Do Charter Schools Help Their Students? Caroline Hoxby
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Civic Bulletin No. 44 October 2006 CiC CENTER FOR CIVIC INNOVATION AT THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE Moving Men into the Mainstream: The Next Steps in Urban Reform Black Men Left Behind: Reflections on Current Research This bulletin is adapted from the first panel of three at a Manhattan Institute conference, "Moving Men into the Mainstream: The Next Steps in Urban Reform," held in New York on June 21, 2006. The other panel discussions are available in Civic Bulletins 45 and 46. JOHN McWHORTER: Today we are going to here to discuss today is what policies we should discuss the issue of reconnecting a certain segment pursue to remedy this trend. of disadvantaged men into the workforce. The Manhattan Institute has been instrumental in The first panel will present an overview of the issues. forging the reform of welfare legislation, beginning Ronald Mincy, Professor of Social Policy and Social with the actual legislation in 1996, and by all Work at Columbia University, is the first panelist. measures, this policy has been a success. It certainly Next, we will hear from Hillard Pouncy, Visiting has not been a magic bullet, but we are seeing that Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public most of the women who have participated in these Policy at Princeton and a specialist on anti-poverty programs are working and childhood poverty, legislation, whose work also focuses on bringing ex- especially among African-Americans, is on the offenders back into the workforce. Next, Lawrence decline, and has reduced most quickly since 1996, Mead is a professor in the Political Science when these programs were instituted. Department at New York University and a specialist on anti-poverty legislation and welfare reform. Our It can be said, however, that we have only done half program today also includes the Manhattan the job in initiating these policies because welfare Institute's own Abigail Thernstrom, author of Whose reform has focused in particular on women. Votes Count? and America in Black and White, which Meanwhile, since about 1966, some men have she coauthored with her husband Stephan experienced similar problems. We face a problem Thernstrom. More recently, she has written No in that a very large number of disadvantaged men, Excuses. particularly Black and Brown men, are disconnected from the workforce, regardless of the state of the There is an important book that engages on the economy and with only a fitful relationship to the printed page with the issues this conference will availability of low skill work. The question we are address today: Black Males Left Behind. Professor MANHATTAN INSTITUTE Mincy is the editor of that book, which is an a series of legislative programs and non-profit anthology of papers on this particular issue and what initiatives targeted at young people more generally. can be done about it. Sometimes they are called "disconnected youth" with the idea that they are young people who are PROFESSOR RONALD MINCY: I have been not firmly attached to families; they are high school studying African-American men and boys for about dropouts and the like. Sometimes the programs CIVIC BULLETIN thirty years. In this country we have been circling target youth who are dropouts, but we rarely have around the challenges of less educated African- the capacity to target initiatives at African-American American men and mainstreaming them for at least males or disadvantaged males specifically. On the three decades. There was a book published in 1987 other hand, evaluations of existing programs often called Young, Black, and Male in America: An show that initiatives targeting disadvantaged youth Endangered Species, and this was the last time I produce decent results for girls, while their impact remember a study provoking a major conversation. on boys and young men is disappointing. This has There were state and local commissions in cities been the case with a major evaluation of the Job around the country trying to address the issue. I Training Partnership Act, which was the major want to suggest several things that I learned from employment program targeting disadvantaged that experience in order to plant some seeds for workers. In the late 1980s, evaluations of the youth thinking about what we should be doing in the programs concluded that the results for young current environment. women were cost effective, in terms of increasing their employment rates and their earnings, but the In the first place, we have seen a number of impacts of JTPA programs for young males were demonstration projects that are targeted at not statistically significant, and some participants disadvantaged youth, out-of-school youth, high actually did worse than males who were not enrolled school dropouts and the like over the last 15 years. in these programs. Often these programs receive boosts in funding and public interest following a spate of information A second case in which this trend occurred is the about what is occurring adversely with respect to Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP). This African-American men. was also a youth development program targeted initially at the children of welfare recipients, and Most recently this occurred with the genesis of the the objective of the program was to focus on a Youth Opportunity Grant Program, which was a vulnerable population of young people, providing spatially targeted youth-to-adult transition program them with a set of concentrated supports including for all young people residing in 20-percent poverty mentoring, and tutoring. The hope was that by areas. Though the research that motivated the Youth focusing on a vulnerable population before they Opportunity Grant Program focused on inner cities, showed signs of trouble, we could increase the program wound up targeting young people who graduation rates, college enrollment rates, and more. lived in poor neighborhoods in highly concentrated Again, results showed that these programs work well urban areas as well as in rural areas. for girls, but they work poorly for boys. What this program and others like it suggest that The most recent information along these lines is news about the adverse outcomes of young, less the Moving to Opportunity Program. This was a educated African-American men is a catalyst behind major demonstration that targeted resources to 2 MANHATTAN INSTITUTE MANHATTAN single mothers who lived in high poverty areas in longer or more frequent than girls do? Finally, can the city of Chicago. The idea was to move these we create academic environments that focus on the women and children to lower poverty areas where learning styles of males so that we can achieve more there were more substantial labor markets, better success, with males in particular, in terms of making schools and safer environments. Again, the results the school to work the youth to adult transition? showed that moms transitioned to employment, the African-Americans tend to live in highly segregated girls found new friends and connected with new environments. In the first place, they go to schools people in the community and the school, and saw that are predominantly Black and Puerto Rican. improvements in terms of teenage pregnancy rates However, when in the late 1980s we tried to create and high school graduation rates. The boys, on the single gender schools, we ran into huge civil liberty other hand, tended to return to their old challenges: Why do you need to create special neighborhoods and environments, and their results educational environments for Black boys, and when in terms of high school graduation, college you do so, do you advantage them with respect to enrollment and crime are disappointing. The single girls? My own view is that we short-circuited efforts exception, in my reading, was the Career Academy's at creating single-gender schools. In the process, we program—a school-to-work initiative focused on yielded the kind of challenges that we have today, young people who were likely to be high school such as high school graduation rates for African- dropouts. It created a high school environment that American males in New York City hovering about a focused on a particular career track, and then taught third, declining employment rates, and the other reading, writing and other basics in the context of things that we are aware of from recent studies. that career orientation. This was the unique program that I am aware of that showed better results for We have to think about the role of race and gender males than for females. especially, and have the courage to carry that thinking through into the kind of programming that In summary, over the last 15 years we have seen a we do. That will represent a huge challenge. When few programs targeted at disadvantaged young we create a set of tools-when we pass legislation that people who are making the transition from youth creates youth development, high school drop-out, to adulthood, often provoked by negative news or ex-offender programs-for working with this about the state of African-American males. The population, we cannot forget about the craftsmen. results show that the programs work for women or That is, who is it that is able to access the available young girls and they do not work for boys. tools or the funding in order to serve these young men? Programs that tend to focus on African- As we go into the next round of programming to American males, who often live in a highly resolve the challenges that young people-especially segregated environment, tend not to have the African-American males-experience, we have to capacity to garner the resources available for this focus on the role of gender in these disadvantages.