Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Improving Education And Training For Economic Development, Joan Mcrae Stoia

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the connections between workforce quality and economic prosperity, as well as the role of the Massachusetts education and training system, in developing and preserving that quality and supporting the state's key industries. It includes a review of the most recent employment trend and projection data available from the Massachusetts Department of Employment and Training, information about several business-based workplace education models, and a discussion of the specific education and training needs of workers across the age/skill continuum. For the purpose of this discussion, the education and training system are broadly defined to include existing public, private, and …

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Review focuses on a range of strategies and programs utilized for training black, Latino, and Asian educators and civic leaders. A number of efforts across the country are highlighted and summarized in this issue. Together, the articles offer important insights about the commonalities of some of the most exciting and important programs for training leaders from black, Latino, and Asian communities. The authors examine the critical elements of training and professional development programs that seem especially effective for students from these communities.

Retaining Students Of Color: The Office Of Ahana Student Programs At Boston College, Donald Brown

Trotter Review

On September 1, 1978, I assumed responsibility for what was then known as the Office of Minority Student Programs at Boston College. The charge given to me was to alter an embarrassingly high attrition rate of 83 percent for a target group of black and Latino students who had been identified by the university's Admissions Office as having high levels of motivation and potential, but who would require assistance if they were to succeed at the university.

Over the course of the past sixteen years, a great deal has transpired at Boston College. An important change was made in the …

Role Models And Mentors For Blacks At Predominantly White Campuses, Clarence G. Williams

Trotter Review

Educators must begin to revisit the topic of mentoring and role models in higher education, especially as it relates to blacks at predominantly white college campuses. There are two major facets of this topic; namely, the existence of role models and mentors for young black administrators, faculty members, and students at predominantly white campuses; and, the objectives and goals of providing role models and mentors for these individuals.

An Interview With Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, Director Of The Center For Strategic Urban Community Leadership, Rutgers University, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

This article is an interview with Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, who was the Director of the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership at Rutgers University at the time.

Training Leaders For Multiracial And Multi-Ethnic Collaboration, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Due to changes unfolding in urban demographics, along with continuing social and economic problems in many cities, there is a growing need for a cadre of community-based leaders to work in, and on behalf of, communities of color. Developing such leaders requires understanding of the factors that determine the nature of racial and ethnic relations between African-American, Latino, and Asian communities. Unfortunately, training programs in higher education designed to equip African-American, Latino, and Asian urban leaders to work with each other and become effective change agents in their communities have not been widely established, even at institutions with strong urban …

Educational Opportunity Programs For Students Of Color In Graduate And Professional Schools, Sheila Gregory, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

The significant underrepresentation of people of color in all occupational fields is clearly indicative of the exceptionally low percent of people of color in graduate and professional schools in America. Unless drastic actions are taken by universities across the nation to identify and recruit a significant number of students of color in undergraduate colleges it is unlikely that significant numbers of people of color will be available in the near future for potential employment.

Expanding The Pool Of Women And Minority Students Pursuing Graduate Study: The Development Of A National Model, Bernard W. Harleston

Trotter Review

The underrepresentation of women and minority students in certain disciplines in the graduate schools of American colleges and universities is a matter of great national concern. This concern has been intensified by the decline during the last fifteen years, especially from 1978 to 1988, in graduate school enrollments of all categories of American students. But, even before this most recent period of decline and during a time when the enrollment of women and minority students was at its highest (between 1968 and 1974, as a consequence, primarily, of the civil rights movement), the representation of women and minorities in the …

Barriers To The Employment And Work-Place Advancement Of Latinos, Gaston Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gastón Institute Publications

This study examines barriers to the employment and work-place advancement of Latinos. The understanding of these barriers requires the consideration of factors affecting access to employment and advancement in firms, occupations, and industries. We have organized the discussion of the factors affecting the work-place situation of Latinos under the major headings of employment structures and work-place organizations. Employment structures refer to the labor-market context in which work organizations operate. The advancement of Latinos within organizations is affected by the structure of career ladders, stereotypes, intergroup relations, and work-place culture.

Parent Involvement In Urban Schools: The View From The Front Of The Classroom, Frances Gamer, Kathleen Mccarthy Mastaby

New England Journal of Public Policy

American educational reform movements focus on efforts to restructure our schools to include all interested parties, especially parents, in the decision-making process. Nowhere is involvement more crucial than in America's inner-city urban neighborhoods. As parents are given a greater voice in their child's school, educators must join them as collaborators. This article identifies elements that impeded parental involvement and recognizes positive and encouraging techniques leading toward successful family-school-community partnerships. An alliance between groups too long seen as opponents rather than proponents must be established.

The Suffolk County Sheriff's Department: Correctional Education Program, Robert C. Rufo, Stefan F. Lobuglio

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article describes the Sheriff's Department correctional education programs at the Suffolk County House of Correction and Jail. It points out the tremendous need for educational services given that more than 60 percent of those incarcerated in these institutions are high school drop-outs, and a much higher percentage are functionally illiterate. Because 95 percent of those incarcerated at this facility will return to their communities within three years, educating prisoners serves as a constructive and cost-effective means of preventing recidivism and an effective investment in public safety. The authors also discusses the new Mandatory Literacy Law, which essentially links literacy …

New Directions In Juvenile Justice: School-Based Crime Prevention, Paul F. Walsh Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article considers the role of the district attorney as a catalyst for aggressive school-based educational programs to help young people avoid trouble with the legal system. Walsh argues that while it may be unfair to burden classroom teachers with additional responsibilities concerning drug and alcohol issues, school is the logical site at which to provide these services and that a district attorney is well suited to act as a catalyst and resource for providing these additional services.

Why Is Boston University Still In Chelsea?, Glenn Jacobs

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the face of obdurate social, educational, and political failures, problems, and obstacles, Boston University persists in its management of the Chelsea public schools. It also persists in its refusal to share power with such Chelsea citizenry as the resistant Latinos whose leadership the university seeks to discredit. Jacobs examines the historical background of the city and its schools to decipher Chelsea's economic dependency and repeated fall into receivership and privatization.

Education And Falling Wages, Lester C. Thurow

New England Journal of Public Policy

Start with a statistic that should be burned into the brain of every American. If one looks at young males eighteen to twenty-five years of age who work full-time for a full year — eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year — 18 percent of them could not earn a poverty-line income ($12,183 in 1990 dollars) in 1980. Ten years later, in 1990, that number had risen to 40 percent. Among young female workers eighteen to twenty-four years of age, the percentage unable to earn a poverty-line income despite full-time, full-year work rises from 29 …

Affirmative Action Strategies In Elementary And Secondary Schools, Abigail Therstrom

New England Journal of Public Policy

Disproportionate numbers of black students do poorly on standardized tests; strategies to improve American education thus frequently target inner-city schools. These strategies often have an unrecognized affirmative action component. A search for more minority students or teachers is clearly an affirmative action effort. But the elimination of all tracking or competency grouping is another matter. Normally viewed as nothing more than a pedagogical strategy, it, like other affirmative action efforts, amounts to a conscious effort to alter the low-track status of minority pupils. Similarly, the demand for curricular reforms, racial sensitivity training, and more culturally "appropriate" tests, while not obviously …

Service Learning: The Promise And The Risk, Alice L. Halsted, Joan C. Schine

New England Journal of Public Policy

Service learning, the pairing of meaningful work in the community and structured reflection, has the potential to transform schools. It provides opportunities for young people to test new roles, develop skills, apply academic learning in a "real world" setting, and move toward responsible citizenship. Service learning can reinvigorate traditional classrooms and turn passive students into dynamic and engaged learners. However, unless it is implemented with care, with a solid rationale and clearly articulated learning and service goals, service learning will fail to realize this potential. The power and the promise of service learning are too great to allow this imaginative …

Lessons In The Common Good: Voluntarism On College Campuses, Jodi Raybuck

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article describes the current interest and activity in community service and the undergraduate educational experience. Many examples of campus-based voluntarism with a social reform twist set the stage for passage of the National and Community Trust Act of 1993. What is still necessary, however, is recognition by faculty, administrators, and agency officials that the community service experience must be structured properly, so that both service and learning take place. Drawing on the efforts at Babson College and direct involvement with the national scene, this analysis offers recommendations for implementing a program that helps to cultivate good citizenship and values.

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Review focuses on a broad range of questions and issues concerning the economic development of the urban black community. This subject is timely and important given the continuing crisis surrounding the social and economic development of black communities in urban America. Poverty, poor health, unemployment, inadequate housing, and other related concerns, will continue to plague black communities to a greater extent than other communities until effective and comprehensive economic development strategies can be developed and pursued.

This issue of the Trotter Review challenges the notion suggested by some that the pursuit of economic development strategies …

Theoretical Explanations Of Persistent Black Youth Unemployment, Rhonda M. Williams

Trotter Review

This essay reviews and briefly summarizes three theoretical models used most often to explain two decades of persistently high unemployment among black youth and declining rates of male labor-force participation: neoclassical, Keynesian/neo-Keynesian, and radical perspectives. Based on a review of these models, it offers an alternative approach to explaining and analyzing black youth unemployment.

The African-American Urban Milieu And Economic Development, Lenneal J. Henderson

Trotter Review

Economic disparity between urban white America and urban black America is becoming more pronounced, whether in central cities, suburbs, or edge cities. African-American employment prospects have declined in central cities, increased slightly in suburbs, and increased substantially for the few African Americans living and working in edge cities. William Julius Wilson cites the decline in stable, higher-paying, blue-collar employment in the industrial cities throughout America. Others identify the changing structure of metropolitan employment as characterized by more rapid professional and white-collar employment growth in suburbs and edge cities and declining employment in central cities. In his book, Cities Without Suburbs …

Myths And Realities Of Puerto Rican Poverty, Edwin Melendez

Trotter Review

The following remarks were made as the closing keynote address at the conference, "Mainland Puerto Ricans: Myths and Realities on Poverty," held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 22 and 23, 1993.

There are two "stories" frequently cited to explain the causes of the poverty among Puerto Ricans: the first suggests that Puerto Ricans are poor because they are going through a transition as they move toward full assimilation; the second proposes that Puerto Ricans are becoming part of an urban "underclass." Neither of these explanations stands the test of reality.

Race, Economic Development, And The Role Of Transportation And Training, Joan Wallace-Benjamin

Trotter Review

As Massachusetts confronts its economic future and develops strategic plans for seizing competitive advantages, accessibility promised by proposed development plans for the transportation infrastructure must not only provide commuters with the means to get to work, but also increase the opportunity for participation in the economy for all citizens of the region. Changes in the transportation infrastructure will not ensure accessibility unless workers receive adequate training for the new types of jobs being offered. According to a recent report issued by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, authored by William P. O'Hare, "Black people who live in urbanized …

Revisiting The Question Of Reparations, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Recent congressional action to award Japanese Americans "reparations" for their internment during World War II, as well as the Florida state legislature's act to award $150,000 to black survivors of a white riot rampage of Rosewood, a black town, in 1923, has contributed to a re-emergence of the call for black reparations. Several black state and local politicians and leaders across the United States have called for legislative action that would compensate blacks for three and one half centuries of racial enslavement. The awarding of reparations to Japanese Americans is not the only precedent for indemnity to a group of …

Providing Quality Leadership In Roxbury: A Profile Of Leon T. Nelson, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

Poor leadership is often the cause for the inept functioning and eventual collapse of an organization or agency. This is because the leader sets the tone and to a great extent determines whether or not an organization will be viable. Leon T. Nelson, president of the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce, has done his utmost to live up to the organization's motto, "Quod facis bene fac," which means doing whatever you do as well as you possibly can.

In a community that underwent drastic demographic changes during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous businesses led the "white flight" to suburbia, …

The Role Of Black Political Leadership In Economic Development, Curtis Stokes

Trotter Review

One of the most striking things about the United States is the degree to which racial inequality remains a pervasive fact of life. Indeed, since the end of the 1960s the black-white gap in life chances (for example, jobs and income) has worsened for large segments of the black community. To persistently face high unemployment and declining income is especially troublesome in a capitalist economy like that in the United States, where goods and services are rationed by a harsh market and where there is, at best, a very modest social safety net. The United Nation's Human Development Report 1993, …

The African-American Business Tradition In Boston, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

African Americans in Boston have been exhibiting their interest and talents in business for a long time. Those in business today are continuing a tradition that goes back to the African culture of preslavery days. Enslaved Africans who were brought to America came from a business tradition, from a culture of great traders, merchants, and craftsmen. Many enslaved blacks, in fact, purchased their freedom by marketing their skilled services and handmade products.

"Economic Development" Is Not "Community" Development: Lessons For A Mayor, Eugene "Gus" Newport

Trotter Review

Economic development is one of the most important elements of an effective community development plan. Economic development can mean jobs for the community, as well as the development of new businesses and the enhancement of a city's tax base, which provides the funds to operate the government. I had campaigned on the need for responsible alternative economic development. But, one of the first things I learned is that community development often gets misinterpreted as economic development. That is an unfortunate mistake, since the term community development has a much broader meaning, both conceptually and practically. Community development means development of …

Institute Brief: Employment Advisory Boards: The Ultimate Community Resource, David Hoff, Margaret Van Gelder, Martine Gold, Joe Marrone

The Institute Brief Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

Strategies for establishing links to the business community and relationships with prospective employers through the development of employment advisory boards.

Latinos In Chelsea: Poverty, Income, Education, Employment, And Housing, Gaston Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gastón Institute Publications

The Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy was established at the University of Massachusetts Boston in December of 1989. In an effort to facilitate the access to vital information about Latinos to various audiences, and with support from the Boston Foundation, the Gaston Institute has produced a series of basic demographic profiles for selected cities in the Commonwealth based on the 1990 U.S. Census of Population and Housing (Massachusetts Summary Tape File 3A, produced by the U.S. Bureau of the Census). These profiles are but one part of a broader initiative to disseminate the 1990 U.S. …

Latinos In New Bedford: Poverty, Income, Education, Employment, And Housing, Gaston Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gastón Institute Publications

The Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy was established at the University of Massachusetts Boston in December of 1989. In an effort to facilitate the access to vital information about Latinos to various audiences, and with support from the Boston Foundation, the Gaston Institute has produced a series of basic demographic profiles for selected cities in the Commonwealth based on the 1990 U.S. Census of Population and Housing (Massachusetts Summary Tape File 3A, produced by the U.S. Bureau of the Census). These profiles are but one part of a broader initiative to disseminate the 1990 U.S. …