A Closer Look at the National Black Child Institute and its Resources

    This week I explored the National Black Child Institute further and discover quite a few things. While looking at the resources and links I found where the organization has provided a rubric designed by the Flamboyan Foundation for family and engagement based on teacher's beliefs and actions. The rubric includes such points as "the teacher values and respects families and sees them as important partners in supporting student learning.", "The teacher sees engaging all families as part of his or her core role and responsibility and works to continuously increase his or her effectiveness." and "the teacher builds relationships with families and students and invites their engagement" (Flamboyan Foundation 2011). It is also worth mentioning that the NBCI's website has its resources organized into categories of issues and trends such as health, policy and advocacy,early care and education, family engagement, literacy and child welfare. Another unique and interesting link is to a parent advocacy training for parents of children with learning disabilities. The resource is focused on educating parents on the importance of advocating for their child and how to do so.
       The NBCI has a few articles and resources that relate to trends that we have studied in recent weeks. I was however particularly drawn to an article regarding inequality due to a federal loophole in that allows governments to allocate less money to children of color. "the law explicitly requires districts to exclude teacher salary differentials tied to experience when determining comparability compliance. This is a major exclusion because experience is a chief driver of teachers’ salaries. This misleading process leads to a misleading result—districts think they are providing equal spending on high-need schools and low-need schools, even though they aren’t. This problem has been frequently called the comparability loophole" (Spatig-Amerikaner, 2012). Essentially what is occurring is that teachers working in areas with a student population of greater need ( generally children of color) make less money than their counterparts. This is often in due to less experience as most who teach in these areas are new to the field and therefore make less money. As these teachers gain more experience they move on to positions with better salaries that are generally outside of the district with the greatest need. Essentially, districts who serve large populations of children of color employ teachers who they can pay less. Without competitive salaries the only teachers these districts can employ are those who are new and in desperate need of a job. The loophole comes in to play because districts are required to report how much money is spent per child,however this report did not require the inclusion of teacher's salaries. This means that the amount of money spent on students looked more comparable across districts. When teacher salary is considered a "purchased resource" and therefore added to the equation the disparities become very apparent.
        I didn't have any new insights while viewing the website however I was reminded of the importance of the health of children and education. Often we get caught up in theory,policy, curriculum and instruction delivery and forget how important health is to education. If a child is ill they are not capable of learning at their full potential if they even make it into school. The NBCI has links to articles on children's health including obesity and insecurities.

Resources

National Black Child Institute Resources page
http://www.nbcdi.org/resources-page/from-our-partners

Unequal Education article by Spatig-Amerikaner
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2012/08/22/29002/unequal-education/