Morehouse College News June 3, 2014 Morehouse among leading Educational Research Centers Responding to White House Report on Boys and Young Men of Color In response to a recent task force report<http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/053014_mbk_report.pdf> to President Barack Obama on My Brother's Keeper<http://www.whitehouse.gov/my-brothers-keeper>, an initiative that brings together private sector and philanthropic organizations to improve the lives and outcomes of boys and young men of color in the United States, seven university-based research centers have jointly issued a statement. The Morehouse Research Institute<https://www.morehouse.edu/centers/mri/> (Morehouse College), the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education<https://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/> (University of Pennsylvania), Minority Male Community College Collaborative<http://interwork.sdsu.edu/sp/m2c3/> (San Diego State University), Project MALES<http://ddce.utexas.edu/projectmales/> and the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color<http://ddce.utexas.edu/txedconsortium/> (University of Texas at Austin), Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male<http://odi.osu.edu/centers/bell-national-resource-center/bnrc/> (The Ohio State University), UCLA Black Male Institute<http://www.blackmaleinstitute.org/> (University of California, Los Angeles), and Wisconsin's Equity and Inclusion Laboratory<http://weilab.wceruw.org/> (University of Wisconsin-Madison) are all research enterprises that rigorously and routinely study factors that enable and limit educational, social, and occupational opportunities for boys and young men of color. Leaders of the seven centers emphasize the importance of effective research-based interventions and are jointly issuing the following statement in response to the task force report: "As Black and Latino male professors and research center directors, we salute President Obama as well as the many philanthropic and private sector funders for their commitment to improving the conditions of our nation's boys and young men of color. The task force report offers a commendable articulation of challenges and opportunities for young men of color and various agents who play some role in their life outcomes. Recommendations offered therein are appropriately informed by research from a range of academic disciplines. As our nation prepares to enact recommendations from the task force, we call for programs, policies, and services that are guided by research and documented effectiveness. We caution, for example, against the widespread replication of mentoring programs that haphazardly match young men with adults, as evidence concerning the outcomes of such programs is mixed. Moreover, we believe interventions should focus on better understanding and remedying systemic inequities in policies, schooling and social practices, and structures that persistently undermine the success of boys and men of color. More significant investment in the dissemination of existing research on what works, as well as funding new studies on promising policies and practices, would help ensure the success of My Brother's Keeper and the Americans it aims to effectively serve. We urge private foundations, federal funding agencies (i.e., the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health), and other entities that invest in projects associated with My Brother's Keeper to take seriously the evidence base of initiatives that are proposed, as well as rigorous evaluations of newly funded projects. Funds are needed to facilitate productive collaborations among research centers such as ours, and to connect researchers with agents who lead organizations and initiatives for young men of color across our nation. The success of My Brother's Keeper depends heavily on the quality of research produced about its effectiveness. Ultimately, strong cultures of evidence and efficacy should guide all programs, services, and interventions associated with the initiative. My Brother's Keeper affords our country an important opportunity to reframe hopeless, deficit-oriented narratives about boys and young men of color, schools that educate them, and communities in which they live. We are hopeful that the initiative will produce replicable models of success, but doing so requires more investment in studies of what works. To ensure the success of My Brother's Keeper, our research centers stand ready to serve as resources to its funders and the Obama Administration." SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. 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