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THE BOTTOM 50 REPORT: An Urgent Call For School Improvement at JPS
- Hakim Crampton
- Jan 17, 2023
- 12 min read
Updated: Jan 25, 2023
THE BOTTOM 50
An Urgent Call For School Improvement at JPS
PART 1
A 3 Part Research Report by The Academic Mentoring & Education Network
Our most vulnerable in society have always been our children. Child health data from the Center For Disease Control has shown that American children are at risk in a number of areas such as childhood obesity, abuse and neglect, infant mortality, gun violence, juvenile delinquency and for our discussion here, continued low educational performance outcomes, which necessitates the community of Jackson take a closer look at the academic and education performance outcomes for students within Jackson Public Schools. From our analysis of recent public data Jackson Public Schools remains a district in the bottom 50 percentile for both reading and math performance scales in the State of Michigan. Schools such as Fourth Street Learning Center rank 1/10 for Math and Reading proficiency while both Middle School at Parkside and Northeast Elementary score but 2/10 on the same performance scale. With some schools testing as low as 10% while most average below 50% and only one school (Sharp Park Academy) testing above 50%, we consider this a crisis necessitating an urgent appeal to the community of Jackson to prioritize this issue now!
According to both US News.com and Public School Review, using combined math and reading proficiency testing data, Jackson High School and Jackson Public Schools overall was ranked within the Botton 50% of all school districts in Michigan for the 2018-2019 school year. According to Public School Review, which sourced the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and the MI Department of Education, Jackson Public School district has an overall Math proficiency rate of 22% (State average 39%) and a Reading Proficiency rate of 31% (State average 49%), placing JPS in the bottom 50% of all school districts in the State. (https://www.publicschoolreview.com/michigan/jackson-public-schools-school-district/2619620-school-district) and (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/districts/jackson-public-schools/jackson-high-school-10045)
US News.com used data from school years between 2018 and 2021. They report that Jackson High School had a Math proficiency average of 25% and a Reading proficiency of 43%, still ranking JPS in the bottom 50% of all school districts in Michigan. In terms of graduation rates, Jackson Public School sets at 73% according to Public School Review, an improvement from 69% from the previous five years, still placing JPS in the bottom 50%, and according to US News.com, Jackson High School's graduation rate was 87% during the combined 3 school years between 2018-2021, again still placing JPS below State median graduation rates. It begs the question as to how a school district is graduating its students whose math and reading indicates that the vast majority of high school students at Jackson High School are not proficient in both math and reading. (https://www.publicschoolreview.com/michigan/jackson-public-schools-school-district/2619620-school-district) and (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/districts/jackson-public-schools/jackson-high-school-10045)
In terms of College Readiness, Jackson Public School District again, falls tremendously short. Out of 660 schools ranked in Michigan by the College Readiness Index, JPS ranks #316, again within the bottom 50. (US News). These rankings and scorecards are but a small window highlighting the crisis with which Jackson finds its school district. Being one of the highest minority enrollment districts in Michigan, combined with having an equally high economically disadvantaged student body, attention to failing school districts like JPS demands immediate attention as racial disparities ultimately become a factor when the academic proficiency outcomes of students of color are in the majority while its district fails to prioritize its academic performance standards.
Jackson Public Schools recently won a bond totaling $86.7 million in 2017, which almost exclusively went toward construction, renovation and improvement of school buildings and site facilities. We find that this bond proposal failed to prioritize improving academic performance outcomes for its students, who have been testing below the median for well over a decade. Instead JPS proposed that new and updated buildings and technology would improve academic performance. However the most recent data does not support this conclusion. Instead, over the last five years we have observed a decrease in minority teachers within the district while many minority teachers as well as other non black teachers left the district with harsh criticism toward JPS and against Superintendent Jeff Beal. Recent School Board meetings have been besieged by consistent complaints of bullying and harassment against its Superintendent among a number of highly other flammable accusations.
Some of the recent criticisms arose in 2021 and 2022 when Trustee Hamilton questioned why the Superintendent would be receiving an additional $60,000 to his $164,926 salary* for what was termed in his contract “extra duty pay,” for a total salary of $224,925. This extra duty pay was described for the purposes of the Superintendent taking on the role of Human Resources of Jackson Public School District, a role previously maintained as a department within JPS tasked with managing the entire employee staffing for the district. Nicole Johnson a black woman, previously held the role but was fired subsequently to her complaint that the Superintendent used the full word “Nigger” in a conversation while allegedly quoting another person. According to Ms. Johnson, she was ultimately forced out by Superintendent Beal as had many other employees, according to her, even while she worked at JPS in the role of HR. (Johnson testimony at JPS Board meeting in 2021)
In December’s 2022 JPS Board meeting, Superintendent Beal was pressured by Trustee Brown for transparency regarding why the $60,000 extra duty pay was still written into and extended into his new contract, even though a new HR director has been hired and is fully qualified to lead that department and manage those duties. Superintendent Beal boldly admitted that this extra duty salary is not associated with the duties of HR, but in fact was a means by which the Board negotiated “in good faith” according to them, a way to increase the Superintendents salary since he had reached a cap on how much he could earn within the District. We find this highly suspicious and clearly an act of impropriety calling for an investigation as to why our school board would inappropriately manipulate the superintendents salary by deception, particularly given that JPS is a failing school in the bottom 50. In fact it would seem that the Board would rate their only employee as ineffective and consider searching for a replacement.
Why should our community continue to place trust in this Superintendent and its Board, when they have allowed this district to disinvest in its students while investing in development, something only the developers ultimately benefit from, while JPS graduates students whose reading and math is below standard, who aren’t College ready, nor have any other technical trade or skill to fall back on after leaving JPS with a low education. Our students deserve better and we as the tax payers and parents of this district deserve better also.
Sources:
US News
Public School Review
*Superintendent Jeff Beals contract salary for 2022 was $164,926 and for 2023-24 it will increase to $168,225 and in 2024-25 to $171,589 and will continue with a 2% subsequent increase for each following year of an extended contract. The additional $60,000 for “extra HR duty” will be added to the above totals for a grand total that increases each salaried year by $60,000
Appendix Section
Appendix I
A Look at 8 of JPS Bottom School Rankings
SCHOOL RANKING (score of 10)
Dibble Elementary School 5/10 Bottom 50
Jackson High School 4/10 Bottom 50
Hunt Elementary School 3/10 Bottom 50
JPS Montessori Center 3/10 Bottom 50
Middle School at Parkside 2/10 Bottom 50
Jackson Pathways 2/10 Bottom 50
Northeast Elementary School 2/10 Bottom 50
Fourth Street Elementary 1/10 Bottom 50
The above scorecard Ranking indicates that each school listed above scored a total number out of 10 based on Reading and Math proficiency tests scores. It should be noted that Sharp Park Academy rank 6/10 on this same scale, placing them as the only school above 50%(https://www.publicschoolreview.com/michigan/jackson-public-schools-school-district/2619620-school-district)
Appendix II
Redefining The Narrative
Improving Educational Outcomes for Males of Color in Jackson
Originally Written January 2, 2017
By Hakim Nathaniel Crampton**
Founding Director, The Academic Mentoring & Education Network
On November 17th and 18th of 2016 Jackson College held the third series of a long term initiative in Jackson to research the causes of black male underachievement and collaborate with community and national stakeholders to identify real and employable solutions to improve the academic and ultimate life outcomes for males of color. Lee Hampton, director of Jackson College Multicultural Affairs began this initiative in 2008 by hosting the first African American Male Summit. Together with many other invested community leaders, educators, and concerned citizens, the first Summit’s collaborative brainstorming produced a guided outline that identified many of the systemic causes with potential solutions to the crisis. Some of the causes identified were curriculum bias, lack of teacher diversity, zero tolerance policies, single parent households, the absence of fathers, poverty and institutional and systemic racism.
After examining the results produced from the first Summit, Lee released the findings in a report and began implementing some of the solutions leading to the second Summit in 2012. These solutions included following up with a second and third Summit, creating a Male engagement initiative at Jackson College (Men of Merit), the recent launch of See The Vision, Be The Vision, a social capital marketing strategy to increase the enrollment and importantly, the retention of African American males by creating a collaborative relationship with educators from Jackson School District to promote black male success. This collaboration would serve to build these initiatives through convening for the second and third Summits, by contributing input, feedback and joint service meetings, trainings and conversations strategically oriented towards solving black male underachievement.
Over the years that followed the 2008 Summit leading up to this past week’s third Summit, the issue of Black Male achievement has been a key concern for local community based organizations who have answered the call of the urgency of the crisis our youngest of black males are facing. This crisis has been called the School-to-Prison Pipeline, a systemic and historic process whereby the education system combined with social services, police and courts, juvenile justice and later State Corrections all coherently and yet unintentionally collaborate to push children out of school and into ultimate incarceration. This life altering trend impacts black males disproportionately as compared to any other racial or ethnic group with the farthest gap being between black males and white males. The process begins as early as kindergarten and is traceable initially in days absent from school. Kids who begin missing days of class due to any number of reasons, fall behind in grade level proficiency and as this progresses, these kids begin to develop behavior that is identified as punishable first by suspension and later by incarceration. Students end up not finishing school and instead find themselves in the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is affecting black males in specific, at rates widely disproportionate from their white counterparts and includes black females also being disproportionately represented in comparison with while females. Students can be assessed as being caught within that pipeline by evaluating the following factors:
Routine suspensions
Missing 10 or more days of school a year
Have only one parent in the household with them
Having been placed in Special Education
Qualified for free or reduced meal services
Are living below poverty level
Have behavioral issues in school or an IEP
Have had police contact as a juvenile
Are receiving assistance/support/programing from Human Services
Students who have these factors influencing their lives can be said to be at-risk of being on this Pipeline. Some of these factors are outside the control of these youths, such as being a recipient of DHS services or having been diagnosed with a learning disability. How do Students get off this Pipeline? Getting off the School-To-Prison Pipeline can be very difficult. Statistics demonstrate that 4 of 5 black males will have police contact in their life time, whether through actual arrest and incarceration or through probation and parole. It seems that black youth are by sociological fate, born within the Pipeline by cultural de-facto and are poised to become victims of its system. Education activists and social reformers list several keys to getting youth off the Pipeline, such as:
The cessation of Zero Tolerance policies
Providing “Solutions” instead of routine “Suspensions”
Removing biased curriculums
Expanding the curriculum to reflect the racial make up of the student body
Increased Teachers of color, particularly Males
Providing more long term mentoring
Providing Literacy intervention starting in Early Childhood Education
Working with Parents to bridge the gap in schools
Identifying the layers of the Pipeline in play at one’s school
Each of these keys are rudimentary in providing a sustainable solution to getting kids off the Pipeline. There are larger systems in place that have existed for over a century. Layers upon layers of policies and practices get created or added each year, making it much more difficult to undress this problem. The first steps that must be taken include working with the courts and schools to see that arrests, prosecutions and sentencing of youth must be reformed along with the cessation of zero policy practices and routine suspensions of kids for behavioral issues.
As a result of these factors, Jackson College took a leadership role in directing an initiative that would aim to reverse these current statistical trends impacting males of color. What was found were that many of the trends nationwide were similarly seen among our own local statistics. According to Dr. Michael Holzman in his book Minority Students and Public Education, he reports that across the nation on average only 10% of black male students test proficient in Reading by the 8th grade. That leaves roughly 80% of black males behind academically, further isolated from educational opportunities and ultimately pushed into Special Education, alternative programing, and Juvenile delinquency. At this juncture our youth are then deeply entrenched within the Pipeline that deposits them into adult incarceration. Among those entering prison, 75% enter without having completed High School, mirroring that near 80% that are leaving school not proficient in reading. The problem isn’t with black male students, as this year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu has argued in his book There’s Nothing Wrong with Black Students. Dr. Kunjufu is a leading expert in education and black male engagement. Jackson College brought him in as this years keynote presenter and consultant to the African American Male Summit.
Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu has dedicated his career to addressing the ills afflicting black culture in the United States, working primarily as an educational consultant and author but more recently expanding into video and film production. All aspects of the African American experience occupy Kunjufu's attention, but the main thrust of his work has been directed toward improving the education and socialization of black youths. He is the founder and president of African American Images, a Chicago-based publishing company that sponsors dozens of workshops intended to help educators and parents develop practical solutions to the problems of child-rearing in what he perceives to be a racist society. Dr. Kunjufu holds advanced degrees in business and economics that have enabled him to place the problems of black society in the larger context of national and international economic models. While speaking at this year’s Summit, Dr. Kunjufu boldly addressed critical issues impacting youth in America with direct reference to the black students of Jackson Public Schools. Dr. Kunjufu offered important insight and advice to JPS Superintendent Jeff Beal, of whom Kunjufu asked specifically to commit to helping improve the educational outcomes for males of color. Superintendent Jeff Beal and several of his key administrative staff and teachers attended both days, offering insight, engaging in dialogue, and helping facilitate break-out sessions designed to produce and build upon the strategic outline identifying the causes and solutions of black male underachievement in the Jackson area.
Jackson College President Dr. Dan Phelan provided opening remarks at this year's African American Male Summit that highlighted the college's role in helping change the narrative by increasing college enrollment among African American students male and female from under 10% in 2000 to nearly 20% in 2016. The college has also increased its staff diversity by hiring more African American male faculty and adjunct instructors. Through the Multicultural Affairs Department, Jackson College has critically expanded its engagement initiatives by adding a counterpart leadership group to the Men of Merit called the Sisters of Strength and hired Antoine Breedlove as a third staff member to the department. Mr. Breedlove is a Jackson College graduate and holds a Bachelor degree from Spring Arbor University and is the current Student Program Coordinator of the Multicultural Affairs Department.
Superintendent Jeff Beal also provided insight into the initiatives that Jackson Public Schools is doing to help change the outcomes for males of color. Mr. Beal acknowledged that students of color are disproportionately represented in both special education and alternative programming in Jackson Public Schools. Aside from the initiatives already implemented through Jeff’s leadership, he emphasized his commitment to increasing culturally specific programming for students of color at JPS, to provide in-service training and collaborations with local and national experts to help improve the outcomes for males of color within Jackson Public Schools.
The Summit ended with a presentation by tech company and Jackson College partner Qualtrics. This partnership is designed to produce a key Assessment tool that will provide the College with critical information to help provide resources and services individualized for each student. The preliminary results of this Assessment have already produced successful results shared with those in attendance. Being able to assess the needs of students coming into College as a Freshman is essential to identifying areas in which students traditionally have not gotten the critical resources needed during their academic experience on campus. This, then, usually resulted in students not returning and ultimately not finishing college. This Assessment provides key data that will equip the college with the ability to engage, provide essential support resources while retaining students till completion or transfer to graduate school.
This year’s Summit was pivotal in the long term initiative started by Lee Hampton in 2008. A book will be published and released in the near future that will highlight all of the findings from each Summit, including the identified causes and recommendations, along with key resource information for educators, schools, and parents. As Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu provided a blueprint for the Jackson community that gives us direction in the long term phases of redressing this crisis, so too does Jackson College provide a space that gives black male students a platform and resource that can and will aid them in their educational journey to achieve their dreams while serving their community.
**
Hakim Nathaniel Crampton is an Education Activist, author, award winning poet. Hakim is a former president of Jackson College Men of Merit and a graduate of Pontiac Business Institute. After spending 15 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction, and upon release in 2006 Hakim became a voice for today's youth, leading efforts to decrease violence in the community, working tirelessly to improve the educational outcomes for black youth in Jackson, Lansing and Detroit and advocates for racial and social justice within systems and institutions inherently biased. Hakim is currently serving a 4 year term on the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission and currently works for JustLeadershipUSA as a Senior Movement & Capacity Building Specialist. Hakim is the founding director of The Academic Mentoring & Education Network known as A.M.E.N. 4 Youth based in Jackson, Michigan. To learn more visit hakimcrampton.com
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