4A
EDITORIAL AND OPINION/tljE CJatlottc
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Ford
Cfjarlotte Jos^t
The Voice of the Black Commuhity
1531 Comden Rood Charlotte. N.C. 28203
Gerald O. Johnson ceo/publisher
Robert L Johnson co-publisher/general manager
' Herbert L White editor in chieI=
OPINION
Proven methods for
reaching gifted
diverse children
By Brent Adams Mundt
SPEC/AL TO THE POST
“Nationally, Black students are underrepresented in gifted
education programs, and educators continue to seek ways to
identify more gifted Black students and geniuses. The dilem
ma is not only how to recruit them, but also how to retain
them,”
Ebony Magazine, June 2006
Tfeacher training rests at the heart of this issue, and as
reported here on August 24 there is an exciting new program
that is being inaugurated in our city this fall that honors Dr.
Maiy Frasier.
Deceased in 2005, Dr. Frasier was legendary for her charm
and demeanor. She was known as the “mother of multiple cri
teria” - a new, contemporary way of looking at
children that exponentially increased the num
ber of African-American children in gifted pro
grams in the state of Georgia. Her consultancy
around the U.S. thereafter was effective in open
ing doors to culturally and economically diverse
students
Along with Mary’s tool, the Frasier Talent
Assessment Profile (F-TAP), there are numerous
strategies and tactics developed by colleagues
over the past three decades.
When the de facto baton ,was passed to Donna Ford at
VanderbUt University, Dr. Ford recruited many capable col
leagues into the fold. The result at NAGC’S upcoming conven
tion: a rigorous track of 38 sessions has been designed dming
the national convention of gifted experts this fall in Charlotte.
And 90 principals and teachers will emerge prepared to identi
fy the high potential in their classroom.
‘The 21st century is witnessing an unprecedented change in
its demographics. Like no other time in history, our nation is
becoming overwhelmingly diverse, with Afncan Americans and
Hispanic Americans increasing drastically in numbers.
However, as our nation and schools become more diverse than
ever before, we have witnessed little demographic change rela
tive to diversity in gifted education programs, classes, and ser
vices. This pilot program not only honors the legacy of the
beloved Mary Frasier.
It provides real world training for principals and teachers
who can use these tools on Monday morning November 7,2006
in their classrooms” Dr. Ford offered.
At the top of the “toolbox” is, appropriately enough, her F-
TAP tool - and that specific methodology will be taught by
Tarek C. Grantham, another expert in the field at the
University of Geor^a. Dr. Grantham was a colleague of
Frasier’s and learned “at the feet” of tfie legend - and he will
lead off the training by hammering home this proven tool.
“There is no more fitting tribute to Mary than to know that
90 educators will depart our convention knowing how to
address the four barriers that she posited so eloquently: atti
tude, access, assessment and accommodation. I am beyond
honored to be asked by Dr. Ford to teach the F-TAP tool. After
that orientation, we have divided the training sessions into
those four areas so teachers can break down the complexities.
The ripple effect of this training will pay dividends for years to
come.”
The balance of the sessions delve into identification and spe
cial populations, many of which are research-based and gener
ated from Jacob K Javits Grants, the only federal program
that invests in developing talent in minority communities.
Civil rights were a lifetime passion of Senator Javits and it has
been one lasting legacy in gifted education for minorities since
1988,
Thanks to scholarships provided by Wachovia and other gen
erous donors, these 90 educators from around the country -
50-plus from Charlotte Mecklenburg —will learn the most up-
to-date strategies available from the authoritative voices and
information pioneers. “Wachovia is proud to support this pro
gram because education is one of our top community priori
ties,” said Frank Addison, Wachovia’s Director of Philanthropy.
“This program will identify and serve children with high poten
tial in low socioeconomic settings who are struggling to be
noticed for their gifts.”
Local educators here in Charlotte are also fortunate to have
the year round support of gifted expert. Dr. Shelagh Gallagher
■at UNC Charlotte. With Wachovia funding. Dr. Gallagher will
conduct ongoing professional development and support as the
tools are implemented throughout the district’s Title I schools.
“In alignment with Mary Frasier’s vision, Wachovia and
NAGC will aid CMS educators in the fight against current and
historical under-representation of economically disadvantaged
students, students of color, students from ethnic minorities,
and students with limited English proficiency. The contribu
tions of these two organizations will significantly impact First
Ward Academy’s ability to identify and educate gifted minority
students. The more attention that educators dedicate to refin
ing the identification process, the more representative gifted
educational services will become. Our team from First Ward is
extremely excited about our training through this powerful ini
tiative.
Shelton L Jeffen'es, M.Ed. Ed.S.
Principal First Ward Academy
Reaching and teaching. Recruitment and retention. The
chances for high potential children who are culturally diverse
and from low income settings being recognized and served will
greatly increase November 2-5, 2006. Parents interested in
this issue should access www.ncagt.org to leam more about
Parent Day on Saturday, November 4 - and there is a dis
counted price for those who learned of it from The Post.
Note: in the Auiiii.st 24 issue, Dr. James Gallagher nm ideniified as an
"an'hitect'ofHead Start in the Johnson Administration, when in fact he
was Deputy assistant secretary for ivsearch planning and evahuition in
the office of the Commissioner of Education the Johnson Administration.
Condi pimps the civil rights movement
WTien I sat down to watch
“60 Minutes” Sunday night, I
knew that Secretary of State
Condoleez^ Rice would be
appearing. I expected the
same old run-of-the-mill
defense of the Bush adminis
tration and, in that respect,
she was predictably pre
dictable. But when the dis
cussion turned to her
upbringing in my native state
of Alabama, it was clear that
this smart, able and doctri
naire bureau
crat was basi
cally pimping
the Civil Rights
Movement.
Mk ' '.3^ talked in
moving terms
— about the four
C^EORGE girls killed in
E. Curry the bombing of
Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham. One of them,
Denise McNair,
‘Svas my little
friend from
kindergarten”
and another,
Addie Mae
Collins, ‘Svas in
my uncle’s
homeroom in
school.”
Referring to her childhood,
Rice said: ‘Nobody lived in an
integrated fashion. Since you
couldn’t go to a restaurant
until 1964, or stay in a hotel,
or go to a movie theatre
unless you wanted to sit in
the rafters. ..in the Black only
section...colored-only section.
And my parents were deter-
Rice
mined to try and shield me
from some of those humilia
tions.”
Rice was 8 years old when
that bomb exploded in
Birmingham. I was 16 years
old at the time. Perhaps
because of our age difference,
I knew then and I know now,
there was no way any parent
could shield their children
from the indignities of de jure
segregation. My mother
couldn’t shield me from the
fact that after working all day
as a domestic, she was forced
to ride home in the back seat
of her employer’s car. My
stepfather couldn’t shield me
from knowing that if I rode
the city bus to town, I would
have to sit in the back —
which is why I always walked
if I couldn’t catch a ride with
a relative oi- friend. My par
ents couldn’t, shield me from
racist ministers appearing on
television, saying that if God
had wanted us to be equal,
He would have made us the
same color. Nor could they
shield me from being called
the n-word or being forced to
attend all-Black schools and
live in all-Black neighbor
hoods.
By all accounts. Rice was a
Black blue-blood. Her father,
John Rice, was a
Presbyterian minister and
guidance counselor. Her
mother, Angelena, was a sci
ence and music teacher. And
what did they do to eradicate
those oppressive conditions
that African-Americans were
forced to endure?
“My father was not a
march-in-the-street preach
er,” Rice told an interviewer
for the Washington Post. The
decision to use children in
protest demonstrations is one
of the main reasons the walls
of segregation came tumbling
down in my home state. But
Rev. Rice would have no part
of it.
“He saw no reason to put
children at risk,” she told tlie
Washington Post. “He woiild
never put his own children at
risk.”
And that’s the point. Many
Black middle-class families
refused to confront America’s
version of apartheid, yet
when the doors of opportuni
ty flung open, they were the
first to march through them,
riding on the back of poor
people who were unafraid to
take risks.
Many of us teenagers were
willing to take risks that
many adults wouldn’t. I was
in the 10th grade when Joe
Page, a fellow student at
Druid High School, drove us
to Birmingham to protest the
deaths of those four girls. We
were supposed to be in school,
but going to Birmingham was
the best education I could
have received at the time.
Another childhood friend,
Ronnie Linebarger, and I
were in the middle of most
street demonstrations in
Tuscaloosa and we know the
smell of tear gas. Another
schoolmate, Jean Corder, and
her entire family were active
in the movement. We found a
way in 1965, my senior year
in high school, to participate
in the last leg of the Selma-
Montgomery March.
As teens, we took risks and
in most instances, our par
ents would have preferred
that we take the safe way out.
Our parents didn’t want us
harmed. 'They didn’t want us
beaten. 'They didn’t want us
tear-gassed. They loved us as
much as Condoleezza Rice’s
parents loved her. But our
parents also knew that the
system was wrong. And while
they worried about our safety,
they allowed us to fight for
our rights.
So, watching Condoleezza
Rice on “60 Minutes” talk
passionately about the Civil
Rights Movement when her
family sat on the sidelines,
stirred a lot of emotions. She
can talk passionately about
the horrors of that era yet
seemingly feel no shame that
her parents chose to sit on the
sidehnes.
Perhaps that’s why Rice
feels so comfortable defend
ing George W. Bush, arguably
the worst president on civil
rights in more than 50 years.
Unlike her parents, she is not
on the sidelines - she’s on the
wrong team. And in the
wrong role - Super Fly.
GEORGE E. CURRY is editor-
in-chief of the National
Newspaper Publishers
Association News Service and
BlackPressUSArom. Web site:
www.georgecurry.com
U.S. leaders need to address poverty
Poverty is alive and well in
the world’s richest nation,
according to a recent report
by the Washington, D.C.-
based Center for Law and
Social Policy.
The nation’s
poverty rate
rose to 12.6 per
cent in 2005, up
from 11.3 per
cent in 2000.
Now, one in
eight
Americans and
more than one
in every six chil
dren lives in poverty. A total
of 37 million Americans are
poor, up 5 million from 2000.
“For the past few decades,
‘poor’ has been nothing more
than a four-letter word. Not
since President Lyndon
Johnson proclaimed a War on
Poverty in 1964 has there
been a commitment by
American leaders to address
poverty. Political energy has
focused instead on ending not
poverty but welfare,” the
report noted.
The picture is particularly
bleak for Afncan-Americans,
24.7 percent of whom lived in
• poverty in 2005, compared to
22.5 percent in 2000. Nearly
one in three black children
under 18 years of age is poor,
compared to 18.5 percent
nationwide. The United
States ranked second behind
Mexico of the world’s wealth
iest cotmtries with the high
est childhood poverty rates,
according to UNICEF’s Child
Poverty in Rich Countries
report for 2005.
Hurricane Katrina put a
face on poverty in living
rooms across the nation and
around the world. Nearly half
of Americans believed that
the United States had
become a nation of haves and
have-nots, according to a
2005 poll by the • Pew
Research Center for the
People and the Press. This
disparity is particularly evi
dent to African-Americans.
, According to a Pew poll in
2004, 81 percent of blacks
said they felt the rich were
getting richer while the poor
were getting poorer, com
pared to 65 percent of Whites.
And among 28 developed
countries,'the United State's
stands behind Mexico in
terms of widest gap between
the rich and the poor, accord
ing to CLASP.
Back in June, Princeton
University’s Woodrow Wilson
School held a forum on urban
poverty in which NUL Policy
Institute head Stephanie
Jones participated along with
New York Democratic Rep.
Charles Rangel and others. A
resounding consensus was
forged — that poverty must
be put on the national agen-
Rangel
da. They were not alone in
their concern. They are
among many others as wor
ried about poverty in our
nation and the world.
As part of its so-called
Millennium Development
Goals, the United Nations
has resolved to
halve the num
ber of people
• living on less
than a dollar a
day by 2015. In
August, U.S.
Treasury
Secretary
Henry Paulson
made narrow
ing the divide as one of his
department’s top priorities.
In the U.S. Congress, Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.,
introduced legislation in 2005
patterned after the U.N. mil
lennium goals to reduce child
' poverty in the United States
by 50 percent within a
decade. In Jime, Sen. John
Edwards, D-N.C., declared
poverty “’the great moral
issue of our time” in unveiling
a plan to eliminate it in 30
years.
Connecticut passed a law
calling for a 50 percent reduc
tion in child poverty by 2014.
And similar legislation in
California is awaiting the
governor’s signature.
Poverty not only robs the
poor of opportunity and
breaks their spirit, it costs
our nation money - well
beyond direct services. For
every one-percentage point
rise in the poverty rate, met
ropolitan areas are forced to
spend an additional $27.75
per capita on non-poverty
related services, according to
CLASP.
That probably explains why
Mayor Michael Bloomberg
recently annoimced his own
war on poverty in New York
City, where one in five resi
dents dwell below the poverty
line. In 2002, Miami Mayor
Manny Diaz launched a $2-
million anti-poverty cam
paign in response to his city
being designated the poorest
major city in the nation by
the U.S. Census.
Poverty cuts across all poHt-
ical lines. It is not a blue or
red issue. It’s, as the CLASP
study notes, a purple issue.
Of the 10 states with the
highest poverty rates, 70 per
cent are represented by
Republican senators and 60
percent led by GOP gover
nors. Of the congressional
districts with more than 20
percent of their residents
poor, 80 percent elect
Democrats.
MARC H. MORIAUs president
and CEO of the National Urban
League.