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Following recent clips circulating on social media highlighting black students’ learning gaps or lack of parental involvement, Ashley Thomas, an Indianapolis parent advocate and mother of three, says that is removed from the reality for a lot of black parents.

“A lot of times, a lot of us as Black parents, we hear negativity when something bad happens, or, ‘Oh, these parents aren’t showing up,’” Thomas said. BLACK ENTERPRISES.

“We’ve seen numerous TikToks about what parents are doing, but parents are doing the whole lot they will and so they’re literally changing the sport… and we’re patting parents on the back for that and saying, ‘Hey, that drum beat, you possibly can keep doing that.’

A brand new report from the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) entitled “Hear Us, Believe Us: Centering the Voices of African American Parents in K-12 Education.” confirms Thomas’s feelings with research on the subject offers a comprehensive evaluation of experiences, challenges and aspirations African American parents on race, college aspirations, parental involvement, and more.

“We are really excited about this work and the opportunity to elevate parent voices because too often we know that parent voices are silenced, but we know that they have been making a difference in education for decades,” said Dr. Meredith BL Anderson , said UNCF Director of K-12 Research TO BE.

Although UNCF just celebrated its eightieth anniversary^vol anniversary of highlighting minority students pursuing higher education, the organization also has K-12 Advocacy shoulder to ensure the subsequent generation is college ready.

“For the past 12 years, we have been elevating the voices of the Black community on a variety of issues related to K-12 education, from race to college readiness to equity,” Anderson said.

“So my role is to produce research reports, talk to community members – whether they’re parents, students, counselors, teachers – and make sure that we’re dismantling some of these deficit narratives when it comes to our Black communities, because we know that they are engaged, informed and ready to make a difference.”

UNCF’s Advocacy Division creates college preparation tools and has over 20 publications and resources on the elementary and middle school levels alone. The latest report, released May 2, highlights the critical role African American parents play in their children’s education. It emphasizes the importance of understanding their unique perspectives and incorporating them into educational policies and practices.

UNCF conducted the study on a national sample of black parents using telephone surveys and focus groups. The study also oversampled black parents in Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans and Memphis. Some of the important thing ones report arrangements include:

1. Black parents report higher academic aspirations for their child and fewer school suspensions when more Black teachers work in their child’s school. For black parents and guardians whose children attended schools where many or most of the teachers were black, the likelihood that their child received exclusionary discipline is sort of 3 times lower than when their child attended schools with fewer black teachers.
2. Black parents highly value higher education and are deeply involved in and invested in their children’s education with 84% of black parents feeling it is crucial for their child to attend and graduate from college, and over 80% checking their child’s homework and talking to their child’s teacher repeatedly. Meanwhile, 93% of Black parents say they need more opportunities to be involved in their child’s education and have input on education laws.
3. Black parents want to see more Black leaders in education. Seventy percent of African American parents and guardians consider that involving African American leaders and organizations will make school improvement efforts more practical.
4. School safety is a key issue for Black parents and caregiverswith 80% of African American parents and guardians rating safety because the most necessary factor when selecting a college.

Dr. Anderson emphasized that the report focuses on the importance of Black teachers.

“We also found that black parents felt more respected when there were more black teachers. So we know that Black teachers are important,” she said.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations designed to address the concerns and aspirations of African American parents.

Recommendations for the K-12 sector

• Invest unapologetically in Black teachers.
• Create more intentional opportunities for parent involvement.
• Create a learning environment that reflects African American history and culture.
• Partner with local organizations to provide resources and services for families.
• Value and treat support staff in school budgets.
• Prioritize student safety.

Recommendations for higher education

• Make intentional efforts to provide students and families with college opportunities.
• Create intentional pipelines of collaboration with districts and charter organizations to increase teacher diversity.
• Ensure teacher training programs include anti-racist and culturally relevant teaching practices.
• Collaborate with K-12 schools and districts to provide students and families with financial and literacy resources.

For Thomas, an Indianapolis parent advocate, her personal passion for investing in her children’s education has translated into her skilled work as founder and CEO of an organization Consulting by the ANT Foundation, which provides community organizing training, strategic community mobilization, and organizational leadership development. It encourages parents and educators to “co-parent” for their child’s educational success and to take seriously the calls to motion in this report.

“I tell parents all the time, ‘When I move, you move, that’s just the way it is.’ We need to work together in the community to make something happen. So we also need to make sure that these reports don’t just sit there; we use them to empower parents to move and have a voice at the federal level, at the state level, at the political level, at the school district level – whatever it is – because our voices are powerful.”

Access to full report here AND Tune in to stream BLACK ENTERPRISE on Friday, May 3 at noon ET platforms down podcast where Dr. Anderson discusses the report’s findings and Ms. Thomas gives parents recommendations on working with schools.

You’ve probably heard this query repeatedly: Are leaders born or made? Answer: Well, all of it will depend on who you ask.

Interestingly, the theories supporting either position have evolved over time. The archaic “Great Man Theory” holds that only certain people are born with innate qualities that make them able to leading. Fortunately, this has long been debunked and you’ll be able to probably guess why.

Process theory, however, suggests that leaders are created through the technique of successfully coping with life experiences. In practice, the latter simply seems to make more sense.

Skills don’t emerge in a vacuum – they must be cultivated. If that is the case, they constitute key elements of what researchers have called “leadership complexity.” It is the true nature of leadership evolution that makes the reply to this age-old query so painfully obvious. Indeed, leaders are made, not born.

This is why.

Then there’s the entire “melting pot” thing.

People rarely develop leadership acumen without first experiencing a “crucible” or an intense, transformative experience that influences their pondering, behavior, and ultimately leadership success. While the character of those experiences varies in scope, the very fact is that they do occur. These experiences shape your perspective and the best way you navigate the world around you. They provide a level of learning – sometimes even an entire change – corresponding to a paradigm shift.

No one could be born with these experiences. They can only occur if you interact with the world around you.

Choice of terms “adaptive and perceptual features” suggest that some level of study is required

The concept that leaders must have the opportunity to discern nuance and adapt their pondering and behavior to a wide selection of circumstances suggests that learning from past experience is a prerequisite for achieving leadership status. How can you recognize what to do for those who’ve never done it before? How are you able to be good at this? How will we learn to navigate the world from birth? We definitely won’t get out of this knowing this. The path to leadership is definitely no different. Through trial and error, you learn best practices or create latest ones that work.

Emotional intelligence is the idea of effective leadership

Like every other skill, emotional intelligence is learned over time. Leaders perform best once they have a healthy combination of self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, motivation and empathy. These skills are absolutely fundamental to effective leadership. It is obvious that nobody is born with complete mastery of them. We only really learn them within the context of our relationships with others. By observing, interpreting, interacting, and taking motion, we will higher understand what these items mean. We reflect, evaluate and draw conclusions. Right, flawed or indifferent, we also make decisions based on the knowledge we gain in the method.

If you have ever questioned the evolution of leadership, it’s comprehensible. Theories and researchers have been wondering about this for a whole lot of years. But from a practical standpoint, consider this: If we aren’t born with it (and we aren’t), it’s more likely to be a cognition that’s learned and developed over time.

Maryam Alwan thought the worst was over when New York police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the campus of Columbia University, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.

But the following evening, the scholar received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were suspended after their arrests at “Gaza Solidarity camps,” tactical training colleges across the country that were deployed to silence growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

The situation of scholars became a central feature of the protests, with students and an increasing number of college demanding amnesty. At issue is whether or not universities and law enforcement will clear the allegations and refrain from other consequences, or whether suspensions and legal records will follow students into maturity.

Suspension terms vary by campus. At Columbia and its affiliate Barnard College for Women, Alwan and dozens of others were arrested on April 18 and immediately barred from campus and classes, unable to take part in person or virtually, and barred from dining halls.

Questions remain about their academic future. Will they have the option to take their final exams? What about financial aid? School graduation? Columbia says the outcomes might be determined at disciplinary hearings, but Alwan says she has not been given a date.

“It’s very dystopian,” said Alwan, a specialist in comparative literature and society.

What began in Colombia has escalated right into a nationwide showdown between students and the administration over anti-war protests and the boundaries of free speech. Over the past 10 days, a whole lot of scholars have been arrested, suspended, placed on probation, and in rare cases expelled from colleges and universities, including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota.

Barnard, the ladies’s liberal arts college at Columbia University, has suspended greater than 50 students arrested on April 18 and evicted them from campus housing, according to interviews with students and reports by the campus newspaper the Columbia Spectator, which obtained internal campus documents.

On Friday, Barnard announced it had reached agreements restoring access to campus for “almost all” of them. The university’s statement didn’t provide a number but said all students whose suspensions were lifted agreed to abide by university policies and, in some cases, were placed on probation.

But on the night of the arrests, Barnard student Maryam Iqbal posted the screenshot on X’s social media platform an email from the dean informing her that she could return to her room under campus security for some time before she was kicked out.

“You will have 15 minutes to gather what you may need,” the e-mail reads.

More than 100 faculty from Barnard and Columbia held a “Rally in Support of Our Students” last week, condemning student arrests and demanding an end to suspensions.

Columbia continues to push for the removal of the tent encampment on the campus’ foremost lawn, where the college’s May 15 graduation ceremony might be held. Students demanded that the college cut ties with corporations linked to Israel and provide amnesty for college students and faculty arrested or punished in reference to the protests.

Talks with student protesters are ongoing, said Ben Chang, a spokesman for Colombia. “We have our demands; they’ve their very own,” he said.

Radhika Sainath, an attorney with Palestine Legal who helped a bunch of Colombian students file a federal civil rights criticism against the college on Thursday, said for international students facing suspension there may be an added fear of losing their visas. He accuses Colombia of not doing enough to address discrimination against Palestinian students.

“The level of punishment is not even draconian, it seems excessively callous,” Sainath said.

Last week, greater than 40 students were arrested during demonstrations at Yale, including senior Craig Birckhead-Morton. He is scheduled to graduate on May 20, but says the university has not yet informed him whether his case might be referred to a disciplinary panel. He worries about whether he’ll receive his diploma and whether his acceptance to graduate school at Columbia could also be in jeopardy.

“The school did everything they could to ignore us and not tell us what would happen next,” said Birckhead-Morton, a history major.

Across the country, college administrators have struggled to strike a balance between free speech and inclusivity. Some demonstrations included hate speech, anti-Semitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on October 7, sparking a war in Gaza that has killed greater than 34,000 people.

Let the opening ceremonies increase the pressure to clear the demonstrations. University officials say arrests and suspensions are a final resort and that they are giving adequate warnings upfront to clear protest areas.

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Vanderbilt University in Tennessee issued a choice to expel students believed to be the just one in reference to a protest against the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding. On March 26, greater than two dozen students occupied the university chancellor’s office for several hours, prompting the university to call the police and arrest several protesters. Vanderbilt subsequently issued three expulsions, one suspension, and placed 22 protesters on probation.

In an open letter to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, greater than 150 Vanderbilt professors criticized the crackdown on the university as “excessive and punitive.”

Freshman Jack Petocz, 19, one in every of those expelled, is allowed to attend classes pending an appeal. He was evicted from his dorm and lives off campus.

Petocz said his highschool protests helped him get into Vanderbilt and secure a scholarship for his contributions to activists and organizers. His college essay was about organizing walkouts in rural Florida to oppose Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.

“Vanderbilt seemed to like it,” Petocz said. “Unfortunately, it ends when you start advocating for the liberation of Palestine.”