Editor's Comment

This last issue of the 2004 year contains six articles. Three of the articles comprise a focus on the theme of "Parenting, Family, and Youth"; therefore, this issue is designated as a special-focus issue. Among the special-focus articles, (a) Lawson Bush, V reviews theoretical and research literature on the role of African American mothers in raising their sons to manhood, (b) Juan Battle and Deborah L. Coates discuss research on the dynamics and effects of single-parent families (mother-only and father-only) on the academic achievement of African American girls, and (c) Joe D. Nichols reports research findings on school discipline and out-of-school suspension as a contributing factor to African American students' disengagement from school and decline in academic achievement. Nichols's article supports the position that African American and/or lowincome youth of color tend to be unfairly overrepresented among disciplined students in schools.

The theme of this issue is timely, because the approaching 2005 year will mark the 40th anniversary since the publication of Moynihan's (1965) controversial report on the "Negro Family," a report that blamed the problems of African Americans and the urban cities on the changing structure of Black families or the increasing percentage of single-parent, mother-only families. Since Moynihan's report, there has been a tendency of scholars to focus less on family structure or family configuration and more on the strengths and resilience of African American family functioning as well as other family and socioeconomic factors that contribute to the academic achievement of Black youth. For example, see Battle and Coates's (2004) research and their review of related literature in this issue of The Journal of Negro Education.

Within the context of effective school-community cooperation, Comer (2004) and Haynes (1996) recommend that parents and teachers maintain a close, collaborative role in positively encouraging and supporting the development of school youth who are at risk for academic underachievement. These at-risk youth include poor and/or racial minority students who often find themselves educationally abandoned and psychologically punished within the traditional school setting. Instead of blaming and punishing at-risk students, school personnel and parents need to evaluate their behaviors, their competencies, and the quality of their relationships to young people. Along this line, two books reviewed in this special-focus issue (see the Book Review section) refreshingly put the onus on schools, teachers, and teacher-training programs. These books are Educating Culturally Responsive Teachers: A Coherent Approach, by Ana Maria Villegas and Tamara Lucas, and Our Schools and Our Future: Are We Still at Risk?, edited by Paul E. Peterson. These books rightfully take the fault off students and put the responsibility on educators and schools in conjunction with parents.

On the one hand, African American students who are at risk for not doing well in middle-class-oriented schools cannot continue and should not continue to be the scapegoats of schools and families that fail them. On the other hand, Kaslow (2001) notes that families, nowadays, who strive to do their best, are challenged by a broader and more severe array of human problems, as compared to a generation ago. Some of these problems or challenges of families that can negatively impact their children's lives, in general, and school performance, in particular, include (a) poverty, unemployment, and homelessness; (b) displacement or loss of a parent due to imprisonment, military duty abroad, or premature death; (c) alcohol and other drug abuse; (d) HIV/AIDS; and (e) the impact of inappropriate multimedia messages and images.

In a time of cultural inconsensus and social demands, African American youth, as all youth, need to be taught universal values and ethical decision-making as guiding principles to life's challenges and responsibilities. Toward properly educating and inspiring at-risk African American youth, the following poem is recommended for use by school personnel, parents, and other responsible adults as a positive means of motivating and guiding children and adolescents to transcend negative reactions toward them and challenges that confront them (Harper, 2004, pp. 3-4):

Battle, J., & Coates, D. L. (2004). Father-only and mother-only, single-parent family status of Black girls and achievement in grade twelve and at two-year post high school. The Journal of Negro Education, 73, 392-407.

Comer, J. P. (2004). Leave no child behind: Preparing today's youth for tomorrow's world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Harper, F. D. (2004). Poems for young people. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse.

Haynes, N. M. (1996). Creating safe and caring school communities: Comer School Development Program schools. The Journal of Negro Education, 65, 308-314.

Kaslow, F. W. (2001). Families and family psychology at the millennium. American Psychologist, 56, 37-46.

Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The Negro family: The case for national action. Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Labor.

Frederick D. Harper

Editor-in-Chief

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