Thursday, August 16, 2007

Rest in Peace, Dr. Hilliard

Very sad to report that Asa G. Hilliard died earlier this week while traveling on a study tour in Egypt. Dr. Hilliard was the Fuller E. Calloway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and the Department of Educational Psychology/Special Education. Prior to that, he taught psychology, math and history in the Denver Public Schools, worked as a superintendent of schools and school psychologist in Monrovia, Liberia, and served as a professor and then dean of education at San Francisco State University.

More recently, Dr. Hilliard has been speaking out with other scholars about the problems facing black male youth. He has openly questioned the promise of single sex schools to improve the education of black male students. Single sex schools, he argued, can be high-performing or low-performing just like any other schools.

Folks in Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, pay attention. You too, USDOE. If you're really interested in helping the kids who need it the most, single sex is a distraction not an answer.

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