African American Students

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
Feb 24 2011

‘Olympics of the Mind’ shows what African American youth can do

The NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) is a year-long achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate, and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African American high school students.

ACT-SO includes 26 categories of competition in the sciences, humanities, business, as well as the performing and visual arts.

Feb 17 2011

Responding to educational issues

Despite repeated attempts to secure a response to our question from incumbent Marguerite LaMotte, Our Weekly was unable to obtain a statement of any kind.

Question: By almost every measure, African American students are not faring well in the LAUSD (and nationally). Plan after plan has been proposed, and some have even been adopted by the school board. But instead of getting better, the educational situation for our children seems to have deteriorated even further. Why is this, and what specifically will you do to begin changing the outcomes?

Jan 18 2011

Instructional, contextual and operational framework

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Los Angeles schools Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines announced that he has convened a working committee to help Black students finally close a deep and stubborn achievement gap.

"Even though the achievement gap has persisted for decades, we cannot give up our sense of urgency and attempts to raise student performance for all our children,'' Cortines said in a  released statement.

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
Jan 13 2011

Program seeks civic diversity

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Cadet Community Youth Program is designed to offer youth an opportunity to develop skills that will carry them throughout their lives. The program is offered at each of the 21 community police stations across the city, as well as at two specialized divisions—the Metropolitan and Communications divisions.

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
Nov 18 2010

The need for STEM education

Iridescent is a science-education nonprofit that helps engineers, scientists, and technology professionals bring innovative science, technology and engineering to high school girls, and underprivileged minority children and their families.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.