From Rage To Hope by Crystal Kuykendall

I recently started to read a book called From Rage To Hope by a woman named Crystal Kuykendall. She is a teacher and her book focuses on what public schools are teaching Black and Hispanic students as well as how they teach the material (amongst other things).

She claims that current school cirricula focuses on imparting knowledge that is extremely irrelevant to the survival of Black youth. The believes that the cirricula should be revised to foster an appreciation of all the positive components of the students' racial/cultural group - along with portraying their history accurately. Schools distort historical facts - i.e Columbus "discovering" America, Native Americans being portrayed as "savages". This cirricula focuses on "tradition" instead of truth.

Cirricula is also relevant when it builds on the students' cultural and nonacademic strenghts and teaches students how to use their respective strenghts to realize meaningful goals. She argues that Black students need to be groomed and prepared for careers that will bring them professional gratifacation and financial security - they shouldn't be put in vocational/technical schools or other low-level tracks that prepares them for menial work and dead-end jobs.

Kuyendall claims that current resegregation has created unequal educational opportunities for Black students. Blacks progress since the 1960s was eliminated during the 1990s. Resegretaion is contributing to the growing achievement gap. The percentages of Blacks in special education, alternative schools and vocational programs surpasses whites, even though Blacks are the monority. (16% of Blacks in total school enrollment in elementary, yet they make up 38% of the mentally retarded.) When you convince students they can succeed in school, they are more likely to obtain menial jobs or live a life of poverty.

Another issue is that fewer Blacks are striving to become teachers. The pool of Black males teachers in below 5%. Sex, race, social class and background affect the quality of a student-teacher relationship - with teachers responding more favorably to students of the same sex, race and social class as themselves.