Ex­perts say it's time to address trauma and learning for young adults from vi­ol­ent com­munit­ies if we intend to boost national col­lege gradu­ation rates, writes Janell Ross in The National Journal. Twenty-one mil­lion American stu­dents will at­tend col­lege in the U.S. this fall, with black and Latino stu­dents having made the largest en­roll­ment gains over the past decade. Yet black and Latino graduation rates have not been matched enrollment, and the link between trauma and learn­ing has been not­ably ab­sent from the col­lege com­ple­tion de­bate. In general, in­ter­ven­tions have fo­cused on the young­est chil­dren. But Chris­toph­er Blod­gett of Wash­ing­ton State Uni­versity's Col­lab­or­at­ive Learn­ing for Edu­ca­tion­al Achieve­ment and Re­si­li­ency (CLEAR) Trauma Cen­ter says that chil­dren and teens of col­or from low-in­come and vi­ol­ence-rid­den com­munit­ies ex­per­i­ence a pil­ing on that re­search­ers call com­plex trauma. Moreover, so­ci­olo­gist Ju­lia Burdick-Will at Johns Hop­kins Uni­versity found that com­munity vi­ol­ence de­presses stu­dent scores. Burdick-Will used Chica­go Pub­lic Schools and po­lice data to ex­am­ine grades and stand­ard­ized test scores of stu­dents be­fore and after vi­ol­ent events in their neigh­bor­hood. "Since we know that test scores suf­fer," Burdick-Will says, "high-stakes test­ing and heavy re­li­ance on test scores for col­lege ad­mis­sions puts kids who ex­per­i­ence com­munity or school vi­ol­ence at a dis­tinct dis­ad­vant­age." More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

Published by LEAP

Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.