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President Obama recently established an education initiative for African American students. The goal: Provide them greater access “to a complete and competitive education from the time they're born through the time they get a career.”

There is little doubt that the timing of such an announcement coincides with November’s election,  yet to suggest that such an initiative is merely politically symbolic is a defeatist assessment. A renewed focus on the achievement gap between black and white students, indeed between white students and many minority groups, is an opportunity for the education community to push for greater investment in the work they’ve been doing for years to produce better outcomes for students of color.

According to the U.S Census Bureau, 42 million Americans identify themselves as black, either alone or in combination with one or two more races. African American students, totaling 15 percent of K-12 enrollments in 2010, have high dropout rates, low college attendance rates, and as a testing cohort, they score consistently behind their white and Asian counterparts. Traditional public schools that enroll large percentages of African American students tend to have less funding and fewer resources.

We can point to important factors such as health and nutrition and economic insecurity in the rationale for the lower performance of African American students as a group.  Even in the middle of the Twentieth Century, large portions of the country were wrestling with integration in a myriad of ways: public transportation, sports and activities and in the nation’s classrooms. And today, we have indications that our schools are re-segregating. We struggle to escape the “separate but equal” mentality, even while recognizing we are still trying “to form a more perfect union.” It is a tragic aspect of our history, and moving forward we must continue to work to ensure equity and access to all students in our nation’s public schools and to provide students of all backgrounds with the skills and education necessary to succeed in the 21^st century.  

Members of the Learning First Alliance remain committed to educational equity. Their long-sustained efforts, from research, studies and reports to classroom practice, are so constant that they would rarely make a news story on CNN. For example, the National School Boards Association’s National Black Caucus of School Board Members “is committed to creating a new paradigm to enhance both [black students’] educational experiences and academic accomplishments.” The Caucus is open to anyone who is interested in meeting and addressing needs of African American students; they advocate and ensure equal educational opportunities for these students as well as provide support to school board members nationwide in addressing the unique challenges faced by districts serving African American students.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) also actively promotes efforts to increase outcomes for African American students. An article from January 2010 by Carol S. Dweck, Mind-sets and Equitable Education, finds that students perform better in school when both they and their teachers believe that intelligence is not fixed, but rather can be developed. They designed a workshop to teach students a growth mind-set and found that “Students were galvanized by the idea that the growth of their minds was under their own control.” It is important that teachers maintain a similar attitude towards growth and development, and the use of positive messages to reinforce that outlook. Then in March of 2012, at the NASSP national convention, Eric Brown, a North Carolina principal, shared strategies for educating African American males. He took the helm at a struggling school with an African American student majority and within six years it was an award winning school.

Educators, principals, administrators and board members alike are constantly searching for best practices and strategies to close the achievement gap both by increasing student performance and reducing the dropout rate. In January 2005, the School Administrator, a publication from the American Association for School Administrators, released an article titled Reclaiming the Lost Children: Addressing the Causes and Cures for Low Minority Achievement.  The author, N. Gerry House, pushed the idea that low expectations produced low achievement and that in many schools; the standards are simply not high enough. What’s more, schools won’t become successes with just a few minor changes: “Leadership, policy, curriculum, instruction, student support, data collection and evaluation—all of it has to be stood on its head, re-examined, re-invented.” Later, however, she acknowledges the high correlations between parent education, family income and achievement, not to mention the importance of a quality pre-school education: “In other words, low-achieving minority students cannot depend solely on school to remedy the problems that interfere with learning.”

Ultimately, what all education organizations recognize is that systemic change takes time and requires the participation of families and parents, members of the education community and the district at large. No single person or unit is responsible for the success and failure of a child facing tremendous challenges. Rather, as a team, the larger village can take pride in that child’s academic and lifelong achievements. It is heartening that President Obama chooses to announce such an initiative, election politics aside, but educators and communities have been working diligently – with limited resources and capacity – to ensure this outcome for years and they will continue with their work even after the glare of the media spotlight fades.