June 17, 2009
Focus on African American Students
Conference Celebrates Success; Charts the Future
For the fifth straight year, the College Board held its annual A Dream Deferred™: The Future of African American Education conference in Los Angeles last month. More than 450 participants from 26 states and the District of Columbia came to this year’s conference to celebrate successes — not the least of which was the election of the country’s first African American president, a champion for education — and to continue the work of removing barriers to educational equity and closing the achievement gap.
Through the more than 45 panels and sessions offered, attendees from higher education, K-12, community-based organizations and government agencies shared their professional insights and worked to improve the plight of African American students by learning effective ways to challenge low-performing students, attract students to AP® courses, draw students to science and math, and support students through the transition from secondary school to college.
After a warm welcome Thursday morning from Sharon Robinson of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Horace Mitchell, president of California State University, Bakersfield, shared experiences from his long career as a teacher, administrator and practicing psychologist. Mitchell discussed his current efforts at Cal State to develop campus diversity and strengthen community engagement.
Thursday’s plenary luncheon was led by Mary Montle Bacon, a noted school-improvement specialist who has devoted her life to serving the most challenged and challenging young people in our education system. She is currently working with the Los Angeles Unified School District, providing professional development for staff to deconstruct negative beliefs, attitudes and expectations about low-performing urban youth. Bacon believes that African American students’ developing identities may at times be at odds with educators’ expectations for academic achievement in a female-dominated, authority-oriented education system, and that these students (particularly males) are overrepresented in the disciplinary system, in special education programs and, ultimately, in the criminal justice system. Bacon shared some creative approaches to reaching and teaching these students, who often hear more about their inadequacies than their abilities.
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 Dream Deferred attendees (from left) Dianne Brazell, Peter Negroni, Bill Pink, Adriana Flores-Ragade, Al Mijares, Horace Mitchell, Sharon Robinson, Don Mitchell, Sandra Williams-Hamp, Everett Jackson
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Brian Favors, co-founder and director of Sankofa Community Empowerment, Inc., spoke at the afternoon plenary session about the historical importance of access to and success in college for African Americans. Accompanying Favors was Nate Parker, an actor who appeared in “The Great Debaters,” a film about the Wiley College debate team that became national champions in 1935. Parker supports education through the 100 Men of Excellence scholarship at Wiley. Favors and Parker share a commitment to promote literacy and leadership among inner-city youth and are collaborating on a national campaign that brings
“The Great Debaters” to classes, workshops and lectures.
Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College for Women, as well an economist, author, commentator and champion of students, led Friday’s plenary luncheon, where she implored the audience to advocate efforts, including a proposed bailout for students and other common-sense strategies
for supporting students during the current
economic downturn. She offered stories of students from her own institution who are having a difficult time paying tuition and moving forward in their educational and professional careers. She said, if we are willing to bail out corporations, we should be willing to do the same to help
our students.
Since the first Dream Deferred conference, African American students have continually increased their rates of participation in the AP Program and in taking the PSAT/NMSQT® and SAT®. Next year’s conference will be held in April at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in Atlanta.
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