2025 Campaign for Black Men and Boys

September 2008 All Articles

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Program helps reduce drop-out rates

A program that targets black freshman boys at high schools with the highest dropout rates is showing promising results in its first year. The first-of-its-kind program involved 4,000 at-risk Ohio students - half of them in Cleveland - at 35 high schools in 15 districts during the past school year.

Data released Thursday showed that the program appears to be making great strides in preventing freshman boys from dropping out before they reach the 10th grade.In fact, the promotion rate for black male freshmen rose at each of the 12 participating Cleveland high schools. At some of those schools, the improvement was astounding. At John F. Kennedy High School, for instance, the promotion rate improved more than 56 percentage points over the 2006-07 school year. At East High School, the improvement was nearly 36 percentage points. Glenville High School students improved by 23 percentage points. The data is important because it suggests that the students most vulnerable to dropping out can be saved through relatively simple, straightforward intervention in the ninth grade.

"What we have found is the key dropout point is in the ninth grade," said C.J. Prentiss, the former state legislator who runs the program for Gov. Ted Strickland. Strickland earmarked $20 million in the state budget to close the achievement gap and raise the graduation rates of students with the highest failure rate.

The program focuses on black male freshmen who are considered at-risk to flunk ninth grade and drop out of school. The students were identified as at-risk because they failed two or more classes in core subjects during eighth grade, were absent 36 or more school days, were suspended out of school for five or more days, or were overage for their grade level. Instead of using faddish curriculum, new textbooks or unusual teaching methods, the program does two simple but apparently effective things:

First, the students were given a mentor - usually a black male - with whom they have daily contact. Second, they participate in field trips and other activities well beyond their realm of experience. The activities ranged from attending a speech by Sen. Barack Obama, participating in a summer careers seminar or touring the campus of Morehouse College in Atlanta. "Some of the boys had never been out of Hough," said Tim Roberts, who coordinates the program at Martin Luther King Jr. High School. Many of the freshmen boys who participated last year will now serve as mentors for incoming freshmen.

"It was a great experience," said East High sophomore Daniel Groves, who participated in the program last year. "We were able to learn so many things." Prentiss revealed the program's first-year results Thursday at East, a school where the graduation rates for black males hovered under 20 percent two years ago. Nationally, 60 percent of black male dropouts in their 30s have spent some time in prison. "This is no longer just a program," said Mickey Brown, who coordinates the program for the Cleveland schools. "It is the difference between life and death for our young people."