A grass-roots group working to stop the academic decline of African-American students and hold schools accountable needs parents to join in the fight.

Education Brain Trust organizer, Paulette Wiley, said the outlook for black students in Des Moines — and the state — is alarming. Iowa tops the nation for suspending and expelling black students and imprisoning blacks, according to national education data and criminal justice research.

“Data is important. But we don’t need any more data,” she said. “We can look at our communities and see what is happening.”

She added: “We have got to be about action. This is so immediate. There is a call to action. Our children our dying physically, spiritually, economically and they’re dying educationally.”

A series of monthly meetings will be held in specific areas or zones around the city, Wiley said. The meeting times have not been announced. The group, which has about 50 members and includes educators, activists and others, will hold meetings in each zone and listen to the concerns of parents and help them get involved.

“We have to do some healing first,” she said. “There’s a great deal of pain in our families and communities. There’s an overlay into the classroom. We have serious problems in the classroom about how our children are disciplined.”

Wiley, who led a non-profit community center for children for 10 years, said the disproportionate suspension and expulsion rate of black children should unite parents and residents and spur them to action.

She hopes parents will come to upcoming meetings in droves to share their concerns and be a part of making things better for black students in Des Moines and elsewhere.

“There shouldn’t be room to hold us. We should be standing outside when it comes to this conversation,” she said.

Some blacks have repeatedly expressed concerns that community progress can be stalled because of conflicts between different leaders, churches or differences in residents’ socio-economic levels, among other issues. Wiley said it’s time to put those issues aside.

“We have a lot of differences in our community,” she said. “Too many times those differences keep us from working together. The one thing we can agree on is that we love our children and we want what is best for our children.”

She wants to use Des Moines as a model and launch similar efforts in Davenport, Burlington and Waterloo.

“The objective is to make this a statewide project. We’re looking at partnerships and expansion,” she said. “It’s going to make a tremendous impact.”

Wiley also wants to establish partnerships with community colleges across the state to work with parents in each zone to develop specific plans for black children from the time they are preschoolers until they graduate from college.

“To have a systematic approach so that things don’t happen just because you have the right counselor,” she said.

Wiley resurrected the group last fall because of concerns that the Des Moines school district was not doing enough to hire and promote blacks into principal and administrative positions.

Since then, the group has conducted research, added members and pushed for a community forum last month attended by about 50 people at Moulton Elementary to hear about the Des Moines School District’s desegregation plan.

Communication is a big goal of the group, which has plans for a cable access television show and educational events for parents. Wiley said she is also available to speak with community groups about the project. The group’s web site www.educationbraintrust.org and the email is educationbraintrust@yahoo.com.

“We’re looking at various means of being able to communicate,” Wiley said. “In six months, Education Brain Trust will be a household name.”