book presents in its various mini-case studies and yet their scores were not high enough to earn them National Merit Scholar status.

One would think that Steele would feel the scholarly obligation to replicate his studies across other socio-cultural settings before propping it up to such a deterministic extent but, alas, doing so might challenge his foregone conclusions.

If you decide to buy this book, you should certainly look askance at the Afrocentric ideological that pervades one of the sections. Again, I would submit that constantly reminding Black students of their unique heritage in the U.S. can be counterproductive just as providing a lower bar for National Black Achievers on the SAT only serves to remind African American youth that they won't be judged by the same high standards as White and Yellow kids.

Nor does this book address the fact, concealed in data even by ETS, that Black students whose parents earn in the highest income brackets and hence have considerable social capital at their disposal persist in performing less well on the SAT than all but the very lowest income bracket of White students.

For a more sobering and insightful read, which is as practically situated as it is eloquent, I would urge you to read and consider former UC-Berkeley linguist John McWhorter's bestselling book, "Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America." Or at the very least consider the arguments of those like Bill Cosby and other older educators who caution against the rising cult of anti-achievement in the rap and hip-hop generation.

The young, talented and gifted blacks which Robert Nemiroff coined in referring to his late wife, the Black playwright Lorraine Hansberry, are sadly enough to be found more in a former generation which struggled through the civil rights era.