does anyone know of any schools made up of predominatly african american students, and the education is good.

The elementary school in our community with the highest concentration of African Americans scores very well on our statewide MAP (Missouri Assement Program) Test.

African Americans represent 50%; the school has a 78% free and reduced lunch population. This group tends to score lower in most schools.

I belive our district is very diligent in targeting resources to this school and sucessful in overcoming barrier to provide quality education to low-income and minority students.

Free & Reduced Lunch - as incicator of poverty

Communications: Below Basic 10% Basic 47% Proficient + 43%
Math Below Basic 3% Basic 38% Proficient + 59%

2007 average, grades 3, 4, 5.

Vernon Elementary School (K-8) in Portland Oregon is predominatly African American and the children are meeting or exceeding state reading test. They have a special reading program funded by title one and have won numerous awards for the achievements. It would be interesting to see the results of these children as they move on to high school. Currently no high school in Portland Public School system has African Americans meeting or exceeding state testing.

I agree with Healthy11. There are several schools in Chicago that have visionary principals and do great.

There is also this famous example in Connecticut:

www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=15713

Having watched my daughter's elementary school go through several political crises due to the achievement gap, I've developed some opinions on the matter. Many people look for one master stroke that will solve the problem, but I think that it's multifaceted.

Starting with the most obvious, there's the economic correlation. It's undeniable that the rate of poverty among minorities is much higher. One can imagine many reason for a cause and effect (poverty leading to poor achievement). Parents, and their children, have their minds on day to day survival rather than gaining an academic edge. you can see this pattern across all races. And achievement of children is highly correlated with maternal education. So poor achievement is self perpetuating.

However, you could also look at it the other way around. Is poor achievement leading to poverty? For example, studies show that a tremendous percentage of prisoners is dyslexic. Could there be a pattern of learning disabilities, perhaps just differences, that lead to poor performance in school as it exists, which then leads to poor performance in society and therefore poverty?

Then there are cultural aspects to the whole question. In our neighborhood, there has been resentment between recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean vs. African Americans. The recent immigrants tend to perform much better in school and have much higher expectations for their children.

Parental involvement with the school is also an indicator of a child's academic success. In our school, it's been very difficult to get African American and Hispanic parents to participate. But, again, which is the chicken and which the egg? White stay-at-home moms with previous executive careers have a much easier time of running organizations such as the PTA. Meetings tend to revolve around the convenience and style of these parents. But even highly educated minority parents tend not to participate at the same rates as the white families.

I also have to bring up the question of racism. Our school had black administrators and many black teachers, yet it appeared that the general expectations for minority students was just lower. Often differences in treatment were subtle and probably not intentional. But a friend of mine who's children are bi-racial was able to recount some very disturbing anecdotes. Most white parents would never have occasion to notice. Minority parents with higher academic expectations tend to enroll their kids in magnet schools or programs to avoid these low expectations.

There are also many teaching styles that are more successful with minority students than the standard lecture mode. For example, white students seem to be best motivated by implicit high expectations. Minority students tend to do better with a lot of hands on attention and encouragement. They also perform better with multi-sensory instruction and the opportunity to move around the classroom.

Here's the results page from a search at one site that discusses many of these topics:

www.edutopia.org/search/node/black+boys

And then there's the question of neighborhoods: funding, safety, classroom management, pool of available teachers etc.

Sorry, I tend to write long posts.

I went to a predominately black school in Maryland. I feel the level of education was great. In my opinion it was lack of student involvement that made the school seem substandard. The teachers tried the best they could, but when at any moment a gun fight may occur or you fear for your life every day you step foot in the door it can become hard to concentrate on your studies. And not everyone can afford private schools. So we pretty much just sucked it up, graduated as fast as we could, and being that my husband is military we moved out of the area. I don't think your question is racist at all. Reading the book is always better than just figuring it out by the cover.