More than 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, school systems in the United States are no longer separate, but they are growing unequal.
A number of socioeconomic factors influence the widening gap in educational disparity, but Dr. James Reed Campbell, a professor at St. John’s University, and Dr. Brenda Williams Harewood want to help level the playing field.
They tailor a new educational recourse tool for minority families in “Parents as Talent Developers: Essential Parenting Tools of Exceptional Parents,” a book aimed at helping marginalized students achieve academic success.
Campbell, who has published four additional parenting books and nearly 300 scholarly articles, teamed up with Harewood to compile best practices or “kernels” which will bolster academic achievement.
Their research teams sought out high-achieving children in minority neighborhoods in New York City and Long Island, interviewed them and their parents separately, and found the connecting dots between high academic achievement and parental involvement. Their recommendations extend beyond the homes of marginalized students to aid educators, teachers and administrators.
Campbell, who was formerly a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, has 50 years of experience as an educator and speaks on the topic of parenting to audiences worldwide. He developed his own research instrument, Parental Influence Inventory, which is translated into eight different languages and has been used to test over 15,000 children and parents.
“If America is to continue prospering, the children of minorities must be able to secure a good academic foundation that will prepare them to be active and contributing citizens,” Campbell said.
“Our goal with ‘Parents as Talent Developers’ is to empower caregivers with the essential strategies needed to help children become high achievers,” said Harewood, who was raised in the Hammels Projects in Rockaway Beach, is a graduate of the City University of New York, and has worked for more than 30 years as a school teacher, including leadership positions in four schools as principal and assistant principal. She currently serves as the principal of Uniondale’s first pre-kindergarten school.
For more information about the book, go to Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com or AuthorHouse.com.
