Reviews
Perry, Steele, and Hilliard . . . challenge the terms of the current conversation that denies Black students' gifts and they offer models for achieving excellence despite the burdens of racist stigma and stereotype . . . [An] important and powerful book . . . Offers a forceful antidote to the victim-blaming that pervades most policy discussions on Black achievement. --Charles Lawrence, Boston Review "Forget what you think you know about the achievement gap between white and black students. In Young, Gifted and Black, three professors lay out the research that shows what you 'know' is probably wrong." --American School Board Journal "I am awed by the lucidity and careful crafting of these essays. The authors-all scholars of impeccable credentials in their respective fields-capture with unprecedented cogency the real issues surrounding the so-called 'achievement gap.' No one who reads this book can ever suggest that we don't know what to do to promote high achievement for African-American students. The question is, do we really want to do so." --Lisa Delpit, Florida International University, author of Other People's Children "While the authors of the three essays in this thought-provoking volume disagree on many things, all agree that we must have a 'better understanding of what it is we are asking African-American youth to do when we ask them to commit themselves, over time, to academic achievement . . .' The solutions offered by each essay are creative, inspirational, and good old common sense." -- Los Angeles Times "In a remarkable essay, . . . Steele takes [a] very common coming-of-age experience and turns it into a hopeful solution . . . In just 22 pages, [Steele] proposes several solutions, as do the other contributors." --Jay Matthews, Washington Post "These three very different essays go a long way toward raising the level of the national discussion about 'achievement gaps.'" --Charles Payne, Duke University, "Young, Gifted, and Black will change the public conversation about the achievement of African-American students. Three scholars, using their various disciplinary tools, show how race shapes the experiences of African American young people in schools. This book is a primer for the promotion of high achievement. All Americans need to listen." -Henry Louis Gates Jr., coeditor of Encarta Africana, "Perry, Steele, and Hilliard . . . challenge the terms of the current conversation that denies Black students' gifts and they offer models for achieving excellence despite the burdens of racist stigma and stereotype . . . [An] important and powerful book . . . Offers a forceful antidote to the victim-blaming that pervades most policy discussions on Black achievement." --Charles Lawrence, Boston Review "While the authors of the three essays in this thought-provoking volume disagree on many things, all agree that we must have a 'better understanding of what it is we are asking African-American youth to do when we ask them to commit themselves, over time, to academic achievement . . .' The solutions offered by each essay are creative, inspirational, and good old common sense." -- Los Angeles Times "In a remarkable essay, . . . Steele takes [a] very common coming-of-age experience and turns it into a hopeful solution . . . In just 22 pages, [Steele] proposes several solutions, as do the other contributors." --Jay Matthews, Washington Post "Forget what you think you know about the achievement gap between white and black students. In Young, Gifted and Black, three professors lay out the research that shows what you 'know' is probably wrong." -- American School Board Journal "I am awed by the lucidity and careful crafting of these essays. The authors-all scholars of impeccable credentials in their respective fields-capture with unprecedented cogency the real issues surrounding the so-called 'achievement gap.' No one who reads this book can ever suggest that we don't know what to do to promote high achievement for African-American students. The question is, do we really want to do so." --Lisa Delpit, Florida International University, author of Other People's Children "These three very different essays go a long way toward raising the level of the national discussion about 'achievement gaps.'" --Charles Payne, Duke University, "Three black educators join forces to focus on improving the educational experiences of African American children in schools. Perry argues that the historic African American philosophy of learning is based on the concept of "freedom for literacy and literacy for freedom" and supports that view with narratives drawn from the autobiographical writings of Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Jocelyn Elders, and others. She asserts that communities and educators must approach schooling for black children with strategies to counteract the widely held ideology that black children are not as intelligent as other children, which, she argues, has been "institutionalized in polices and practices" of our public school. Claude Steele presents an essay on his widely published research into the threat of stereotyping as a deterrent to learning, which supports Perry's case. Asa Hilliard offers examples of programs in which black students excel and identifies the characteristics of teachers that make them successful. The idea that black children should be offered an educational approach designed to counter a potentially limiting self-identity that was socially constructed is as controversial as the current opions about affirmative action. The perspectives of these authors are important additions to the ongoing discourse.", Perry, Steele, and Hilliard . . . challenge the terms of the current conversation that denies Black students' gifts and they offer models for achieving excellence despite the burdens of racist stigma and stereotype . . . [An] important and powerful book . . . Offers a forceful antidote to the victim-blaming that pervades most policy discussions on Black achievement. --Charles Lawrence,Boston Review "Forget what you think you know about the achievement gap between white and black students. InYoung, Gifted and Black,three professors lay out the research that shows what you 'know' is probably wrong."--American School Board Journal "I am awed by the lucidity and careful crafting of these essays. The authors-all scholars of impeccable credentials in their respective fields-capture with unprecedented cogency the real issues surrounding the so-called 'achievement gap.' No one who reads this book can ever suggest that we don't know what to do to promote high achievement for African-American students. The question is, do we really want to do so." --Lisa Delpit, Florida International University, author ofOther People's Children "While the authors of the three essays in this thought-provoking volume disagree on many things, all agree that we must have a 'better understanding of what it is we are asking African-American youth to do when we ask them to commit themselves, over time, to academic achievement . . .' The solutions offered by each essay are creative, inspirational, and good old common sense." --Los Angeles Times "In a remarkable essay, . . . Steele takes [a] very common coming-of-age experience and turns it into a hopeful solution . . . In just 22 pages, [Steele] proposes several solutions, as do the other contributors." --Jay Matthews,Washington Post "These three very different essays go a long way toward raising the level of the national discussion about 'achievement gaps.'" --Charles Payne, Duke University, "These three very different essays go a long way toward raising the level of the national discussion about 'achievement gaps.' They point us toward a gap in teacher quality, toward a gap in the social structures that support a positive achievement identity in youngsters, a gap in public knowledge of excellence, past and present, in African- American education, a gap in appropriate racial socialization. The authors insist on higher goals than just better test scores and they never lose sight of the rootedness of today's problems in historic and contemporary discourses about Black intellectual inferiority. These timely essays do more than restate the problem; they each offer concrete suggestions for resolving it. Collectively, they reform the discussion of 'reform.'" -Charles Payne, Duke University, author of I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Movement, "I am awed by the lucidity and careful crafting of these essays. The authors-all scholars of impeccable credentials in their respective fields-capture with unprecedented cogency the real issues surrounding the so-called 'achievement gap.' No one who reads this book can ever suggest that we don't know what to do to promote high achievement for African American students. The question is, do we really want to do so." -Lisa Delpit, Florida International University, author of Other People's Children
