Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Educational Opportunities and Outcomes for Black and Brown Boys
Adriana Villavicencio, Foreword by David E. Kirkland
paper, 248 Pages
Pub. Date: May 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-68253-621-6
Price: $33.00
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cloth, 248 Pages
Pub. Date: May 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-68253-622-3
Price: $60.00
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Winner of the 2022 AESA Critics’ Choice Book Award
Am I My Brother’s Keeper? offers powerful insights into the challenges of implementing large-scale educational change. The book, chronicling the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI), a four-year study focused on improving the educational outcomes of fifteen thousand Black and Latinx males in New York City public high schools, covers what worked, what didn’t, and what we can learn from the experience.
The ESI model, a precursor to President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper, highlights the ways that school districts can embed educational equity into the principles and policies that guide their work with students, in contrast to implementing stand-alone initiatives that may come and go. Through the voices of students, teachers, and administrators, the book informs the implementation of other large-scale district-community partnerships designed to improve opportunities and outcomes for young people who have systematically been denied both. Most critically, the book provides policy, practice, and research recommendations to inform the next generation of work with this student population.
As sustained protests across the United States call attention to the ravages of systemic racism, Am I My Brother’s Keeper? highlights concrete steps that school districts can take to confront racist structures and support young people of color.
Praise
In this important new book, Adriana Villavicencio presents a detailed analysis of an educational initiative designed to improve academic outcomes for young men of color in New York. Through careful examination of the work carried out at the schools where these interventions took place, she shows us how progress was achieved and how obstacles were addressed. Given how many schools across America are grappling with similar challenges, this book will be an eye-opener and potentially a guide on how to improve academic and developmental outcomes for young men of color elsewhere.
— Pedro A. Noguera, dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California
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About the Author
Adriana Villavicencio is an assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. Her research is focused on K–12 educational policy and practice that deepens or disrupts inequities for students of colors and their families. For nearly a decade, she served as a senior research associate and deputy director of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at New York University, a research-practice partnership with the New York City Department of Education, and led many of its large scale research projects on topics including computer science for underrepresented students, effective schooling for immigrant English learners, and racial justice programs in schools. She also served on the advisory board for the Young Women’s Initiative; as a member of New York State’s Board of Regents Research Workgroup on Integration, Diversity and Equity; and as president of the Board of Directors for the Latino Alumni Association of Columbia University. Villavicencio is the author of numerous research reports, journal articles, and book chapters on equitable policy and practice in schools and regularly presents her research at national conferences and through a variety of both English- and Spanish language television and online media. Prior to becoming a researcher, she taught high school English in East Oakland, California, and in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her PhD in education leadership and policy from the New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She also holds a MA in English education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in English from Columbia University.