Evaluate the Plan and Recommend Implementation Steps

The African American community faces a lot of obstacles in pursuing their educational achievements in the learning environment. The educational barriers are due to race and cultural stereotypes in the society. Due to bias in the learning environment, they lack access to career-preparatory resources, under-resourced schools lacking qualified and credential teachers, disproportional disciplinary practices based on discrimination and violence. The African American students did not participate in extra-curricular activities such as athletics which are useful modes of socialization due to discouragement from teachers and challenges such as costs and transportation (Baker, 2005). According to a report, African American students were unfairly punished for minor offenses and were often suspended or expelled from school; punishment that was said to be very harsh in comparison to the white students. African American students encountered limited access to academic courses that led to higher education which assured them of a well-paying job. This had the effect of increasing the number of unemployment of the African American community that raised their poverty and crime level. This led to a lot of deaths since they resulted in crime as a means of earning basic needs.

The consequences of discrimination and bias against the African-American students have negative impact on the entire African American community in general. It has led to lack of job opportunities, increases in crime rates among the community, violence and increased risk of economic insecurity. Due to these effects, discrimination and bias in the learning environment should be abolished and appropriate measures implemented to overcome the barriers to effective learning of the African American students. However, there are various methods that can be used to ensure equality in the learning environment. The performance of all students should be maintained under transparency and accountability. This will help to prevent grading of students based on race (Goodman et al., 2014). The African American students should be taken to school at an early age. This will help them to invest in early childhood education that will build a strong diversified social culture from an early age. Learning institutions should apply alternative forms of punishment such as restorative justice to encourage good positive behavior. Schools should adopt a constitution which will guide the administration in issuing punishment for all students. This will prevent overly punitive disciplinary punishment for the African American students.

Data on learning institution annual discipline report should be reported with transparency and accuracy. African American students should be involved in career-preparatory courses so as to enable them to prepare for their career in future. African American students lack cultural values so they should be allowed to access extra-curricular activities such as athletics and sports (Krystal, 2014). This will enable them to socialize with other students hence instill some culture in them that will help them to co-exist with other students. Learning institutions should reduce gender and race-based discrimination, harassment and violence. They should train their staff on handling students of diverse backgrounds and sex to prevent any form of bias. However, the most important method of overcoming race-based discrimination is providing social support services that will address the needs of African American students especially those with low-incomes who are the most vulnerable. This will make them feel accepted in the society and motivate them to work hard in school for brighter future.

Educational policies should be free and fair to all in the society. The society should prevent all forms of bias and discrimination. In order to achieve this, there should be an inclusive environment which contains all people of different races to prevent discrimination. The environment should be diversified with multiple cultures. Having an environment with multiple cultures will create harmony and people will learn to live with one another thus preventing race-based discrimination (Morris, 2001). However, poverty and other forms of deprivations coincide with racial or sexual segregation, therefore, the inclusive environment will prevent discrimination and reduce instances of poverty in the African American community. Diversity in the community will address issues of racial isolation in the neighborhood. This will enforce racial and socio-economic integration; that is developing infrastructure in the form of houses and security, economic improvement of the African American community and access to better health care services. People will have a sense of belonging to the society (Terrell et al., 2010). The inclusive environment will be a social support system that will prevent racial discrimination in the society. This can be achieved by enacting laws that ban any form of discrimination.

The legislature should prohibit and ban all forms of discrimination and provide appropriate punishment. People should live in a society where they are not stereotyped by the color of their skin. It should be applicable in learning institutions and the entire society in general. African American students and families in the inclusive environment can access all resources without bias and opportunities will be fair and equally shared among them. All learners from the African American back ground will participate fully in the educational program without punitive punishments that harm their educational experience. This will improve their living standards reducing crime and violence in the society (Tyler et al., 2006). The goals of the inclusive environment are to ensure equity in distribution of resources among the needy and poor students in the community. Schools in the inclusive environment are also equipped with the necessary resources that will help students achieve career-ready academic standards.

Racial discrimination is a plague that continues to affect the entire American educational system. The anti-bias action plan is an important step that will address the issue affecting the educational system. However, these initiatives are not enough to fully address the problems experienced daily by African American community in general. There is no specific timeline to implement the action plan that will help in curbing the issue of discrimination based on race and gender (Wilson, 2006). The entire community should take the responsibility of fighting against race-based bias. The first step in getting rid of discrimination should be teaching the American community that people should not be judged on the basis of their color. They should live in harmony since all people are humans and skin color does not make people less humans. Stereotyping people on the basis of skin color in the main reason for racial discrimination and violence. They should develop and implement laws that prohibit all forms of discrimination in their nation and adopt a mode of punishing those involved in discrimination. Civil rights should be championed in the entire country. These processes require a relatively long period to develop and implement. Therefore, the timeline for implementing the action plan should be a relatively long period more than five years so as to instill the spirit of harmony and brotherhood to individuals. The justice system should also have enough time to analyze the most appropriate laws and implement them.

Discrimination based on gender and race in America is deeply rooted since the 15th century during the slave trade. The ancient Americans believe that the African Americans are intruders to their land (Tyler et al., 2006). To get rid of race-based discrimination, efficient legislation and education of the masses is required. However, there are obstacles that hinder the successful implementation of the anti-bias action plan. The majority of African American people live in poverty. Their backgrounds are made up of low socio-economic status which makes them engage in crime and violence. This has led to the stereotyping of the African American community as criminals thus being discriminated in instances of hiring opportunities for public jobs or unfair treatment by the law enforcement officers. However, the risks can be dealt with to ensure that all Americans co-exist with one another in harmony.

References

Baker, P. (2005). The Impact of Cultural Biases on African American Students' Education.  Education And Urban Society, 37(3), 243-256. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/001274187

Goodman, K. & Bowman, N. (2014). Making Diversity Work to Improve Student Learning.New Directions For Student Services, 2014(147), 37-48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ss.20099

Krystal Beamon,. (2014). Racism and Stereotyping in education: Experiences of African American Student. The Journal Of Negro Education, 83(2), 121. http://dx.doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.83.2.0121

Morris, J. (2001). African American students and gifted education: The politics of race and culture.Roeper Review, 24(2), 59-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02783109554130

Terrell L. Strayhorn,. (2010). When Race and Gender Collide: Social and Cultural Capital’s Influence on the Academic Achievement of African American and Latino Males. The Review Of Higher Education, 33(3), 307-332. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0147

Tyler, K., Boykin, A., Miller, O., & Hurley, E. (2006). Cultural values in the home and school experiences of low-income African-American students. Social Psychology Of Education, 9(4), 363-380. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11218-006-9003-x

Wilson, R. (2006). Educating for diversity. About Campus, 1(2), 4-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/abc.6190010202