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 Gridiron Smith and Lumina View
Education Gap
Through Racial Lens
Sixty
percent of Americans will have high-quality college
degrees and credentials by 2025 if
Lumina
Foundation’s next decade and a half of grantmaking
is successful. The foundation’s ambitious goal targets
students of all races, but Lumina Senior Program Officer
Tina Gridiron Smith says it also presents an opportunity
to address the educational achievement gap between
students of color and white students.
The gap
and its effects are quite stark. According to a
2006 U.S.
Department of Education report,
the average graduation rate for whites is 18% greater
than that of African Americans and 12% greater than that
of Latinos. If the educational gap were narrowed or
eliminated, higher earnings from better educated African
Americans and Latinos would have increased the gross
domestic product last year by up to $525 billion,
according to an
April study by McKinsey and Company.
The gap’s impact reaches
well beyond education and underscores the need to take
action. “If we succeed about educating people of color,
then they’re savvier about health, finding better jobs,
and making better life choices,” Gridiron Smith said.
In 2004, she and Lumina
began applying a racial lens to their grantmaking. They
awarded several exploratory grants that targeted the
achievement of African American men, whose educational
success has been more challenged than other racial or
gender groups.
Grants to the
University System of Georgia’s African American Male
Initiative increased college enrollment by
African American men by 24.5% over a five-year period by
offering specialized preparatory programs for the K-12
pipeline of students. Lumina also awarded a series of
grants to the
Students of African American Brotherhood (SAAB).
SAAB consists of a peer-based mentoring and
support network on campuses nationwide that has helped
86% of its members graduate from post-secondary
institutions, an increase of over 30% from the national
average.
Lumina soon decided to widen its focus to target men of
color, not just African American men. SAAB expanded to
campuses with high populations of male Latinos, and the
model was just as successful. SAAB now operates on 185
campuses and includes male Latinos as one of its
targets. Lumina has also incorporated men of color into
its existing programs, including
Achieving the Dream, which helps
community college students graduate and earn their
credentials. Although the program isn’t race based, it
provides leverage for Lumina’s work with men of color
because they attend community colleges in higher
proportions than four-year schools.
“If we don’t act, we might reach our goal of 60% [of
Americans receiving high-quality college degrees], but
still see very negative results for men of color,”
Gridiron Smith said. “We could be leaving out
generations of men.”
Article written by
Paul Bachleitner;
published by
Marginalized Males Funder Group
website. |
