Family Matters

The report examines three issues that have a substantial impact on Black families and Black communities -- foster care, fatherhood and identity development. "Family Matters is a must read for not only grantmakers but for policymakers and family and child advocates alike," said Susan Taylor Batten, ABFE's President and CEO. "The investment strategies and recommendations outlined in this report offer important lessons and advice for those of us concerned with the well-being of Black families.

Stepping Up and Stepping Out: Profiles of Philanthropy Responding to an American Crisis

Stepping Up and Stepping Out profiles three philanthropic organizations that are making investments with a specific intent to create opportunities for black males: A Legacy of Tradition, Chicago Community Trust, and Schott Foundation for Public Education

Why We Can't Wait -- A Case for Philanthropic Action: Opportunities for Improving Life Outcomes for African American Males

This report examines programs and initiatives that impact the life outcomes of African-American males, gathers reflections from the field, and assesses needs and opportunities according to scholars, policy makers, advocates, and organizational leaders. The report documents its findings and recommendations in three categories: academia/research, practitioners/civil society, and public policy/advocacy

Learned Query Superoptimization

Traditional query optimizers are designed to be fast and stateless: each query is quickly optimized using approximate statistics, sent off to the execution engine, and promptly forgotten. Recent work on learned query optimization have shown that it is possible for a query optimizer to "learn from its mistakes," correcting erroneous query plans the next time a plan is produced. But what if query optimizers could avoid mistakes entirely? This paper presents the idea of learned query superoptimization. A new generation of query superoptimizers could autonomously experiment to discover optimal plans using exploration-driven algorithms, iterative Bayesian optimization, and program synthesis. While such superoptimizers will take significantly longer to optimize a given query, superoptimizers have the potential to massively accelerate a large number of important repetitive queries being executed on data systems today

Heteronormativity and Teacher Effectiveness: Parent’s Perspectives of Importance

Heteronormativity is the presumed acceptance of culturally determined gender roles about heterosexuality and what expectations society considers as “natural” or “normal” (Habarth, 2015). United States schools are primarily heteronormative (Dinkins & Englert, 2015). The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required school districts to employ “highly qualified” teachers in all core subject areas by the 2005-06 school year. Defining “highly qualified” relates to the quality of the teachers training and certifications, never mentioning sexuality or lifestyle as a component. Using a critical queer theory approach and narrative research study analysis, this study sought perspective from parents of K-12 students on their view of heteronormativity as it relates to teacher effectiveness. The researcher collected surveys from (n=30) participants seeking demographics, Likert-scale responses, and descriptive narrative responses. The researcher made the following discoveries from the coding process: a) teacher effectiveness is paramount to parent’s concern over their lifestyle outside of school, b) parents support the acknowledgment of non-heteronormative lifestyles as a means to promote diversity, c) most 6 parents are unaware of Lifestyle Policies and those familiar do not support it, d) effectiveness is essential but there are exceptions. Finding results of this research can inform school administrators and policymakers of what teacher and school expectations parents’ value more in their child’s education: the educators effective or lifestyle choices