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Promoting Academic Success (PAS) Resource Manual

Farrell, P., Sáenz, G., & McKinney, M.
August
2012

In the last several years, countless school districts have been challenged in meeting the learning and academic needs of all their students. Faced with rapidly changing population demographics, high stakes testing and attendant implications, declining student enrollments, and local, state and federal budgetary challenges, school districts often struggle to adapt to changing realities. Of particular concern is the continuing gap in achievement scores for African American, Latino, and American Indian students. Among these groups, gender disparities surface as an additional challenge. Nationally and locally, boys of color fair less well on standardized measures of achievement compared to any other grouping and the gap appears to widen over time. In spite of these challenges, some school districts are seeking out new partnerships, realigning and rearranging internal resources, inviting new collaborators, and taking bold stands on some seemingly intractable issues. This resource manual presents the work of a dedicated team consisting of teachers and administrators from the Lansing School District, Michigan State University, Capital Area Community Services Head Start, the City of Lansing, and the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina, working together to find solutions to closing the achievement gap. This collaboration became the think tank and operational team for the Promoting Academic Success of Boys of Color (PAS) initiative. With generous support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the FPG Child Development Institute provided the conceptualization and served as intermediary for the project. Lansing, Michigan was one of four school districts selected to participate.

Citation

Farrell, P., Saenz, G., & McKinney, M. (2012). Promoting Academic Success (PAS) resource manual. East Lansing: Michigan State University, Kellogg Center.