Racial Imbalance Persists at Elite Public Schools
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Boys’ Charter School Impresses Board
Brentwood Press-- Dave Roberts--Published 10/02/2008-- A couple of Antioch Middle School teachers seeking to open a charter school focused on teaching math and science to African-American boys (but open to all boys) received praise from Antioch Unified School District Board members last week.
Karla Branch and Lawrence Rasheed made an impressive presentation for their proposed RAAMP Charter Academy of Mathematics and Science. RAAMP stands for Reaching African-American Males’ Potential, which is the name of the student group that Rasheed mentors at his school.
The board room at the recent meeting was packed with charter school supporters, many of whom spoke after Branch and Rasheed’s slide presentation.
Branch pointed out that “the achievement gap is huge for minority populations.” In AUSD schools, 60 percent of whites are proficient in English compared to only 29 percent of African-Americans and 27 percent of Latinos. In math, 53 percent of whites are proficient compared to only 30 percent of Latinos and 24 percent of African-Americans. At the same time, the United States lags far behind other industrialized countries in math (25th) and science (21st) education.