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DURHAM – For Durham Association of Educators President Kristy Moore, attending a conference focused on minority males’ achievement last year was “an almost spiritual event.”
So as the Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color’s 2011 gathering came to a close in Washington, prompting a discussion about where the group would meet in 2012, she and two other Durham women stood up.
“You’re coming to Durham,” COSEBC Executive Director Ron Walker recalls them saying. Once the Durham contingent followed up with a written proposal, he listened.
COSEBOC, described by Walker as the sole national organization “that places attention and dedication and devotion on what we call the affirmative development in education of boys of color,” will meet in the Bull City on April 26-28.
The N.C. Central University School of Education will host the sixth annual gathering, themed “Great Schools Are Not an Accident: Successful Learning Communities for Boys and Young Men of Color.”
“We know the secret sauce of success, and what we plan to do is not make it a secret any longer,” Walker said at a news conference last week.
On April 25, the evening before the gathering officially kicks off, COSEBOC will facilitate a town hall. This event, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at the Hayti Center, aims to give community members the opportunity to weigh in on their role in lifting up young men of color.
Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington hosted previous COSEBOC gatherings, each of which was centered on a college campus. That’s important, Walker said, “because part of our agenda is to make it very clear that our young men, filled with promise, should have the opportunity to matriculate, so we want them to see that space.”
The inclusion of students in the gathering is part of what makes it so special, Moore said.
“What’s different here is they tell you about things that work, and it’s the students a lot of times that tell you ‘This works for me, and this is why it’s working for me at my school now,’ ” she said.
COSEBOC’s goal, Walker said, is to transform the image of boys and young men of color and create a new narrative “so that we are receptive in understanding that our young boys are filled with promise and not with pathology.”
At the same time, the organization aims to alert educators to “a crisis” with regard to the achievement gap, he said. He’s concerned about minority males’ overrepresentation in special education classes and underrepresentation in gifted and talented classes, and about literacy and graduation rates that lag behind the general population.
With black males comprising about 26 percent of Durham Public Schools’ student population, and Latino males accounting for about 11 percent, their performance is a huge issue for the district.
The district’s African-American students in grades 3-8 scored on average 34.6 percent lower than white students on reading tests in 2010-11, and Latino students scored on average 36.6 percent lower than their white counterparts. Narrowing the achievement gap is a key theme of the district’s strategic plan.
But to build up these vulnerable populations, it’s important to focus on positives in addition to being aware of opportunities for improvement, said NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms.
“I see this gathering as an opportunity for us to have a constructive dialogue, not about the negative but about the positive,” he said. “… To build that network of support around boys and families where we have high expectations, where we’re actively engaged and hold ourselves accountable for the success of all students – not just a small segment of the population.”
Scheduled to deliver the gathering’s keynote address is Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University. Also slated to speak are Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus, and ESPN sportswriter Chris Broussard.
Jointly hosting the gathering are NCCU, DAE and DPS. Walker expects 300-350 people to attend the gathering. For information, visit coseboc.org.
