By using a creative problem-solving approach, the Forum is confident that the lives of rural and urban communities of color across the state will be dramatically improved.

Initially, the Forum has determined the following will be its initial policy priorities:

• African American business investment and climate
• Education
• Leadership development
• Health
• Community development (including housing and the environment) and
• Criminal justice

The Forum's research will be disseminated through statewide Forums and conferences; publications; the Internet; and through our operating programs. Our signature statewide Speak Out Opinion surveys will provide leaders in the private and public sector with insight on key public policy issues; our work in the economic arena will provide invaluable data on minority enterprise, job creation, workforce development, wealth creation and health care disparities; and highlight those areas of the education system which can lead to higher performance by African American students.

The Forum is committed to substantively contributing to the development of solutions to important state issues in a nonpartisan manner.

Achieving progress is the focal point of the Forum. We will identify ways issues of concern to African Americans and other minority communities can be addressed and solved. The Forum, in concert with project partners, will measure progress achieved in each of its target areas periodically and publish results.

SITUATION ANALYSIS - A snapshot of some Forum issues*

Issue: Education

A review of research on African Americans provides a persuasive analysis of how race and class shape unanticipated outcomes that force us to look at the differences of access and opportunities in the African American community.

The Forum believes that such an analysis can provide insight into the direction needed for institutional and policy reform recommendations.

Although there is a notable increase in the performance of African American 4^th grade readers reported on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), only 53% are reading on grade level. This is the lowest performing group in the state. In contrast, 70% of all students are reading on their grade level and 63% of Hispanic students are performing at that level.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's report card on education, showed that the median score for 4^th grade reading for African Americans in Florida is at 198 compared to 218 overall in the state - a difference of 20 points. Unfortunately, the score for African Americans was the lowest score across all groups in the state.

In another key indicator - the number of high school students in Florida taking advanced placement courses - African American students have the lowest number of students enrolled in such programs.

These studies also found that African American students in Florida continue to graduate at a disappointing 57.3% rate. One out of every two African Americans students in the state will graduate from high school. In contrast, 71.6% of all students and 64% of Hispanic students graduate - thus making African Americans the lowest graduating group in Florida.

Taking another aspect of education as reported in the 2005 NAEP report, science results also underscore the urgency for change. The report showed strong improvement in fourth-grade achievement, but offered very distressing news about the state of science literacy among secondary school students.

Science scores at the secondary level illustrate the point. Science achievement in grades eight and 12 remained flat since 2000. While the gap between poor and non-poor students narrowed at the eighth-grade level, results remained stagnant for African-American and Latino eighth-graders. And more than four in 10 (41 percent) of all eighth-graders in the United States scored at the "below basic" level, meaning they lack even rudimentary science knowledge.

The picture is even worse in high schools. Nearly five in 10 seniors (46 percent) performed below the basic level; science scores remained flat since 2000 -- and actually dropped since 1996. As troubling: the gap between African-American and white students grew wider between 2000 and 2005 as reported by Kati Haycock of Education Trust.

These science results confirm just one of the patterns on educational inequity that the Forum contends can be turned around by ensuring that all students have access to a strong curriculum and have teachers with the skills and knowledge to teach well.

The NAEP report shows that too few high school seniors, particularly African-American and Latino students, take the full complement of science courses needed to master the subject. Just 22 percent of African-American high school seniors who took the 2005 science NAEP had taken biology, chemistry and physics in high school, compared to 31 percent of White students.

"Science knowledge is the natural resource of the 21^st century," said Ross Wiener, policy director of the Education Trust. "Expanding science literacy matters for individual kids and for the nation's economic development. We can't continue to lead the world if we don't teach our kids science."

Education is directly reflected in the results in the workforce. The shift in the labor market from industrialization to information and technology has brought a greater demand for college educated workforce with very different sets of knowledge and skill. This economic job market shift of essential cognitive skills in conjunction with the educational gap of African Americans and whites in attaining high school and college degrees continues to impact access and preparedness for the workforce by the African American population.

In fact, the reports on achievement at the secondary level are stagnant; and too many students leave our nation's high schools unprepared for the challenges of college and workplace. Not surprisingly, the consequences of accumulated inequities in educational achievement and attainment become indicators for persistent class differences including inequalities in employment and health.


Issue: African American-owned Businesses

Florida ranks third nationally in the number of African American-owned businesses, according to the Census Bureau's recently-released 2002 Survey of Business Owners.

The Sunshine state not only accounted for one of the highest numbers of African American-owned firms in 2002, Florida also had one of the largest increases in the number of African American-owned companies created since 1997. Florida ranked third, behind New York and California, with 102,079 African American-owned businesses, which represented an increase of 42,347 companies or 71 percent since 1997. Only seven percent of all businesses in the state were African American-owned.

In addition, Miami-Dade County ranked fifth among counties with the highest number of African American-owned businesses in 2002. Miami-Dade had 28,359 African American-owned firms.

While the number of African American-owned firms has increased significantly in the state, the Forum said one telling sign of the struggle faced by such businesses is that the vast majority (92 per cent) of these firms operated without a single paid employee. In other words, there are 1.1 million one-person companies trying to just "make it," the Forum said. That is a very alarming fact.

In fact, the Forum said, Florida had the second largest increase in the number of firms with no paid employees between 1997 and 2002. In Florida, 41,745 African American-owned firms with no employees were started. Florida trailed New York in the creation of such firms while Georgia, California and Texas rounded out the top five states with the largest increase in the number of firms with no paid employees.

The reality, the Forum said, is that African American businesses face issues daily including the lack of sufficient capital and little or no business marketing training. One survey by a major Florida airport found, for example, that of the African American businesses hired by the Agency 10 years ago, more than 90 per cent of the companies are no longer in business.

That statistic further illustrates the challenge African American businesses face today in the state. In sum, there wasn't enough business in the public and private sector for those African American business owners to keep their doors open.

Nationally, the Census Bureau survey shows that the number of African American-owned businesses increased 45 percent from 1997 to 2002, more than four times the national average. Receipts for African American-owned businesses rose just 25 percent over the same period, however.

The survey results found that African American-owned firms accounted for 5 percent of the nation's 23 million nonfarm businesses, 1 percent of all employees and only 0.4 percent of the $23 trillion in receipts for all U.S. businesses.

The Census Bureau also found that nearly four out of 10 African American-owned businesses in 2002 operated in health care and social assistance, and other services, such as personal services, and repair and maintenance. These industries were followed by administrative and support, waste management and remediation services; professional, scientific and technical services and retail trade.

Issue: Health Disparities

The elimination of substantial disparities in the health care of Florida's minorities, especially African Americans, is one of the most vexing challenges facing the state.

While the Governor and Florida's lawmakers acknowledged this disparity with the passage of the "Closing the Gap" program in 2000, huge disparities in the health and premature death of African Americans and other minorities persist. The program was designed to "stimulate the development of community and neighborhood-based organizations to improve health outcomes for racial and ethnic populations."

In its latest report, the state found that health disparities remained widespread for Florida's African Americans. The major findings were:

• Cardiovascular Disease: Death rates are 30% higher among African American adults compared to white adults.
• HIV/AIDS: African Americans represent 55% of those with HIV/AIDS, although they are only 13% of the state's overall population.
• Maternal/Child health: An infant born to an African American mother has twice the risk of dying in the first year of life than a baby born to a white mother.
• Colorectal Cancer: The death rate among African Americans is about 1.5 times higher than that of the white population.
• Diabetes: The mortality rate for non-white men and women is about three times greater than that for white men and women.
• Stroke: Mortality rates in 2001 were about 50% higher among non-whites than among whites.
• Breast Cancer: Non-white women are more likely to die from breast cancer than white women.

A closer look at health disparities on a regional basis are even more revealing. The impact of HIV and AIDS, for example, in Florida's African American community is appalling. African Americans represent only 14% of the total population in Northwest Florida (according to the 2000 census), however they represent 38% of all AIDS cases and 50% of HIV cases among adults. Among children, the numbers are even more staggering. African Americans represent 71% of AIDS cases and 79% of HIV cases.

In addition, the Escambia County Health Department found that 78% of AIDS cases among African Americans in the region are diagnosed in persons aged 25-44, which means they were infected in their teens, twenties and early thirties.

Nationally, the rate of reported AIDS cases among African Americans (58.1 per 100,000 people) was 2 times greater than that for Hispanics (22.5) and nearly 9 times greater than the rate for whites (6.6). AIDS remains the leading cause of death among African Americans aged 25 to 44. Among all women nationally, 67% of those reported with HIV infection were African American as were 67% of all children with the infection.

Study after study has shown that the most prominent social and health problems fueling this health epidemic in the African American community are: poverty and poor access to health care, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, cultural and social stigma and mistrust of the public health system.


Issue: Leadership Development

Solutions to the critical issues facing the state's minority communities such as education and the success of African American businesses will require extraordinary leadership from the black community - today and tomorrow. These solutions will be developed as the Forum charts a course of action that includes a solid program of training of core competencies in leadership.

The Forum will provide a unique opportunity for African Americans to learn the state's community, economic, civic and political climates. In addition, the Leadership Development program will be a great forum for these future leaders to learn more about Florida and its diverse communities. These leaders will also be able to meet and connect with key Floridians throughout the state who are equally committed to the state's economic prosperity and the betterment of our African American communities.

The Forum believes that there is a critical need to engage and connect African Americans to their community to help make them better places to live and prosper. By identifying and training individuals with the desire and commitment to lead these efforts, the Forum foresees substantial progress and development in the state's African American communities.

The Forum's Leadership Development program will develop the skills of high potential African Americans across the state by teaching problem solving and decision making, community planning, community involvement, communications and managing through established codes of ethics and conduct.

The Forum's training will focus on the core competencies of leadership that empower the individual by:

• Building a strong network of African American leaders with a shared commitment to connect to their communities and provide vision and direction.
• Asserting their influence and decision making power to impact public policy for improved quality of life of African American communities.
• Creating sustainability in the leadership of African American communities in Florida.

Obtaining the skills needed to effectively chart a successful course and lead communities competently and confidently will be a focus of the Leadership Development program.