Headphones from the House of Marley range in price from $29 to $299 (Image: House of Marley)

Beats by Dre. Sleek by Fifty Cent. Soul by Ludacris. House of Marley. You’ve probably heard about these high-performance, high-end headphones and maybe even bought a pair or two.

If you have, you’re not the only one. Sales of stereo headphones priced above $100 have more than doubled in 2011, according to the NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service. While models under $100 make up the majority of headphone sales, models priced above $100 now account for more than $342 million in sales.

“Consumers are starting to demand better quality audio,” says Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at NPD.  “But also these are fashion accessories. You see kids at the mall wearing them. They are very trendy right now. People under 24 are really making up a huge share of those buyers. It’s about introducing a new market to high quality audio.”

The industry analyst sat down with BlackEnterprise.com to discuss the growth in the high-performance headphone trend, better offerings in the tablet department, and why “ultrabooks is where it’s at.”

Watch the video below:

Antonio Wells owns AndroidTapp.com, a website that reviews Android Apps (Source: NetShelter Technology Media)

One of the best parts about attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) or any conference for that matter, is meeting new people: up and coming web developers, podcasters and analysts, among others.

This year, I ran into Antonio Wells, founder of AndroidTapp.com. Aside from being based in Chicago (my favorite town), AndroidTapp has won me over because it provides reviews, news, and troubleshooting for the more than 400,000 apps in the Android Marketplace.

After running his own boutique web design company targeting small businesses, Wells decided to entertain the corporate world and joined AXA Assistance USA as a web designer developing enterprise web applications, user interfaces, and user experiences for AMEX and VISA, in addition to internal clients.

In 2008, while at AXA, he learned of Google’s Android mobile operating system and how it was poised to compete with Apple’s mobile app ecosystem. With that in mind he created AndroidTapp.com, a website dedicated to mobile application reviews. AndroidTapp gives consumers a concise “try it before you buy it” experience by listing pros versus cons, screenshots, star ratings, user reviews, and video demonstrations of paid and unpaid Android apps.

“I always had an affinity towards Google’s services and had an epiphany in foresight of the potential thousands of applications that would be created by third party developers,” says Wells. “I decided to focus on writing about quality applications and give consumers an unbiased overview of why an app was worth downloading or not. This resource in my opinion is much better than wading through several frivolous comments often found attached to apps in Google’s Android Market when app shopping.”

AndroidTapp recently created its own Android application store where third party developers can have another distribution channel to monetize their apps beyond the Android marketplace. The app store only sells apps rated four stars out of five stars or higher. The apps are vetted for quality similar to Apple’s model, says Wells. He also plans to launch a mobile app video show in the near future.

AndroidTapp is a part of NetShetler Technology Media, an advertising network of some of the world’s most influential technology websites including Crackberry.com, VentureBeat.com and MacRumors.com. NetShelter’s network of sites collectively reaches more than 150 million unique visitors per month, according to ComScore, and form the number one largest “tech media company online” outranking CNET and AOL properties.

Now in its fourth year, with more than twelve million annual visitors, AndroidTapp is quickly becoming a leader for Android app reviews because of its focus on quality and because of the quantity of apps the company has reviewed, says Wells. Quantcast notes AndroidTapp as one of the top 8,000 sites in the U.S., while Alexa ranks them as one of the top 16,000 sites in the country. AndroidTapp’s content has been referenced by tech and media sites like Mashable, Engadget, and Yahoo! News.

BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Wells at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in January. Check out the chief editor’s insight on newly released hardware and, of course,  Android apps.

(Image: Lenovo)

This year Lenovo’s new products are making a great impression. They won numerous “Best of” awards at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show last month, including 22 awards and honors highlighting innovation, design, and versatility in the PC industry.

Watch as Richard LaBennett of Lenovo walks you through the company’s latest tech treasures.

Click here to read more and learn exactly how each of these tools can assist with your business needs.

See how these tech gadgets make conducting business on the run a lot faster. And, yes, a whole lot lighter.

The Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Hybrid is considered the Cadillac of Lenovo Thinkpads. It is available with Intel Core processors up to i7, meaning it is one of the fastest computers around. It is super slim and light, and comes equipped with a Corning Gorilla Glass screen, which reduces the chance of fractures or cracks. What’s cool about this laptop is that it can enter hybrid mode, a custom operating system that doubles the battery life.  In this mode, you can put windows to sleep, launch into a separate instant media mode and still watch movies, listen to music, check email or browse the Web. You can enter back into Windows for productivity tasks, updating PowerPoint presentations, and writing Word documents. It comes with Dolby surround sound. It will be available for $1,599 in the second quarter of this year.

The Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet is a 10-inch tablet with an Android Honeycomb operating system. It comes equipped with a pen for handwriting recognition, allowing you to sign documents, write emails, and export text to emails or store notes for a later meeting. It is highly mobile, greatly productive, and designed for a lot of utility and function. Along with a super bright display panel, it has added ports including Native USB 2.0 and micro-USB ports, a full-size SD card slot and mini-HDMI output slot.  The tablet works on all major carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. The ThinkPad Tablet retails at $479 (16 GB), $499 (32 GB) and $659 (64 GB).

The Thinkpad T430u is Lenovo’s first business Ultrabook. It has fast SSD storage memory and SSD caching. It is less than 22 mm thin, provides seven hours of battery life, a large keyboard, up to a terabyte of HD storage, and Nvidia graphics. The T430u has a matte finish that’s soft to the touch and an aluminum top cover. Through Lenovo Solution Center powered by Intel Small Business Advantage, it offers a set of productivity and security tools helping to enable overnight energy savings and automatic patch updates. The 14-inch laptop, starting at $849, will be released in the second half of 2012.

The 14-inch Thinkvision Mobile Monitor by Lenovo connects to a notebook via USB and allows you to display everything you’re doing on that notebook. At under two pounds–and less than one centimeter at its thinnest, this durable monitor is great for the road warrior who does presentations and elevator pitches in hotel lobbies and coffee shops. Afterwards, fold it up, put it in a bag and take it to the next meeting. It retails at $199.99.

Attendees network at the first diversity mixer for the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (File: Source)

January 12  marked the first diversity mixer to be held during the International Consumer Electronics Show. The event, dubbed The Hub, and held at the Palms Hotel, stood apart from the shows megawatt, over the top deluge of new product announcements, device demos, and gadget glorification.

Organized by Lindsey C. Holmes, owner of LCH Business, Inc. and with help from adjunct Rutgers University professor of digital media, Kaia Niambi Shivers, the mixer sought to discuss ways to encourage minorities to pursue an education in science and provide a platform to showcase minority companies at a conference where their presence seems to be absent.

“The mixer is about having a forum for us to discuss some actionable steps we can take to incubate minorities and women in consumer electronics,” says Holmes, who was motivated to host the event after a high-level tech executive told her that he did not see a case for minority inclusion at CES. “Minority inclusion at events like CES is imperative to the stimulus of the economy through job creation and innovation, and opens up windows in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) field, that many are unaware of.”

While it is rare that black faces are represented in technical fields behind the scenes in the consumer electronics industry, roughly 31% of black discretionary spending, or $39 billion, goes toward the purchase of computers, cell phones and electronics – a lower percentage is spent by non-blacks, according to a survey, commissioned by Black Entertainment Television.

Lindsey Holmes, Carol Campbell, and Kaia Niambi Shivers pose at the Consumer Electronics Show first-ever diversity mixer (File: Source)

“Technology is used to create a better society…if you are not including everybody in [the generation of] these technologies then society does not progress as it should,” says Shivers.

Albeit rare, black technology inventors are not extinct. Of the 2,000 plus exhibitors at CES, Holmes discovered two companies on the convention floor that she says embody the diversity that the Consumer Electronics Association should show more of.

For example, NoitAvonne, is a black-owned company that created Loop Technology, which when embedded in smart phones and tablets helps mobile workers access the same tools and applications they use in the office. Another black-owned company, Tabelz, manufactures tripod stands for computers and video cameras.

“It was an honor to be at the beginning of a movement! There were various ethnicities represented, as well as women, and everyone felt a personal responsibility to advance the opportunities of people of color within the CE (consumer electronics) space,” said digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong, who is a technology correspondent for the Today show, and one of the 40 attendees at the mixer.  “This diversity reception was the match that lit the torch of opportunity for creation not consumption, now it’s up to us to carry the torch everywhere we go to fulfill the mission–bringing more diversity to the CE industry.”

Also in attendance was Carol Campbell, the founder of Women in CE, an organization dedicated to advancing career opportunities across the breadth of the consumer electronics industry. Campbell has agreed to incubate The Hub, says Holmes, who hopes to help produce a diversity tech zone at CES. Currently CES provides space for several niche tech zones, including a Mommy Tech Zone, the Digital Health Summit and the Silver Summit, for companies that provide tech solutions for the elderly and aging.

Holmes, also a fledgling inventor, introduced her Barcode Mardi Gras Beads at the event. She says the beads are a fun and engaging way for a business to share content about their products. Two-sided medallions hang from mardi gras beads and feature quick response barcodes on one side and scanning instructions on the other. When scanned with a mobile phone, the barcodes link to content such as web pages, videos, and social media sites.

Hadiyah Mujhid, Nnena Ukuku, Monique Woodard, and Chris Bennett started Black Founders to increase the numbers of successful black entrepreneurs in technology (Image: Black Founders)

For many years, the word hacker brought to mind the 1980s movie War Games, where the central character, played by Matthew Broderick, nearly starts a nuclear war when he cavalierly  “hacks” into a super computer that controls the governments’ entire arsenal of war heads.

Nowadays the average hacker doesn’t have devious intentions and they aren’t always held in contempt by the general public. In fact, they are held in high esteem, because they are the software engineers, computer programmers, and app makers that create the gadgets, operating systems, and mobile phone features, which have made our lives more convenient, efficient, and enjoyable.

Sponsored by Black Founders, an organization dedicated to making black startups a common occurrence, Hack Day, held Saturday, January 21, was a rare opportunity for black developers to meet each other, have technical discussions about tools, share coding advice, and talk about their projects.

“We limited the participants mainly because we wanted developers to network with each other intimately,” says Hadiyah Mujhid, the Black Founder co-founder in charge of outreach and educational programs. Mujhid is also in the process of launching Picture.ly Labs, a web company focused on image semantics.

Participants ranged from video game creators to iPhone and Android app developers–many of whom were racing to meet deadlines to submit their apps/software for approval.
Hacking has changed the way the world executes business, advertising, and commerce.  While African Americans enjoy the fruit of this innovation at an unparalleled rate, too few hackers are black, which means the profits from these inventions aren’t being fully realized by the black community. The creators of Black Founders felt it was necessary to unite black entrepreneurs because the country’s most successful technology incubators, where startups find funding and receive education, have low to nonexistent black participation.

Since the creation of the organization in March 2011, Black Founders has hosted nearly 20 events that range from small gatherings of 15 or so black hackers to larger events about filing patents, crafting an elevator pitch and creating business plans, among other topics.

They have partnered with prominent organizations and speakers like 500 Startups and Vivek Wadhwa, who as CEO of Seer Technologies helped grow the nascent startup into a $118 million publicly traded company.  Their events have connected more than 200 black entrepreneurs to a larger network.

“BF is a great resource for black entrepreneurs. They do a great job of organizing and educating folks,” says Patrick Jackson, who moved to San Francisco from the East Coast to help put his startup, Imaginary Feet, on better footing. “They really helped me network in San Francisco. We made some great contacts of venture capitalists at the Black Founders pitch party event that we will follow up with if/when we decide to raise a series A round. ”

The organization’s goals are to foster business development and close the digital gap in the black community, connect and equip black entrepreneurs in the technical startup population, while also driving innovation in that sphere through diversity and inclusion. Their programs are based according to the stage of the startup and whether they are in the ideation, pre-launch, post-launch, and/or growth phase. They hope to also launch programs that fill the pipeline of innovation at the high school and college levels.

This year Black Founders is planning more events geared towards the developers, including a sponsored hackathon with prizes. Also in the works are angel investing training workshops for October to help black professionals and philanthropists become angel investors, as well as the Start It Challenge, which will launch the first week of February. The free 12 week challenge will piggyback on Stanford’s online Lean Launchpad course by coordinating other online discussions with advisors and mentors and offline group Meetup events in different cities. At the end of the program, Black Founders will host a worldwide demo day online giving anyone access to participate. So far, 50 startups have signed up, including one from London.

“We learned last year even though we do have a strong support group in the [San Francisco] area, there is a community outside of this area who wants to participate even if it is through online events. This is a way to include them,” says Muhjid. “We are using that [course] to supplement what we’ve put together. We will have online teleconferences where our mentors will come and speak to the group. This course falls in perfectly. It is a great supplement to what we’re doing.”

Finally, Black Founders joined the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology & Innovation (sf.citi) advisory board. sf.citi also is working with Code for America (CFA) to partner with the City of San Francisco on an accelerator for startups that focus on civic issues, funded by Google and the Kauffman Foundation.

Ultrabooks. You may not have heard of them before, but this year just about every company has introduced a new one. What is it, you ask? Basically, it’s a laptop with specifications, defined by Intel that put it below a certain price, usually $1,000; less than 21 mm thick and 3.1 lbs. heavy; and with processor speeds of 1.4 GHz and above. The battery power on ultrabooks are also usually exemplary.  In a nutshell, it’s the PC world’s answer to the MacBook Air, the iPad, and other tablets. Unlike Netbooks, ultrabooks are small and they pack all the power you would need to do heavy lifting like multitasking, video editing, and gaming. Ultrabooks make all other laptops look either fat and lazy or small and incompetent. Intel’s aim is that by the end of 2012, 40% of the consumer laptop market segment will be Ultrabooks, and I believe they’ll meet that goal with no problem at all.

Face, motion, and voice recognition. Now that people have been introduced to motion recognition games like xbox Connect and Wii, or voice recognition services like Apple’s Siri or Google’s Speech to text, it’s only natural that people will expect this type of technology to spill into their other electronic devices.  In fact, face, motion, and voice recognition was one of the more popular features on products on the showroom floor at the 2012 CES. Recognition software was integrated into televisions, cars, and mobile devices.

Connected life. Wireless world. Devices are no longer keeping secrets from one another. From now on we’re going to start expecting that whatever our laptop knows, the television and refrigerator should too. The vacation photos you take on your camera will be available on your printer. With Samsung leading the way “smart electronics” are going to allow consumers to not only enjoy and share a wide range of content across devices anywhere and anytime, but backup important data that is accessible at work, home or on the go.

Increased processor speeds. Processor’s get faster every year. It’s a given, but is it worth the upgrade. Possibly. Many of the above mentioned technologies introduced this year can’t be executed on your older computers, even if your current computer is two years old. Now that Intel has introduced Ivy Bridge, its next generation of processors, the bounds of our limitations are completely out of sight.

Smith promoted upcoming film MIB II at 2012 CES (Source: Sony Electronics).

Sony made big moves this week at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, and to assure that their announcements didn’t get lost in the shuffle, they recruited some big names, including Will Smith, Earth Wind and Fire, and Kelly Clarkson. Smith made a surprise appearance to help promote Men in Black 3, in 3D.

Topping the list at the Sony press conference was their deployment Sony Entertainment Network, a cloud based solution that provides consumers with a seamless, convenient user experience. New services like, Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited, Common ID and Digital Wallet will assist in this effort by enabling users to enjoy, share, watch, and listen to massive amounts of content on any Sony device including Sony Vaio laptops, tablets, smartphones and Play Station consoles. This device integration will make it easy to manage music and video libraries at work, at home, or on the go.

Sony also announced that they will allow PlayStation to be certified on non-Sony products.The foldable Tablet P, the next generation, tablet following the Sony Tablet S (released Sept 2011) was unveiled on Monday, along with a Blu-ray player powered by Google TV, and a crystal LED display, the industry’s first 55-inch Full HD self-emitting display using LEDs as the light source.

Sony entered the North American Smartphone market with the Sony Ericsson phone, Xperia Ion, which is powered by the same Bravia engine as Sony HD televisions. The Ion is Sony’s first LTE smartphone with a HD 720p Reality Display and aa 12 mega pixel camera. The Xperia S Smartphone also has a full HD experience plus the ability to capture 3D images.Finally, Sony announced the Bloggie Live,the world’s first MP4 full HD pocket camera capable of live video streaming with built-in Wi-Fi.

Watch below for video highlights from Black Enterprise’s visit to the Sony booth at CES. 2012.

Now a teacher in Prince George’s County Public Schools system in Maryland, Thomas, who has a bachelor of arts in social studies from the State University of New York at Albany and a master of arts in reading education from Bowie State University, took it upon himself to turn the tables.

He hasn’t limited his goal of being a role model to the classroom. Thomas, the 2008–2009 Prince George’s County Teacher of the Year, aims to teach students to perform at a higher level and prepare them for college. And he has made progress.

When he first started teaching Advanced Placement government at Dr. Henry A. Wise Junior High School in 2007—where 90% of the student body is African American—not one of his students attained an acceptable score of 3, 4, or 5 on the AP exam. His initial reaction was to blame the students, but he realized that would be taking the easy way out.

So he raised the bar for himself. In 2010, 23 of his 88 students passed the exam with acceptable scores; and he’s seen a marked increase among the young black men. That improvement could be attributed to a number of things: the tutoring time he added during and after school; the workshops he attended to improve his teaching strategies; his requirement that parents attend field trips with students; or the political activities he engaged in himself.

But Thomas, a national board certified teacher, didn’t stop there. He worked during evenings and summers to assist with curriculum writing for the PGCPS social studies office, and each day, including weekends, he spends an additional two to three hours above the contracted workday grading and preparing lesson plans. In addition to his classroom obligations, Thomas volunteers after school as a mock trial coach, and he runs an online investment club for students.

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Yet, Thomas is quick to assert that all the teachers at Wise, a 6-year-old school, named after the first practicing black physician in Prince George’s County, work just as hard as he does. This is why Thomas is defensive about the outpouring of negative sentiment toward teachers and teachers unions.

“I know teachers who are doing far more than what I’m doing. They’ve committed far more hours and seen far more progress in their students than I’ve seen,” says Thomas, a veteran teacher of 13 years. “What I’ve seen in the media are teachers who are putting their feet up, doing whatever, and not caring … that is not the norm. It is frustrating to see such stories, know it is not true, but I know that is the perception that the public has been given by the media.”

In Parts 1 and 2 of Black America’s Education Crisis, Black Enterprise focused on programs and strategies that federal, state, and local governments have enacted to improve K–12 public education as well as the philanthropic efforts of Bill Gates. The third part of our four-part series drills in on teachers and parents, and what they can do to improve the state of education for our children.

Do Teachers Unions Advance Education?
Three in four Americans have “trust and confidence in public school teachers,” but do not think much of teachers unions or the government when it comes to the current quality of education, according to the 43rd annual Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward their Public Schools.

Of those who think teachers unions are failing America’s students, Steve Perry, Ph.D., principal and founder of Capital Preparatory Magnet School, is probably the most vocal. Established in Hartford, Connecticut’s lowest performing district, accommodating a student population that was estimated to be 86% black and 70% low-income during the 2010–2011 school year, Capital Prep has since its inception in 2004 sent 100% of its graduates to four-year colleges.

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Perry believes that type of achievement is missing in most public schools because teachers lack accountability.  While Perry and the teachers at Capital Prep are union members (which is required in Connecticut), he resents the standards the union requires of him and his staff. For example, he says he cannot call a mandatory staff meeting more than once a month, a stipulation that prevents his teachers from working collaboratively.

“The children, the people who schools are designed to actually support, are the ones getting the shortest end of the stick. The adults are getting the most,” says Perry, who says “Teachers unions [are] the worst thing that ever happened to public education,” a statement he used as the title of a chapter in his new book, Push Has Come to Shove (Crown; $25).

Perry and those who wish to minimize or eliminate union power in school districts believe unions keep principals from firing ineffective teachers, prevent teachers from working extended school days and school years, provide some teachers with salaries and benefits that exceed the value of their workload, and deter professionals who don’t have an education degree from entering the field.

“The recession is the best thing to happen to public education in a long time,” says Perry, suggesting that the budget crisis is forcing state and local governments to take a critical look at how money is being wasted in public schools.

This year, national debate about teachers unions has centered on collective bargaining, the process by which teachers collectively negotiate salary, work hours, benefits, vacation time, and grievances.

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To teachers like Thomas, collective bargaining means unions can fight for smaller class sizes, more prep time, and, of course, more pay in order to attract the strongest people to the profession. But Perry says collective bargaining is holding our community over the barrel and running the cost of education through the roof. The fact that it has been dismantled in Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and several other states this year is a “great and necessary step” toward school districts being able to “run a leaner and more effective academic experience,” he says.  “Teachers unions were good at one time, but I don’t know when that time was, because good to me means improving the quality of education, not guaranteeing jobs and not guaranteeing benefits.”

Marco Petruzzi agrees with Perry that principals need more hiring and firing authority over their staffs, and that the system should be built around kids’ success and not job security for teachers, but he doesn’t agree that all unions are bad. Petruzzi is president and CEO of Green Dot Public Schools, a Los Angeles-based organization that uses a charter-like model to transform low-performing schools. One difference: Principals and teachers at Green Dot schools own critical decisions related to budgeting, hiring, and curriculum customization. This model enables Green Dot schools to consistently outperform comparable schools on nearly every academic performance measure.

“Not all unions are created equal. I think a good union should embrace professionalism and accountability,” says Petruzzi. “To be a professional, you need to not have a 400-page union contract that tells you what to do every minute of the day. That’s actually good for a manufacturing company or a farming community, but you don’t see doctors and lawyers—who are professionals—walking around with 400 pages of how they’re supposed to spend every hour of the day.”  National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel says that it puts student learning first, and it has made huge investments in developing high standards to ensure teacher success  in the classroom.

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Tenure and Teacher Performance
While pro-union teachers like Thomas may find union condemnation misplaced, he does believe that the criteria for receiving teacher tenure needs to be changed. He is not alone. Only 10% of teachers say that tenure is a very accurate measure of teacher performance, while 42% say it is not at all accurate, according to teachers surveyed in a report released last year by Scholastic Inc. and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In some states, teachers can receive tenure after only two years on the job and with minimal to no evaluation of their job performance. Nine states do not require any evaluations of new teachers, while 23 states require only that new teachers be evaluated more than once each year, according to the Campaign for High School Equity, a coalition of leading civil rights organizations representing communities of color aimed at addressing the unequal American public education system. Only 16 states require that new teachers be evaluated early in the school year, even though studies show that early evaluation improves performance throughout the year. In some states, tenured teachers are required to undergo evaluations only twice in 10 years.

According to the Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll most teachers would actually prefer that they were held more accountable— 60% and 55% of teachers, in the Gates Foundation survey view student engagement and year-over-year progress of students as the most accurate indicators of measuring teacher performance. They also agree that their salaries should be tied to the quality of their job performance. Yet most still do not believe that financial compensation should be tied to student achievement.

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On the other hand, 75% of parents of public school students say teachers’ salaries should be somewhat or very closely tied to their own students’ academic achievement, according to the Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa poll. When calculating a teacher’s salary, parents agree that multiple factors should be considered, including the principal’s evaluation, advanced degrees, and experience.

Getting Paid
While Perry argues that the average teacher is overpaid, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that teachers in the U.S. generally spend more time teaching but without an equivalent advantage in pay compared with other developed countries whose students are outperforming American students. A brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education states that half of all teachers who enter the field leave within five years, and the best and brightest are often the first to leave, and not necessarily because of poor compensation.

More teachers say it is more important to have supportive leadership, time to collaborate, and quality curriculum, according to the Gates Foundation’s survey.

If the ability of schools to hire and retain high-quality teachers has the potential to influence student academic outcomes and significantly reduce student dropout rates as studies have shown, then efforts should be concentrated on not just developing high-quality teachers but on retaining them as well. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan agrees, saying that raising the bar for prospective students to enter schools of education and increasing starting salaries to $60,000 a year, topping out at around $150,000, will incentivize “top graduates to flock to a profession that demands high standards and credentials.”

Implementing merit pay is one solution that is often touted by many education reform advocates including President Barack Obama, but research is inconclusive about whether it actually works. One Harvard study, conducted by economist Roland Fryer, found that it didn’t make a difference in student achievement in New York schools.

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Says Thomas: “I believe we need to be cautious with merit pay because the educational process is a continuum and you cannot isolate one year or one subject to measure student growth  and attribute that growth to one teacher. Students can achieve more when teachers work together.” He also wonders if merit pay could produce a competitive environment in which teachers are discouraged from collaborating and sharing their best practices.

For teachers in the trenches, nine studies indicate that quality professional development can improve both teacher practice and student achievement, reports the New Teacher Center, a group focused on assisting teacher and administrator induction and retention. For black students specifically, the Campaign for High School Equity and the College Board recommend that teachers and school leaders need to be trained in cultural competency, and ongoing research should be adjusted to the needs of communities of color.

Teach for America
One organization that has focused on the power of teaching to effect change in a student’s life is Teach for America. Started 20 years ago by Wendy Kopp, the organization takes recent college graduates and puts them in high poverty, low-achieving urban and rural schools for two years. More than 9,000 corps members—Teach for America instructors—will be teaching 600,000 students this year, more than 50% of whom are African American. Twelve percent of the 5,200 teachers that entered Teach for America for the 2011–2012 school year are African American. Twenty-seven percent of Spelman seniors applied to Teach for America, as did 10% of seniors at Howard; one in five African American seniors at Ivy League schools applied as well.

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Though it is not without its detractors, the organization is convinced that it knows what works, and that its teachers and leaders are willing to do whatever it takes. And research supports it: According to Kopp, Teach for America is the most studied teacher education program in the country, and studies have shown that its teachers positively affect student achievement. A study in Tennessee found that Teach for America was the most effective of the state’s 42 teacher preparation programs, and that its teachers demonstrated a greater effect on students in every evaluated subject area. “Our greatest challenge,” says Kopp, “is the inequities that persist in outcomes along socioeconomic and racial lines.” (For more about educational inequities, see Part 1, “Black America’s Education Crisis,” September 2011).

Yet Kopp says there’s plenty of evidence that all kids can be provided with an excellent education. “Twenty years ago the prevailing view was that socioeconomic levels determined kids’ educational ability and outcomes,” she says, but it’s now clear that poverty does not determine ability and never did. Yet, according to Kopp, only 8% of low-income kids graduate from college; 80% of high-income kids do. Although she’s quick to say that there’s no silver bullet to solving this crisis, she does propose one essential aspect: effective school leadership.

Kopp says that strong school leaders go after their goals with the same level of energy and discipline and use the same strategies that effective leaders use to achieve any ambitious outcome. “Good leaders obsess about building strong teams; they work hard to build a powerful culture; they manage their teachers effectively; they do whatever it takes to reach their goal.

Parents: A Crucial Role
But teachers are only part of the equation. Parents must work with teachers to develop academic achievers.  Parental support promotes student engagement. One charter school network, the Richard Allen Schools in Ohio, even uses a parent report card to evaluate parental involvement in their student’s academic lives.

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What parenting approaches are most consistent with this goal? In Part 1 of this series, it was noted that the achievement gap between black and white students shows up before they enter school. What can parents and other caregivers do to maximize preschoolers cognitive development and best prepare them for school?

“A lot of what is valued in the black community regarding child rearing turns out to be not very valuable in developing young minds,” says Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the renowned Harlem Children’s Zone, which now offers a Baby College for children age zero to 3. “The science about how children learn says they should have a voice, they should have opinions. We should talk seriously and use very complex language with them from birth.” Canada says that using rich vocabulary with young children enriches their world experience and communication skills, which serves as “the precursor to all the writing, reading, and other areas we really care about.”

Canada also stresses exposing children to new concepts, ideas, and words every day, and reading the best children’s literature to them, which, “puts a child at a huge advantage when they enter school.” He also opposes the use of corporal punishment. “Violence teaches our children that pain and fear get folk to do what you want.” Instead, he insists that timeouts and explaining to children what is and is not acceptable works better at managing their behavior, and says explanations also teach them how to use language and persuasion. (See the Parent Resources box for information about supporting school-age children.)

Perry of Capital Prep emphasizes reading to young children as well, even if it’s in a language other than English. He also encourages parents to expose young children to do counting and simple arithmetic. “Parents develop academic courage in their kids when they make it safe for them to ask questions,” says Perry, whose two young sons attend Capital Prep. “There’s a style of parenting that we’ve carried up to the middle class where we think kids are supposed to be seen and not heard. We often stifle questions because we want our kids to shut up. But asking questions is not talking back.”

What are your day-to-day duties at Microsoft?

I design and develop the various onscreen interfaces, which include menus, interaction models and onscreen elements. I work with various disciplines including artists and developers during the development process. Part of my job is looking at the overall interaction models and user experience. With the launch of Kinect we focused on removing the barrier of entry for people who don’t play games—something kids could use as well as grandparents. There’s an article where a guy who had an autistic son was able to go through the menus. My job is to interpret the creative vision and ensure the user experience is geared toward our target audience and highlights the benefits of new tech.

How long have you been in the gaming industry?

I’ve been in the game industry for six years and working on Kinect for over a year. My expertise has given me great opportunities to lead implementation wise. I enjoy the problem solving involved in implementing a high level design while remaining within given technical constraints such as memory restrictions.

How do you come up with your designs?

A lot of my design ideas come from my experience playing lots of games, observing user research sections, and observing how others interact with various technologies. My talents for design are largely intuitive but I do like to supplement that gift with various research and experimentations.

How did you gain that knowledge?

[Coming in to the industry] I don’t know if I knew what UI [user interface] design was, but all I wanted to do was make video games—the end product. You don’t know what goes into getting the product on the shelf you just know you want to be a part of it. I go back to a lot of my design sense being very intuitive, the first interface team I got hired on in the games industry was an easy fit for me. The rest of my knowledge came from experience; this is a fast paced industry where you learn a bit everyday.

Have you come across many minorities in your field?

There aren’t many minorities [within the industry]. We are a big part of the consumer group. There are games targeted to us. I don’t know if we don’t know about opportunities in the game industry, but there is a huge need for different point of views in the industry. The only way the industry can continue to grow and reach new audiences is to grow its source of ideas.

How would you suggest other minorities break into the gaming industry?

There are lower barriers to get into the game industry and then you move yourself around. A lot of people get in through engineering positions, but you don’t have to be technical to get in. There are entry-level tests, and management positions. If you want to get in through art, I’d say try learning proprietary art programs and you can always work your way around to other creative positions.

The best advice I can give is to network. There are various websites and groups where you can connect with those already in the industry. There are even organizations such as Blacks In Gaming.  Most in the industry are nice and willing to help someone who is looking to break in. Use LinkedIn and if you see someone with your dream job send them a note and ask them how they got in. I did this when I was first looking to get in myself and it was very helpful.

Have you found that there are less women in the gaming industry?

I think there are not a lot of women in the industry. Having a female insight is important. The more perspectives on the team [the better], which is what the game industry needs to do to continue to grow. Sony has a Women in Games scholarship. There are groups and people who are about diversifying the game industry. We’ve come a long way. My current Studio GM is a woman; women are infiltrating and influencing the industry more and more. I want to see more female developers in the future.

As a woman of color in gaming, do you mentor?

I’ve done mentoring for people who send me emails and ask for advice. I have mentors myself. You have to really be passionate and constantly want to improve. It’s a highly sought after industry. It’s right underneath movies. You have to work hard and expect to work harder.

What tips or words of advice would you offer someone trying to break into the industry?

Networking is huge. A lot of the chances and opportunities I’ve gotten have been through networking. Also, stay focused and do what you believe in doing. If you make sure you stay focused you’ll essentially get a chance to act on it. Always ramp up on technical skills, the industry rapidly changes and it’s important to understand the latest technology advances. Lastly, learn about the game engines, development processes and the programs. Learning how to talk to the various disciplines you will encounter in the industry is important. Remember ideas are good and a lot of people have them, the real question will be can you execute them—whether it be with a team or yourself. Continue to look for opportunities to execute on your ideas. Nothing can stop you from getting into the industry these days, the tools and the marketplace is wide open.

Additional reporting by Anslem Samuel

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Microsoft.

Clarke, 48, saw an opportunity to capitalize on this trend while also adding a new revenue stream for the website she launched in February 2010. Africa.com is a platform for Africans and the general public to learn about and interact around financial, political, and cultural news; maps; information about the investment climate; worldwide events; and nonprofit organizations related to Africa. The site has approximately 1 million users.

The new endeavor, Africa.com/HeyWire, will enable users to send text messages between any SMS-enabled phone, computer, or tablet free of charge. Revenues will come by way of advertisements that will precede each text and be shared by Africa.com and HeyWire (www.heywire.com), a global social messaging app. The new service is available in beta in South Africa only, but Clarke plans to roll it out to the entire continent within the next 12 to 18 months.

Texting is a popular way for Africans to communicate, as some use it in place of e-mail for business, to facilitate money transfers, and to mingle on social media. “The cell phone, for many Africans, is their landline, ATM, and e-mail in one device. Cell phones are central to life,” says Clarke, who left her position as managing director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs to devote her time fully to Africa.com. “Africa is a continent that is going to bypass PCs. Everything is being done through a mobile device rather than a PC.”

However, the cost of sending SMS text messages can be a deterrent because of local and country taxes that are tacked on, Clarke explains, and the price of fixed broadband Internet in developing countries is expensive. As a result, only 9.6% of people in Africa have Internet access. Africa.com will utilize a patent pending mobile-to-Internet Protocol (IP) and multiscreen messaging technology through its partnership with HeyWire, which is available in 45 countries and has brought free texting to other developing cities and nations. The Africa.com deal will be HeyWire’s initial foray into the continent.

Right now, the service is limited to mobile phones with Web browsers, but the technology team at Africa.com is working to develop a version for mass-market adoption by Africans who are more inclined to use Symbian feature phones, a lower-end version of smartphones.

In addition to this, Clarke unveiled the group buying site, Africa.comDeals (http://deals.africa.com), this summer. The social couponing website, which is similar to Groupon, will provide visitors with Africa-related discounts for airline tickets, hotel reservations, and money transfers, among other offers. She plans to target African expatriates in America and others interested in Africa for tourism, volunteerism, and business. “Our market research confirmed this is a very young, literate, and technologically savvy population who are very responsive to market opportunities that target their specific needs,” says Clarke.

Clarke’s goal is for Africa.com to be the online portal for the world’s engagement with Africa, but she recognizes that a diversity of revenue streams is the passport to keep that portal open.