Education Brain Trust

Education Brain Trust
Formed to Solve the Learning Crisis

Concerns about disproportionate black prison rates, school suspension rates, the dearth of African-American principals in the state's largest school district, and an education crisis that sees black students being failed by a system that should be there to help them succeed prompted the black community to resurrect the defunct Education Brain Trust.

Iowa has few blacks or minorities in leadership positions, according to the Iowa Department of Education's 2006 Condition of Education Report. Minorities accounted for 1.8 percent of teachers; 2.5 percent of principals and 1.2 percent of superintendents in the 2005-2006 school year, according to the department's most recent report. Minorities accounted for 13.4 percent of Iowa's 483,105 public school students in 2005-2006. The number of minority students has grown steadily for more than a decade.

The mission of the Education Brain Trust is to stem this tide by reforming schools to better educate kids and grooming tomorrow's school leaders.  

"Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire." 

- William Butler Yeats

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Iowa tops the nation for suspending and expelling a disproportionate number of black students and imprisoning a disproportionate number of black adults, according to education and criminal justice data.

According to the most recent test results for Des Moines from the Iowa Department of Education, just 49.59 percent of black fourth-graders were considered proficient in reading and 54.83 percent in math. The results are even more dismal for black students in grades eight and eleven.

Des Moines School District officials this year told Governor Chet Culver's Youth Race and Detention Task Force that black students are twice as likely as other students to be suspended. Officials said the district was cited by the Iowa Department of Education because it didn't serve black students in the least restrictive environment and for suspending black special education students for more than 10 days.

Some parents have "justly or unjustly" been disengaged and disenfranchised from the school system. Young parents "who basically raised themselves" have never been taught how to interact with school system and advocate for their children.

Decades ago, black communities, through churches, foundations and businesses, helped struggling families, she said. Now there is a void.

The Education Brain Trust has been formed to fill this void, and we need your help.