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This article orginally appeared in the December, 2008 issue of Catalyst. Click
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Search Related StoriesCOLUMBUS—Gov. Ted Strickland’s $20 million, two-year initiative to close the achievement gap by focusing intensely on 9th-grade boys—with an emphasis on African-American students—is beginning to yield some successes, program coordinators say.
When it began in fall 2007 in 33 schools across the state, the initiative set a benchmark to increase the promotion rate between 9th and 10th grades. Some schools have seen an increase. For example, East High School in Cleveland had a promotion rate to 10th grade of 34 percent in the 2006-07 school year that jumped to 63 percent for all students at the end of 2007-08.
At Cleveland’s John F. Kennedy High School, the promotion rate to 10th grade rose from 28.6 percent in 2006-07 to 85 percent in 2007-08. Other high schools in Akron, Lorain, Toledo and Youngstown that are participating in the program had less impressive promotion rates or negative rates. Still overall, Prentiss says she is encouraged by the progress and feels the focus on 9th-grade boys is the right approach. (See chart.)
In addition to grade promotion, other measures of success include tracking attendance and suspensions. Early numbers show that attendance rates are up and the numbers of suspensions are down. More data will be collected this year that compares those rates.
Prentiss says the program is in the governor’s budget for another round of two-year funding. And she is encouraged by the individual school that plan to expand the program by allowing 10th-graders to serve as mentors for 9th-graders.
While the initiative targets black boys in 9th grade at risk of dropping out, Prentiss observes that the achievement gap begins when African-American boys are born into an impoverished, urban setting. They live in sub-standard housing, where they may be exposed to lead-based paint, lack proper nutrition and early childhood education and often arrive at kindergarten with little or no exposure to books or literacy.
She acknowledges that, “This gap is much bigger than 9th grade, but it’s a tourniquet on the dropout rate,” she says. “There’s a bump in the 9th-grade dropout rate that is devastating,” she says. “We looked at how we could change the climate of the school.”
“This is the paradigm under which we’ve been operating: When you look at Johnny’s peer group, they have dropped out, have a baby, may be in jail and have no job. Since so many are unemployed, they live in poor housing on the verge of homelessness. They don’t have a future. We need to change that paradigm to a social construction of hope,” she says.
The program seeks to address that by surrounding students with resources to help them succeed. It provides a “linkage coordinator” position to each participating school to provide monitoring and attention to the academic, social and emotional needs of the student. The program also focuses on changing the relationship between teachers—three-quarters of whom are white and black students by training teachers in cultural competency.
Getting up to speed
A big piece of Prentiss’s program is designed to get black boys back on track academically. “Credit recovery” gets students who are behind in credits up to speed quickly. “If a student has to repeat 9th-grade and he’s 17 years old, he’s not going to do it,” she says. She has been meeting with superintendents and principals across the state to gather ideas on how the necessary intensive tutoring can be worked into the school day. Prentiss calls for aggressive tutoring in which teachers are armed with detailed information on where a student is and is not achieving.
“If an incoming 9th-grader has a D or F in math, there’s no way to know what math skills they lack unless we dig farther. Do they not know division or fractions? Were they unable to complete homework? If not, why?”
Exposure to new experiences
Exposing students to new places, new people and new ideas is a big part of the program. “We’re changing mindsets,” notes Prentiss.
For example, in May, young men from seven Cleveland high schools visited Morehouse College in Atlanta for its commencement. Morehouse is the nation’s only all-male black college.
Martin Luther King Jr. High School Linkage Coordinator Tim Roberts, who also heads the BRICK (Brotherhood, Respect, Intelligence, Conduct and Knowledge) program in Cleveland, coached students on etiquette and had each young man outfitted in a suit.
“We were in the airport and they had tickets in hand and you could still see doubt on their faces that this trip was going to happen,” says Roberts. “It wasn’t until we got on the bus in Atlanta and headed to Morehouse that they began to believe it was real.”
Each boy was required to keep a diary of his experiences during all field trips. One thing Roberts is certain that the boys recorded those journals is a definition of poverty that one Morehouse College senior shared with the boys. He told them that being poor means passing over opportunities repeatedly.
He says this field trip was an example of how Africa-American boys will respond when the learning is relevant them. “While we were in the George Washington Carver Museum, they ran out of paper and were writing information down on their nametags and whatever else they could find,” he says.
Roberts continued to work with them during the summer on the importance and expectations of good behavior, academic achievement and community involvement.
“Last year’s students are now this year’s leaders,” he says. And that is changing the school culture since incidents of violence in schools are more likely to be perpetrated by freshmen and sophomores.
Connecting kids to services
Under the terms of the state funding, each school that participates and receives funds is required to use a portion of the money to hire a linkage coordinator. The $60,000-plus counselor-like position links students to all services inside and outside the school that will help them succeed.
These new staff members work closely with students, teachers, principal, parents and community. Initially, the linkage coordinators were met with some resistance from staff. “They don’t want people coming in and saying there’s a different way,” says Roberts. “Some of the staff have been doing the same things for so many years that they don’t know any other way.”
Some questioned the timing of the new program, adding that they’ve seen many programs and a lot of money come and go over the years, often with mixed results. Roberts contends this program is different because in six months, it has produced double-digit increases in the promotion of boys from 9th to 10th grade.
And that has teachers encouraged. More are turning to linkage coordinators for help.
MLK has switched to gender-based classrooms and Roberts says the teacher support has been a big boost. “This gives me the opportunity to be in classrooms where the boys are and to understand their homework and support their needs.”
Linkage coordinators collect as much data as possible on where each student is academically and emotionally. “It’s more important that these students know they have someone in their lives checking on them minute by minute,” says Roberts. Cleveland’s Lincoln West High School has instituted a new policy: when a freshmen boy is referred for suspension, he gets suspended to the linkage coordinator who works with him on behavior modification and maintaining studies.
Prentiss says some schools have indicated a need for more than one, depending on the number of students enrolled in the program. While the state money pays for only one coordinator per school, Prentiss is urging foundations to consider funding additional linkage coordinators in the districts.
Roberts has a budget of $32,000 per school year that he uses for field trips, uniforms such as polo shirts and T-shirts, food for breakfast clubs and special events and custodial fees required to host after-school activities.
Roberts says to discontinue funding the program would be a “travesty” because it would be sending the boys back into a world with no hope.
“This is just the beginning,” explains Prentiss. “We don’t have time to blame teachers or parents or the neighborhood. We must all assume responsibility. We must all provide hope.”
Reporter Scott Elliott contributed to this report.
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