Testing African American Students

Contains workable recommendations for changing the school curriculum to include more African and African-American content.

Thought. Activism. Love. These are three words that well characterize the life, career, and contributions of Edmund W. Gordon. Like his mentor W.E.B. Du Bois, Edmund W. Gordon has led a pragmatist line of inquiry, a concern with the practical application of ideas in a universe that's understood to be always changing but still informed by underlying persistent challenges.

In this examination of the American school system, a career education expert determines how existing policies have kept inner-city youth at a disadvantage—citing, among other issues, the achievement gap between black and white students—and lays the groundwork for future improvements.

BUT PAUSE ON KING, begin talking to folks, and the clutter, the noise of the rest of America falls away, and you are transported beyond the sometimes battered facade into a black America that, with astonishing welcome, reveals itself as not only more separate and self-contained than imagined but also more tightly interconnected, powerfully whole. Many black people have moved beyond the neighborhoods through which King runs (though there are now King streets in new black suburbs), but few live beyond the reach of the sounds, sentiments, and stories rooted on King. These are streets united by struggle and circumstance, by history and happenstance. One King street leads to the next and next and back again. For many whites, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are lost. For many blacks, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are found.

This essay collection concerns the myriad implications of human diversity as they intersect with teaching, learning, and assessment for education. Seven of the essays were initially written for and published by the Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment for Education.