Can Technology Narrow The Racial Academic Achievement Gap?

Black Star Honors Marquette Elementary With Technology Award

On May 24, Promethean, Inc., and the Black Star project announced a partnership designed to bring interactive curriculum delivery technology, known as ACTIVboards into schools struggling with their racial academic achievement gap.

An interactive whiteboard that has already found its way into the majority of all schools in the United Kingdom, the ACTIVboard allows teachers to immediately access multimedia curriculum and incorporate hundreds of thousands of visual learning aids into their lesson plans. In addition, individual student response devices allow teachers immediate feedback and daily digital assessments that are fun for students and useful for administrators grappling with the tough assessment demands of the No Child Left Behind Act.

“Technology is the great equalizer in education,” Jackson said. “There is nothing more democratic than that. Because of the digital divide, many black and Latino children are at a severe disadvantage in terms of 21st century learning.”

But for Jackson, the motivation for placing ACTIVboards in schools is a simple combination of common sense and concern for minority students that are falling behind. “Children take to technology like fish to water,” Jackson said. “Technology is a tool, like a screwdriver, like a wrench. You use it when you need to get a job done. Now, technology is the tool we need to educate all of our children.”

Unlike most business-intended technology being used in schools, the ACTIVboard was developed by educators for educators. Distributed by Promethean, Inc., the ACTIVboard is currently being used throughout Europe and Japan with tremendous success. The United States has been slower to adopt the technology, though the ACTIVboard is currently used in several thousand classrooms in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

Thanks to The Black Star's Award For Urban Excellence In Education, Marquette Elementary School was awarded an ACTIVboard, and will join Betty Shabazz International Charter School and Gallistel Elementary Language Academy as the latest Chicago school incorporating the ACTIVboard into its curriculum.

Incorporating technology into the classroom levels the playing field by addressing all learning styles. American society has shortened its attention span, and children are no different. But while technology is a component, according to Jackson, it is only part of the solution.

“The racial academic achievement gap is not about race and not about achievement,” Jackson said. “It’s about culture, values, poor decisions and bad habits. If we’re going to fix it, those are the things we are going to have to focus on. The issue is not race. We’re not going to fix it by focusing on race.”

Jackson believes there must be a marriage between parents, schools and communities. Founded in 1996, Jackson’s Black Star project focuses on these components and currently provides mentoring, inspiration, encouragement and motivation to over 14,000 Chicago students in over 100 Chicago area schools.

“Kids, especially black kids in America do not understand the connection between doing well in school and doing well in life,” Jackson said. “If you do not understand the value of school it doesn’t matter if you’re going to Harvard, Stanford or Yale.”

“We connect kids to a vision of their future,” Jackson said. “Unless students want to do well in school simply sending them to school is not enough.”

Jackson calls on business professionals to help support his vision by mentoring and motivating students, sharing with them the vision, culture, values and work ethic necessary to prepare for their future.”

“The problem is kids don’t have a path,” Jackson said. “Take for instance a kid who didn’t know his father, his mother never worked and he has never known anyone to work except the guys on the corner. There’s no path for these kids. We lay the path for these kids.”

Awarded the Promethean Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education, Jackson was honored by Mark Elliott, President of Promethean USA.

“Our job is to entertain and engage children at the schools,” Elliott said. “But the biggest job is what Philip is doing—getting the students to the schools.”

While Jackson is hopeful that the integration of technology coupled with community and parental support will begin to lessen the racial academic achievement gap, he is also realistic.

“This is a long battle,” Jackson said. “I am absolutely certain I’m not going to see the end game. But your children and grand-children will live in a better place because of it.”