¶ … disproportionate levels of educational achievement among White and African-American students, titled "Powerful Pedagogy for African-American Students: A Case of Four Teachers," researcher Tyrone C. Howard examines the role of teacher effectiveness in terms of reaching this distinct student population. As Howard observes in the opening of his article, "effectively teaching African-American students continues to be one of the most pressing issues facing educators ... (and) despite the plethora of school restructuring and educational reforms, the disproportionate underachievement of African-American students is a consistent occurrence in U.S. schools" (179), and this alarming phenomenon provides the central premise of his subsequent investigation. Howard elects to focus his qualitative study on the diverse range of socioeconomic, cultural, and regional factors which are likely to exert an impact on the continued underachievement trend within African-American student groups. He is also concerned with assessing the role that teacher effectiveness plays in influencing the eventual achievement level of African-American students, observing that the disproportional placement of African-American students in remedial or special education programs is likely attributable to the growing gap in comprehension between students and those tasked with instructing them. By examining the import of Howard's conclusions in conjunction with a pair...

Shujaa's "Education and Schooling You Can Have One without the Other," and Carter G. Woodson's "The Mis-Education of the Negro" -- one can begin to draw objective conclusions regarding the phenomenon of underachievement among African-American students.
When the entirety of the African-American experience in this country since the end of slavery is filly considered, it is no surprise that the institutionalized societal marginalization which is so pervasive on a professional and financial level has been extended to the educational realm. African-American students have repeatedly been placed in disadvantageous positions -- either through the legalized segregation which survived until the 1960s, or the informal divisions which took place when Whites fled urban area for suburbia in the 1980s -- and the consequences of these terribly repressive trends are being inflicted on today's minority youth. As Howard observes in his study, "the percentage of African-American students labeled at risk, ineducable, or in need of special or remedial education services is grossly disproportionate to the overall percentage of African-American students in the school or district" (180), and this trend is an obvious extension of both the preexisting prejudice against minority students, and the preferential treatment reserved for their White counterparts. Echoing a sentiment…