David Johns, executive director of the President’s Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, recently visited Oakland High School to talk with teachers and students and learn lessons from the programs the city has implemented to help black and Hispanic young people.
Earlier this year President Obama began a $200 million initiative, which includes a task force to identify how the federal government can support and promote programs designed to improve educational outcomes for young black and Hispanic men.
The Oakland High and Oakland School District’s programs grabbed the attention of the president’s national initiative, My Brother’s Keeper. Johns came to Oakland to identify some of the programs that have been effective and shown a record of success, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
According to the Obama administration, black and Hispanic men are six times more likely to be murdered than white men. By the fourth grade, most African-American and Hispanic boys are reading below standard proficiency levels. The San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that over the last decade in Oakland, the number of young black men prepared to attend college after high school was nearly the same as the number killed.
Four years ago, in an effort to address the problems of young black men failing in high school, getting caught up in the criminal justice system and failing to continue their education on to college, Oakland opened the African-American Male Achievement Office in the school district.
In 2011, Manhood Development classes, designed for and by black males, enrolled their first students. Other programs were started throughout the city to address issues most significant to the success or failure of young men of color — including community violence, mental health services, role model and mentorship programs, plus personal and academic support. The aim was to help these young men continue on to college.
Julian Taylor, who participated in the meeting with Johns, was one of the first students enrolled in the Manhood Development class. He is now a junior and taking Advanced Placement courses.
“I’ve grown as a person since being in it. It gives me a lot of support,” Taylor said of the program.
Out of 22 students who began the program with Taylor, only eight remain. The others have either moved out of the district or left school. One student landed in the juvenile justice system.
Oakland High Principal Matin Abdel-qawi told Chronicle reporter Jill Tucker that there are no easy answers.
“For a lot of reasons [black males] don’t do well in these four walls,” Abdel-qawi said. He pointed out that the lives of his students are complicated, with very specific needs, and it can be hard to resist the lure of the streets. Abdel-qawi said he would like to see an academy with a range of courses for African-American young men.
“We can cater a program solely for African-American males with them in mind,” he said. “They could become assets to the community rather than leeches on it or someone who takes away from our society.”