Image: Yong Kim , Philadelphia Daily News

The Berean Institute has been evicted from its home in North Philadelphia, according to a letter sent to the school’s president, Dr. Lorraine Poole-Naranjo, dated September 6. The school was founded in 1899 as a vocational school teaching trades like carpentry and barbering to African-Americans.

Last week, the gas and electricity was turned off at the facility, which is leased in part by a job-training company called ABO Haven. That company had stopped paying rent ($9,000 per month) in April after it learned that Berean couldn’t enter into a commercial lease. ABO has filed a $1 million lawsuit against the school for damages caused by the lack of utilities.

According to the letter sent to Dr. Poole-Naranjo, Berean hasn’t had a lease for its space since 2010, hasn’t paid rent since 2006 and owes $310,778.08. The school also owes $40,000 to the Philadelphia Water Authority.

A spokeswoman for the school says Berean lost its state funding in 2008 and has been struggling financially. A former chairman of the school’s board, former Common Pleas Judge John Braxton, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the school had been slated to shut down in 2008.

Despite the problems, Dr. Poole-Naranjo promises Berean will continue. “This is just bricks and mortar,” she said, adding that the school will move to another building.

While it’s not an HBCU, The Berean Institute has strong historical ties to the black community. Only recently, Morris Brown College, an HBCU founded by the AME Church more than a century ago, filed for bankruptcy. It faces foreclosure.

Source: blogs.cfr.org

For those who have been complaining about the lack of attention President Obama has paid to African Americans while in office, the time has come. At the National Urban League’s annual convention in New Orleans last night, the president announced a new White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans that, according to NBC, will:

“work across Federal agencies and with partners and communities nationwide to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African American students.”

About 3,700 people were in the crowd as President Obama explained the purpose of the effort was to improve educational opportunities for black children at all levels,

“so every child has greater access to a complete and competitive education from the time they’re born to the time, all through the time they get a career,” he said.

The Education Department will oversee the initiative, working with the Executive Office and other Cabinet agencies to identify practices that will improve African Americans’ achievement in schools and colleges, NBC said. The executive order for the plan is expected to be signed today, at which point more details about the effort and how much funding it will receive will be made public.

This initiative comes not a moment too soon with nearly weekly reports about discrimination black students are experiencing in school, Detroit parents suing the school system because of the low level at which their children read, evidence that African American children receive more strict punishments than their non-minority counterparts, and data from the National Center for Education Statistics showing the dropout rate for African American students ages 16 to 25 was 8 percent in 2010, which is 3 percent higher than that of white students. The President said those things can no longer continue.

“A higher education in a 21st century cannot be a luxury,” he remarked at the convention. ”It is a vital necessity that every American should be able to afford.”

Let’s hope this initiative will make that more of a reality for African American children. Do you think it will?

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(HuffPo) — With black unemployment reaching historic levels, banks laying off tens of thousands and law school graduates waiting tables, why aren’t more African-Americans looking toward science, technology, engineering and math – the still-hiring careers known as STEM?

The answer turns out to be a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics – and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and science are all about.

The percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade. It may seem far-fetched for an undereducated black population to aspire to become chemists or computer scientists, but the door is wide open, colleges say, and the shortfall has created opportunities for those who choose this path.

STEM barriers are not unique to black people. The United States does not produce as high a proportion of white engineers, scientists and mathematicians as it used to. Women and Latinos also lag behind white men.

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(BET) –

With minority students continuing to lag in educational achievement, the federal government has targeted the nation’s second largest public school system for wide-ranging reforms. On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that, after a 19-month civil rights investigation, they found that the Los Angeles Unified School District was failing to provide equal education to English-learners and Black students. In turn, this systemic failure has resulted in widespread academic disparities in the nation’s second largest school district, they said. In the district, only 32 percent of Black students ranked as proficient in English and 9 percent in math, while only 5 percent of high school English language learners ranked as proficient in the two subjects, according to the schools’ 2009-10 report card.

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by Dr. Brooks B. Robinson, Director of BlackEconomics.org

BlackEconomics.org estimates that if no action is taken to revise the status quo, then Black America will reflect the following 2050 statistical outcomes: A population of 60.1 million; 26.2 million workers (12% unemployment); annual average household income of $96,100; 10.6 million businesses; an average of nearly 15 years of schooling; 1.4 million incarcerated; and life expectancy for males of 80.5 years and 84.1 years for females.

In this context, BEV for BAF (Black Economists’ Visions for Black America’s Future) Interviews inquires about the pivotal problems that Black Americans face over the next 20 years; the most ideal solutions to the problems; and the actual outcomes that are likely to unfold. BEV for BAF Interviews with the nation’s top Black economists enable Black America to envision the future and provide guidance on how to reshape that future to improve outcomes for the next generation.

In this segment, Dr. Gregory Price, Charles E. Merrill Professor and Chairman of the Economics Department at Morehouse College in Atlanta, discusses the role of Black males in Black America’s future.

by Dr. Brooks B. Robinson, Director of BlackEconomics.org

BlackEconomics.org estimates that if no action is taken to revise the status quo, then Black America will reflect the following 2050 statistical outcomes: A population of 60.1 million; 26.2 million workers (12% unemployment); annual average household income of $96,100; 10.6 million businesses; an average of nearly 15 years of schooling; 1.4 million incarcerated; and life expectancy for males of 80.5 years and 84.1 years for females.

In this context, BEV for BAF (Black Economists’ Visions for Black America’s Future) Interviews inquires about the pivotal problems that Black Americans face over the next 20 years; the most ideal solutions to the problems; and the actual outcomes that are likely to unfold. BEV for BAF Interviews with the nation’s top Black economists enable Black America to envision the future and provide guidance on how to reshape that future to improve outcomes for the next generation.

In this segment, Dr. Margaret Simms, Senior Fellow and Director of the Low-Income Working Families Project at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., provides a BEV for BAF interview to BlackEconomics.org concerning the role of economic advancement and asset formation in Black America’s Future.

by Cynthia Wright

When it comes to education, students in the African-American and Hispanic communities are the least likely to examine the rewards that a science, technology, engineering and math (“STEM”) degree can provide. With the U.S overall poverty rate at 15.1 percent and the rates of the African-American and Hispanic communities at 27.4 and 26.6 percent respectively, a STEM education is positive option that would assist those students (and their families) from getting out of poverty.

Yet, statistics show that few African-American and Hispanic students are choosing to go to college and the ones that do end up attending, don’t appear to major in STEM fields. Last week, the Department of Commerce reported that in 2009 alone, 22 percent of non-Hispanic blacks and 14 percent of Hispanics hold bachelor’s degrees. While 54 percent of Asians and 35 percent of non-Hispanic whites receive a college education. Also, when it comes to those African-American and Hispanic students that do graduate, approximately 17 percent of black non-Hispanic students and 21 percent of Hispanic students majored in STEM disciplines.

Especially since the potential earning power for some STEM grads can be six-figures or higher, with average starting salaries for engineers in Silicon Valley starting at $98,000 – the options for students would be basically endless. At the same time, efforts have been slow when it comes to improving the resources needed for STEM education in low-income school districts, which are primarily filled with high quantities of African-American and Hispanic students.

Which leaves those that graduate with non-STEM degrees out in the workforce in a horrible economy trying to make their way or relying on unpaid internships. However, students that come from low-income families, pursuing an unpaid internship is more than likely not a feasible option.

At the same time, there is concern that if students were pushed to pursue only STEM pursuits forsaking the arts and other non-STEM disciples, that students would be trained to be drones instead of innovators.

So what is the educational holdup? Well first, many of the nation’s public schools are not preparing students to be innovators and with No Child Left Behind still in effect, schools are only looking to teach what is needed for the tests and little else. Not to mention the basic annihilation of arts education in schools, which have been felt the most in minority communities. While, we shouldn’t discount the importance of STEM classes, we also must focus on providing an all-inclusive learning environment for today’s youth, so they become well-rounded individuals. In order to enable African-Americans and Hispanic students to be better prepared for jobs as innovators, improving STEM education is not the only thing that matters.

Cynthia Wright is an avid lover of all things geeky. When she isn’t freelancing, she can be found on her blog BGA Life and on Twitter at @cynisright.

by Alexander Cain

The book The Mis-education of the Negro was originally written as a dissertation by author Carter Godwin Woodson who wanted to investigate how efficient the current education structure was for African-Americans. Despite being written in 1933, some of the struggles facing African-Americans mentioned in the book still hold true today: African-Americans have the highest unemployment and poverty level percentages of all ethnic groups; African-Americans show the lowest percentages of being business owners, and despite facing lower barriers to college entry than in 1933 African-Americans still show the lowest college admittance and graduation rates of all ethnic groups. As Carter Woodson explains in the book there are a few misconceptions about the education of African-Americans that need to be corrected in order for blacks to thrive and be successful.

Education of any people should begin with the people themselves
As President Obama continues his term as the first black president in United States history, the documentation of African-Americans in history books remains insignificant at best. During 1933 when the book was written, African-Americans were only acknowledged as a supplement to the hard work and sacrifices of white Americans who helped to shape our country. This fact still remains African-Americans aren’t intertwined in the history of the U.S.. They are acknowledged as a supplement to the United States and aren’t given the same intellectual examination as White Americas. As Woodson discusses throughout the book, every ethnic group brought their own strengths and characteristics, which helped the United States propel itself to its superpower status. Woodson cites that African-Americans will never be able to build upon their strengths if they aren’t made aware of it through education and will be always a step behind as they react to confirm to the styles and strengths of their white counterparts.

By Dr. Brooks B. Robinson, Director of BlackEconomics.org

BlackEconomics.org estimates that if no action is taken to revise the status quo, then Black America will reflect the following 2050 statistical outcomes: A population of 60.1 million; 26.2 million workers (12% unemployment); annual average household income of $96,100; 10.6 million businesses; an average of nearly 15 years of schooling; 1.4 million incarcerated; and life expectancy for males of 80.5 years and 84.1 years for females.

In this context, BEV for BAF (Black Economists’ Visions for Black America’s Future) Interviews inquires about the pivotal problems that Black Americans face over the next 20 years; the most ideal solutions to the problems; and the actual outcomes that are likely to unfold. BEV for BAF Interviews with the nation’s top Black economists enable Black America to envision the future and provide guidance on how to reshape that future to improve outcomes for the next generation.

In this segment, Dr. Cecilia Conrad, an economist, Vice-President, and Academic Dean of Pomona College in Claremont, California discusses the role of education in Black America’s future. Check out the discussion below.

(Christian Science Monitor) — To better diagnose achievement gaps and help education leaders tailor solutions, federal civil rights officials on Thursday released an expanded, searchable set of information – drawn from schools in more than 7,000 districts and representing at least three-quarters of American students.  The survey’s data show, as never before, the education inequities that hold various groups of students back.  For example, in 3,000 high schools, math classes don’t go higher than Algebra I, and in 7,300 schools, students had no access to calculus. Schools serving mostly African-American students are twice as likely to have inexperienced teachers as are schools serving mostly whites in the same district.

Read More…