California's economical prosperity may lie in a dozen recommendations for helping African American, Latino, and Southeast Asian boys succeed in school. The country Assembly Select Commission on the Status of Boys and Men of Color is releasing those proposals today in Sacramento along with testimony from an all-star console of educational activity, health, and workforce experts.

Committee members spent the last year and a half holding hearings across the state to gather personal stories, research, and examples of successful reforms. What they learned filled 19 bills that are currently before the Legislature. About one-half those bills address the disproportionately high rates of schoolhouse suspensions and expulsions meted out to boys of color.

The console notes that although more than than 70 per centum of Californians under 25 aren't white, they continue to face extensive economic, educational, and health barriers that prevent them, and eventually the state, from thriving.

California's population projection by race and gender. Source: 2010 Census. (Click to enlarge).

California'southward population projection by race and gender. Source: 2010 Demography. (Click to enlarge).

The committee's policy platform warns that "Addressing racial disparities and the systemic barriers that limit the success of Californians is non merely a matter of fairness and equality—it is essential to the economic forcefulness and competitiveness of the country."

Some are quantifiable obstacles, according to the committee's policy cursory. As early as third grade, Latino and African American students are half as probable every bit white and Asian students to score in the adept or advanced levels on the California Standards Test in English linguistic communication arts. Breaking information technology down further, black and Latino girls exercise meliorate than black and Latino boys.

Other challenges cited in the commission reports illustrate the insidious relationship betwixt poverty, environment, and identity. Starting in kindergarten, nigh a quarter of African-American boys "are already convinced that they lack the ability to succeed in school," according to the commission's draft action plan.

The committee's twelve recommendations include:

  • Revising the state's Bookish Performance Index to reward individual student growth over schoolwide improvement in order to ensure that students who won't change the ranking aren't ignored,
  • Identifying students at risk of failing the high school exit exam and providing tutoring several years before they have to take the examination,
  • Building out the student database, known as CALPADS, to provide a more than authentic picture of the factors and school programs that impede or improve academic operation.

Assemblymember Sandré Swanson, an Oakland Democrat and chair of the select committee, has a sense of urgency about the piece of work. "In that location is no time to waste," said Swanson when the console was start convened. "In the face of demographic and social realities, California must atomic number 82 the way in understanding and improving opportunities for Latino, Black, Asian Pacific Islander, and Native American youth."

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