Supporting the African American Learner

For decades, African American students have demonstrated lower performance on most measures of academic achievement and attainment; however, they have received little targeted and meaningful support. We seek to change that dynamic and provide schools and districts with relevant research, resources and promising practices to enable them to make a significant impact on the lives and futures of African American students.

The recently released publication, Supporting the African American Learner: A Guide to Transforming Beliefs, Systems, and Practices for Black Students presents four foundational principles for changing outcomes for Black students. They are:

• Principle 1: Explore Belief Systems to Begin Work
• Principle 2: Create Educational Systems that Facilitate and Support Learning
• Principle 3: Ensure Culturally Relevant, Sustaining and Revitalizing High-Quality Instruction
• Principle 4: Mitigate the Accumulation of Disadvantage

To support the document, this professional learning opportunity for District and site leaders will familiarize them with the document through experiential learning based on the core principles.

This professional learning opportunity consists of four sessions - each taking deep dive on each of the principles, followed up by two integration, consultancy and planning sessions.

Getting Started:

Prior to getting started with the Principle 1 session, watch the following video for an overview on the Supporting the African American Learner document, and each of the four principles.

You can download the Supporting the African American Learner document, as well as the reports discussed in the video in the Resources under MODULES.

Sessions:

These sessions provide an overview of the Supporting the African American Learner document and accompanying professional learning resources.