The Communicators "Understanding Your Name" 9.5

This week's two excting guest are: Doris Brevard The racial achievement gap in education has been called the defining problem of the 21st-century civil rights movement. Proposed solutions have included "No Child Left Behind," charter schools, better teachers, sex-segregated academies and test-anxiety reduction. Missing from most lists is the role of the school principal. Missing on Pittsburgh's list is Doris Brevard, a principal who eliminated the racial achievement gap in a Hill District school with an overwhelmingly black and poor student body. Mrs. Brevard became principal of Vann Elementary School just after the riots of 1968. For more than 20 years, her pupils scored at or above the national average in standardized tests, which makes her absence from the achievement-gap discussion puzzling. Why has Mrs. Brevard, who still lives in Pittsburgh, not been besieged for advice and inspiration by educators and prospective principals? Why has she been ignored?     DOROTHY J MUHAMMAD Dorothy J. Muhammad's preparation in "analyzing sounds" started the first moment that  the vibrations in her name were ignited into the atmosphere of our universe.  The vibrations were just waiting for her to recognize them. Her experiences in the offices of corporations, classrooms of urban schools-training teachers, and the laboratories of research facilities helped to initiate her into the " school of life."She received  her undergraduate degree in Chemistry  from Jackson State University and her  graduate degree in,  Analytical Chemistry from the University of Cincinnati.  Her concentrated areas of study were Analytical Chemistry and Biomedical Research after college.