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Obama’s Education Goal Includes College Athletes
Published by Pamela Gentry on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 4:32 am.By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst
March 18, 2009 – The recent news that African-American NCAA college athletes continue to fall behind their White counterparts is troubling. And if the Obama administration is going to reach its lofty goal of leading the world in college graduates by 2020, these students will need to be counted.
On Monday, studies conducted by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, were released that looked at men’s and women’s college teams and analyzed NCAA data on graduation rates and how well college athletes were doing academically.
I know President Barack Obama is a huge basketball fan – but he might not be a fan of these findings.
The study took an even closer look at teams competing in the NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments.
The top seeds in the men’s NCAA; North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Connecticut are winning on the hardwood, but struggling to cross the stage on graduation day.
North Carolina tops the positive list with a graduation rate of 86 percent compared to UConn’s poor showing of 33 percent. Louisville faired a tad better at 42 percent, with Pitt in the below-average range with 69 percent.
But the most alarming news was the study discovered the ongoing gaps between the graduation rates of White and African-American players. Of the collegiate teams they surveyed for the report, 25 tournament teams had a gap of 20 percentage points or more between Black and White players.
NCAA President Myles Brand’s academic reform package is working. “This is far better than the 35 men’s teams (54 percent) below the 925 score in 2008. Nonetheless, the continuing significant disparity between the academic success between African-American and White men’s basketball student-athletes is deeply troubling,” Brand said.
Richard Lapchick, director of the institute responsible for the study, said in a written statement, “The good news is that the gaps are narrowing slightly.”
All of this is something Obama may want his administration to keep an eye on. The president has an ambitious agenda and wants to improve public school education and accountability. He’s also set a goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. I’m sure he’s also planning to count college athletes.
Why do you think African-American college basketball players aren’t getting their degrees?
[...] The Obama administration has set a lofty goal of U.S. students leading the world in graduation rates by 2020. Read more. [...]
rednblack it seems to me that you are speaking from emotions and you sre not properly evaluating obama’s actions.before judge obama closing this paticular program we have to first see what he will be his replacement.lastly his daughters attending private school only become relevant if and only if obama doesn’t properly reach out to the general public, and lets remember his term is 4 yrs not 3 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ TRUTH and RN Hunter, Great post. I agree %100.
@ TRUTH and RN Hunter, Great post. I agree %100. The nations youth need a better education. Not just those 6900 students.
@dasameolg….
If Obama cant honor a very sucessful program that is WORKING RIGHT NOW for 1,200 students……how can you expect him to do whats right for 45 Million students down the road?!?!
@minister-d……thank you for your well thought out response.
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Yes I am emotional because education and meeting the needs of the less fortunate are part of my service and call in life.
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Perhaps you can relate to this analogy. If you had a ministry that was making a great impact(say 1,700 children in downtown DC) but not reaching the entire world…..would you in your first days eleminate that outreach?
Nice post Pamela.
Obama won’t get the message about education — for black students, white students, or any students — unless we let him know!
If you support these core initiatives:
-Effective, empowered teachers and school leaders;
-Student assessments that stress 21st century skills;
-Universal access to high-quality early education;
-A safe, healthy learning environment; and
-Affordable college for all students,
Then let Obama know! Visit EDVOTERS.ORG and sign the petition today!
I would have done the same thing! I’m really tired of hearing about these vouchers. Vouchers don’t fix the problem, and they are exclusive. Insteading of paying money to send kids to private and charter schools, how about fixing our public school systems. This program is in D.C. where the schools are supposedly so terrible; but hell, the schools are so terrible everywhere! And parents, start teaching your kids. Education starts in the home.
And how about looking at the graduate rates of black athletes at HBCUs. I would assume the graduation rates at HBCUs would be higher, since a lot of these athletes are playing with hopes of going pro; but I could be wrong.
Actually, grad rates for student athletes at HBCU’s are lower in general than those at other institutions. It is a resource issue, not an academic quality issue. Also, HBCU’s produce far fewer pro athletes than in the past and clearly far fewer than non-HBCU programs. We need to keep in mind that the NBA recruits about 40-50 new rookies each year. There are 15,000 young men playing college basketball. The real message is to prepare yourself with a good education and life after basketball, which for most is when they leave college.
@Dee
You have made some very good points. I agree that education starts in the home and I have seen to many parents, especially Fathers who have been totally negligent in the education process of their children. Its a shame to go to a school activity, function or teachers conference and to see SO many of our children with out thier parents presence. We need to get behind our Teachers and schools and demand excellence from them and expect MORE from our children. This includesproper discipline that allows our children to learn in a hostile free environment
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However, the point you missed on the voucher program is that it actually SAVES the Government money. The Charters and Private schools education costs are from 3,000 to 5,000 dollars less per student. The program in DC was actually reducing costs by 8 milliopn dollars per year.
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I also agree with you in that the entire education system needs to be
revamped!
@Bob
I have seen to many of our fine young Black males think their only road to success is Music or Sports. We must teach teach them in the home that having dreams of being a scientist, doctor, engineer , teacher, attorney or civil servant are also admirable vocations. Making fun of these kids “for being white” because they desire to go into those fields or for having “book smarts”is just wrong.
RED N BLACK..AND EVERYONE IF IT WAS THE LORD’S WILL FOR AMERICA TO CHANGE, WE WILL WORK ON HIS TIME AND HIS TIME ONLY. THAT MEANS HE WILL REMOVE ALL THE STUMBLING BLOCKS, BUT UNTILL THEN THE ROAD WON’T BE AS SMOOTH AND STRAIGHT AS WE WANT IT TO BE.
What is his plan for education?… and don’t give me rhetoric. i have yet to hear his plan.
i want my kids to go to college. thats great, but how do i plan to do it?
whats the plan Barry?
Dee~ the public school system is run by entitled union democrats that do minimum work and make demands for equality regardless of performance just like 99% of democrats….entitled, spoiled, ignorant pansies. if you want to change the black community, inspire them to achieve IN SPITE of the adversities their own race lables their very existence with
lilly get a life. republicans rule on fox and democrats rule on BET. it is what it is!
I found lots of interesting information on blogs.bet.com. The post was professionally written and I feel like the author has extensive knowledge in the subject. blogs.bet.com keep it that way.
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