by Andrew Tellijohn

Na'im Madyun is interested in how social relationships
can support college attendance.

As a child from a lower income, single-mother family, Na’im Madyun says he was always strong academically but not tops among his peers. Today he has a doctorate in school psychology from the College and an assistant professorship in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning. He credits his success to several adults, including his mother and several mentors she connected him with who helped steer him toward extracurricular and college preparatory programs and advised him on his eventual college choices.

He recently began researching the social networks of African American students and how the people students surround themselves with when they are young can influence their future levels of achievement. "The reason why I started this particular path of investigation is that I wanted to explain why so many of my peers growing up who I thought were better students or harder workers than I was did not advance as far academically as I did," Madyun says.

He is one of many faculty and staff members across the College who are researching educational access and equality. From looking for approaches to close the achievement gap, to addressing disparities in special education referrals, they share a passion for discovering ways to develop educators and to give all students a better opportunity to succeed.

Madyun argues that many African American students have the desire to succeed, but if they have no successful models, they won’t know where to go for guidance.

“They may not have anyone to help them maximize whatever abilities they may have,” he says. “They don’t know that they don’t know that information.”

Madyun is in the process of coding data on social networks, and the value of friends, neighbors, and parents among 50 high-achievement students from a local charter school.

Projects leading to policy improvements

Audrey Appelsies (Ph.D. ’06), a fellow with the University’s Children, Youth, and Family Consortium (CYFC), researches the difference in effectiveness of the educational system for middle-income white families compared with low-income families of color. She focuses on community activism, teacher education and development, and public policy, among other areas, to determine why an achievement gap exists. Dean Darlyne Bailey works closely with CYFC through her position as assistant to President Robert Bruininks.

For example, Appelsies notes that African American males are suspended at a far greater rate than other students and that they are disciplined more often for less serious offenses than white boys.

“The issue of institutional racism is not a thing of the past,” Appelsies says. “I want to be very clear: There is nothing wrong with the intelligence of children of color, Native American children, immigrant children, or children living in poverty. It is the system that pathologizes them.”

At the consortium, she is working closely with Sen. Patricia Torres Ray (DFL-Minneapolis), to coordinate data relevant to a planned policy proposal asking each district in Minnesota to end the achievement gap. Appelsies has assisted in bringing experts to Minnesota to testify about the causes of the educational disparities and participated in numerous discussions, herself.

Based on discussions with national leaders, Appelsies believes Torres Ray’s efforts to end the achievement gap are among the strongest in the nation.

“The overarching principle is we believe that education ought to open opportunities for people regardless of situation,” Appelsies says. “There’s a tremendous amount of work to be done when it comes to ending the achievement gap or improving access to education.”

Jean Bauer, a professor in the Department of Family Social Science, also shares her research findings with policymakers. As part of a 17-state, decade-long project, she’s focused on the economics and function of families in rural areas. She studies job volatility among low-income mothers, the challenges they face in keeping the same job year after year, and the resulting difficulties in keeping a family stable.

“The volatility of employment in rural areas is pretty great,” she says. “Educational disparities and low income are linked with this almost always.”

Ultimately, Bauer says, the goal is to remind lawmakers that there is more than the diversity of race to keep in mind when establishing laws and policies. “Rural is a diversity that most people don’t think about,” she says.

Boosting educator competence

Some teachers simply don’t have the training needed to deal with students from diverse populations, and that too can affect educational access.

Carole Gupton, director of the Preparation to Practice Group at the College, has been researching the disproportionate number of African American students referred to special education. In a second study, she is applying the same premise to a broader group of cultures.

Gupton posits that training teachers to better deal with ethnic differences would reduce their referral rates. Under the traditional system, teachers often assume that a student who doesn’t maintain grade-level progress lacks the required skills and ability and needs special services. Instead, Gupton says, cultural issues may be the barrier.

Teachers with better cultural awareness will believe more strongly that these students are capable of learning materials and will work more diligently to find successful ways of reaching them rather than immediately passing them off to special education, Gupton says.

Tanetha Grosland (right) collaborates with Carole Gupton about strategies for culturally competent education, which she disseminates in her role as integration equity coach for North St. Paul Public Schools.

As part of two grants received from the Minnesota Department of Education, Gupton and her team have trained 11 facilitators to work with school teams to build cultural competencies that she hopes will allow them to improve their work with students of color. So far educators are reporting that the information is useful, Gupton notes. However, the department is two years away from being able to make any predictions on the value of the training.

“Successful teachers of African American children are successful teachers of all children,” Gupton observes. “To be a culturally relevant teacher is to focus on the positive strengths of children rather than the negatives. These teachers do not foster a deficit approach. They believe in their students and in themselves.”

Patricia Harvey, a member of the CEHD Dean’s Advisory Council and a senior fellow at America’s Choice, where she works with superintendents and education leaders around the country, agrees that the way to improve education is to focus on improving teacher skills and helping students keep up with their grade level. “What I look for is inclusion rather than exclusion,” Harvey says. “What I look for is academic rigor for all kids …. and that we take a look at all of our policies and practices and make sure they are getting the same level of content.”

With America heading further and further into a global economy and the effect that will have on the distribution of wealth, there has never been a more crucial time to make the education system accessible for everyone, Harvey concludes. “Every child must get to high levels of achievement.”

As assistant to President Bruininks, Dean Bailey also works with the University’s College Readiness Consortium, which is charged with making sure every student is prepared to succeed in this global-information age. She shares College research and expertise with consortium Executive Director Kent Pekel as he forwards the University’s commitment to enhance preK–12 education and to ensure that all students are ready and able to access higher education opportunities. The consortium and the College are both integral partners in Minnesota Promise, a statewide collaboration among school superintendents, community partners, parents, and policymakers that is dedicated to creating world-class schools that prepare highly qualified students.

Beyond individual faculty and staff research, the College offers a number of programs that foster equity and access in education:

Access to Success: For first-year students whose experiences and high-school records indicate strong potential for success, but whose high-school rank and test scores may not meet the typical admissions profile. Students receive additional advising and academic support.

Commanding English: A first-year learning community for multilingual students who need extra language support at the college level. A related program for talented multilingual students at Edison, Roosevelt, and Washburn high schools in Minneapolis allows students to take college-level courses in academic reading, immigration literature, and college writing, while they earn both high school and college credit.

Common Ground Consortium: Supports advanced graduate work in education by graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Homegrown Teacher Partnership Project: An undergraduate program to recruit and prepare Minnesota students of culturally diverse backgrounds as teachers for Minnesota schools.

Multicultural Teacher Development Project: A master’s degree/initial licensure program and funding to recruit and prepare students of culturally diverse backgrounds for teacher development programs.

McNair Scholars: A federally funded Trio program that seeks to increase the rate of doctoral program application, matriculation, and degree attainment by first-generation college students who are underrepresented in graduate programs.

Trio Student Support Services: A program for incoming first-year students who are first-generation college students, meet federal income guidelines, or have a physical or learning disability. This multidimensional program provides comprehensive academic support, supplemental study groups, learning communities, and leadership development.

Upward Bound: A college preparatory program for low-income and educationally disadvantaged high school students to help generate the skills they need to succeed in postsecondary education.

UGO! A scholarship program designed to support selected, high-potential students with demonstrated financial need who are from an underrepresented group or a first-generation college student. UGO students receive financial, academic, and social support over four years, including aid that closes any gaps in their funding and fully loaded laptop computers.

PHOTOS: Dawn Villella and Greg Helgeson