Low college enrollment Among African American students

 Low college enrollment Among African American students

The African American community has been dragging behind in regards to getting equal education in the Los Angeles community. Different issues have contributed to the low percentage of African Americans joining colleges in the county. Recent research highlights that the number of black students joining college has risen based on the data on the students completing the University of California prep courses. Even so, the percentage remains relatively small compared to the number of Latino, Asian, and White counterparts (Gordon, 2019). The education challenge is based on different social inequalities faced in African American neighborhoods and communities. The challenges of housing, low school funding, the inadequacy of teachers in the schools dominated by children of color, and the lack of support of the children by administrators in the schools. As Rothstein explains, “Although immigrant low-income Hispanic students are also concentrated in schools, by the third generation their families are more likely to settle in more middle-class neighborhoods” (2014, p. 25). That is, other communities are likely to rise in the social hierarchy while children from low-income white families are able to access to better school districts. The African American community has been tied to poverty and systemic inequality that has reduced the chances of improving in the social hierarchy. In education, social inequalities lead to a lack of interest, thus increased the dropping out rate among teenagers. Moreover, the youths that complete high school has no guidance and role models to direct them towards applying and being accepted in the colleges in Los Angeles and California. The social issue of Low college enrollment Among African American students needs to be addressed to ensure equal opportunities and advancement of the community.

Desired difference

The desired change in the community is to get an increase of 5 to 10% of the African American students joining the college in California. The number of students with African Ancestry joining the school has been minimal in the main state universities. According to the Cal state fact book of 2017, the number of African American students enrolled was 20,009 out of the total of 478, 638 students enrolled that year, thus making the enrollment by ethnicity to be 4.2% (Factbook, 2017, p.12). The rise by 5-10% is based on the number of African American population in the Los Angeles community, which is approximately 9.7%. Getting the population of the same figure illustrates a fair representation of the community in Los Angeles.

Scope and scale of change

The social change will be achieved by changing the attitude and school district funding in the county of Los Angeles. The low enrollment of African American students is based on the lowered access of information, role models, and the facilities to aid in the development of the interest in enrolling for college. Creating knowledge of acceptance and diversity in the colleges is also critical in reaching the target of getting more African Americans to enroll in colleges in the county. The scope of the reach will be limited in African American communities and school districts.

Suggested Strategy

The suggested strategy of improving the rate of African American students’ enrollment is the community mentorship outreach and increased funding in the black-dominated school districts. The final product is expected to be an annual mentorship program and increased funding for the schools in the African American school districts. The outreach and the creation of the data will be done with the help of graduates from the community and African American teachers from the communities. Increasing the funding while offering good role models for the children in the schools allows the students to understand the reasons and positive impacts of getting a college education.

Step by step actions

The first step in implementing the strategy is to reach the community leaders and associations not only in the county but nationally. The African American community has a lot of celebrated scholars from Black Heritage universities and other colleges. Thus getting a team of influential and teachers will be essential in analyzing the challenge of enrollment and understanding various solutions as perceived by the leaders. According to research documented by National Public Radio, “black students who have just one black teacher in elementary school are 13 percent more likely to enroll in college than their peers who didn’t have any black teachers. Students who have two black teachers are 32 percent more likely to go to college” (Aina, 2019). The analysis illustrates that the presence of a role model of the African ancestry aids the students in developing interest in college education. As a result, the first step of implementing the strategy will be to create a group of advisors and role models from 10-20 to aid in speaking and interacting with the students in the schools and community forums with the parents.

The second step is to lobby for increased funding for African American dominated schools. The second stage will be the most time-consuming and lengthy process as it will require the drafting of the law that ensures the school districts are funded more. The bill will be proposed through a member of the legislature as the author. As the author of the City of Segregation explains, “the discourses rationalizing this status quo, both the discrimination and the violence that traditionally maintained white neighborhoods as white, have formed the building blocks of for today’s-hate filled an accusatory refusal” (Gibbons, 2018, p.8). That is, society has been stuck from correcting the social injustices based on the refusal to speak of the institutional bias. To fight the systematic bias, changing the legislation is critical in ensuring change in the community. The legislator, preferably a person of color, will be given reports of the difference in funding and teacher to student ratios in the various communities, thus showing the systemic challenge in the community. The lobbying process will be used using the contact with other legislators and the online platform. The success of the legislation and the addition of the funding in the African American schools will aid in the provision of basic resources and facilities required by the students, especially books.

The third step in the development of the strategy will be to develop a plan of community service by the team of volunteers nationally and in the county. The scholars and teachers of the African ancestry will visit the African American dominated schools to share and educate the children on the benefits and impacts of a college education. Injustices and inequalities in the society have led to the development of the ideals of college being out of reach for the people of color. As experts write in chapter 11, “when inequality is also injustice, we can expect a set of powers to be operating in the situation that blocks the remedies” (Wright & Rogers, 2015, p. 246). The author explains that the issue of injustice in the education system of African Americans is controlled by the powers that limit social progress. The students in different parts of the county need to see and hear from the people that have broken the social injustices. The scholars and the teachers from the African American societies will speak to the students and interact with them to offer information and motivation of the impacts of education not only for the student but also the future generations in the community.

The fourth step will be organizing community sessions with the African American community leaders and organizations to educate the community. The development of a positive attitude among the students should be complemented by a positive attitude from the parents as well. Based on research published by the Los Angeles Times, “California’s local control funding formula that’s meant to allocate resources to low-income students and underserved communities, schools in poorer areas have fewer sources of additional funds from resources like parent funding” (Kohli, 2015). The research expresses that parents have a role to play in the advancement of the students in college. Apart from funding from parents, maintaining a positive child environment for the children is critical. As a result, the process of achieving the strategies is based on teaching the parents of their responsibilities towards the advancement of the students into college.

The final step in the implementation of the strategy is to introduce the annual interactive sessions in the communities, especially towards the end of the school year. The process is expected to offer the student valid information and options of ensuring their get into the colleges of their dreams. According to recent research on LA schools, “There are 279 public schools closing the achievement gap for low-income Latino and black students, the study found. That’s out of a pool of 1,800 schools in the county that are serving a vast majority of these students. In total, there are 2,068 public schools in L.A. County” (Romero, 2019). Working with the schools playing a part in the correction of the achievement gap will be essential in the county to ensure increased results in the number of African American students enrolling in college. Moreover, implementing mentorship programs in the schools dominated by African Americans will offer the students with the insights of the college application, such as Early Decisions and Early Actions. The mentorship programs conducted annually will ensure that African American students learn of the various programs and application tactics that will allow them to join college and partly aid with their tuition costs. Offering information and knowledge to the students will be the main agenda of the meetings.

Partners needed

The partners needed in the strategic implementation will be African American legislators, community leaders, and the African American teachers. The strategy will be driven by people of color to offer the ethnic connection and understanding that might lack with people from different ethnicities. The partners will be involved in the volunteer work and the funding process. The legislators will be required to support and lobby for the bill of increased funding in the schools in both houses. On the other hand, the scholars and the teachers will lead the community work of meeting with parents, the leadership, and school administrators to get opportunities to speak to the students and members of the community. The process requires partners with interest in seeing the enrollment of African American students rise in the local and national colleges across the nation.

Leaders in the intervention

The leader in the intervention will be the African American scholars from various colleges in LA. The selection of the leaders will be based on experience and the involvement with addressing the social inequality in education in the African American community. as an author cautions, “writers who call Los Angeles home are often quite willing to disseminate the view of Los Angeles as La La Land” (Sullivan, 2014, p.126). In that, the majority of people appealing to the national audience from Los Angeles wish to address it as the place where all actions have no consequences. The intervention of the challenge of enrollment requires a genuine and rational approach to develop a long-lasting solution. As a result, getting scholars that are involved in the society will offer a better approach and solution to the challenges of the community from an educated point of view.

Organizational structure

The intervention will take the flat organizational structure in the creation and execution of the interview. According to the definition provided by Forbes, in the Flat structure, “here are little to no management levels between “superiors” and staff. It promotes an increased involvement in decision-making with less supervision” (Craig, 2018). The structure of an organization lowers the concepts of the superior and subordinates, thus emphasizing on the development of a unit that works towards the same goal. For the advancement of the intervention and the correction of the historic injustices towards black students, it is essential towards developing a system that allows all the members of society to have equal chances of achievements through attaining a college education. Therefore, brainstorming and contributing equally to the development of a good structure of leadership is essential in the advancement of long-lasting solutions for the community.

Evaluation of strategy

The evaluation of the strategy will be done by collecting the data both from the schools in which mentorship programs are used and in the analysis of the enrollment data of the major colleges in the county. A period of about two years will be the period in which the evaluation can be carried out with a clear illustration of the difference. This is because the first year of students enrolling will be a test period, and the systems of funding will not be fully available for the students. Secondly, the students will not be acquitted to working with mentors and college-advisers. A period of two years will be able to reveal the change in the enrollment percentage of African American students in LA as the mentors would have interacted with the students for a longer period, thus allowing the students to concentrate on their scores and academic interests before applying for college. Nonetheless, the trend of the students getting into college will be fully analyzed after five years. The five year period will be able to express the clear trend of the impacts of the mentorship programs in the county.

Conclusion

The number of African American students enrolling in colleges in LA has remained relatively small compared to their white, Asian, and Latino counterparts based on the social inequality that has affected the education of the children from a young age. The children have not received sustainable funding and role models to emulate, thus leading to generational poverty and economic challenges. Creating a sustainable mentorship program and funding for the black-dominated schools is essential in the increase of the African American students enrolling in college by 5 to 10%. The team involved in the advancement of the project will be a group of scholars and teachers with the help of several legislators in the county. The members of the organization should be willing to volunteer and take time to encourage, offer advice, scholarship applications, and help students with the college application programs. As a result, the members of the team should be interested in helping the community rather than an occasional show of support. The intervention is likely to succeed as it works directly with the students, thus offering the information that college advisors offer to the higher social classes, thus being able to access college enrollment.