Designing an Early College High School for African American Males - Dissertation Example

Across the United States, the development of new schools to provide parents with different choices for their children grew, because of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This Act created opportunities for schools to work with students in different ways, and it called for children to be proficient in certain areas at certain times in their education. This Act was to close the achievement gap between Caucasian students and minority students (blacks and Hispanics) but it created more of a gap for African American students instead of closing the gap (Knaus, 2007).

Part of the challenge for many schools has been that they are given teachers who are unprepared to teach African American students (Knaus, 2007). In large urban areas, where there is a large amount of poverty, schools may have “three times as many uncertified or out-of-field teachers of low-poverty schools” (Knaus, 2007, p. 1). When African American males become resistant to this type of schooling and choose not to attend, they can be subject to moves to other types of schools like “continuation” schools or alternatives schools, and then to the juvenile justice system (Knaus, 2007, p. 1). This is not the type of situation that society needs for its African American youth.

Central to the success of any school and especially new schools is the quality of the educators who work with students. Graves and Howes (2011) state that education quality in pre-school can shape students’ minds in adolescence. Particularly, when negative behaviors show before preschool age, these behaviors can escalate in adolescence. Further on the authors state that the socio-economic level of children can influence their educational success later. It is because of these types of issues that schools specifically dealing with the social and emotional needs of African American youth are important to the process of their total development.