Dr. Comer on College Board Panel at Harvard

Nearly half of young men of color ages 15 to 24 who graduate from high school will end up unemployed, incarcerated or dead. This is just one of the many statistics highlighted in two new reports released by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center at an event at Harvard University on June 20, 2011. The reports are The Educational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress and Capturing the Student Voice.Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, co-hosted the event.

Dr. James P. Comer was a panelist at the event that was moderated by Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR). The distinguished panel also included actor and activist Hill Harper; State Representative Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, Texas; Neil Horikoshi, executive director of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund; Estela Mara Bensimon, co-director of the Center for Urban Education and a professor at the University of Southern California; and LeManuel "Lee" Bitsoi, program director of the Minority Action Plan (MAP) at Harvard Medical School.

The panelists discussed the educational challenges and disparate outcomes of different groups in the United States, and ways to improve college completion for Native American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino and African American young men. Just 26 percent of African Americans, 24 percent of Native Americans and Pacific Islanders, and 18 percent of Hispanic Americans have at least an associate degree. In addition, in each racial and ethnic group, young women are outperforming young men in attaining high school diplomas, with even more pronounced disparities at the post-secondary level.

"The College Board panel was an important step in bringing to light the severity of the growing problem that minority and poor white students and males in general are underachieving in our society," said Dr. Comer. "The panelists represented the ethnic and racial groups where under-achievement is a problem. They are doing very important work with African Americans, Southeast Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, and poor white students. What became apparent is that we must address more than curriculum and instruction and focus on the whole child and that means child and adolescent development."

To download copies of the two reports, TheEducational Experience of Young Men of Color: A Review of Research, Pathways and Progress and Capturing the Student Voice, click here.