PBS Video Production by Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley put together an important presentation on the situation for young Black boys struggling to learn and succeed in America. The boys portrayed in the show, Too Important to Fail, had school trouble in their middle school years and transferred to high schools that were prepared to give them what they needed to be successful. While it is still too early to rate the effectiveness of the new high school programs through college graduation rates and career achievement, the boys are moving in a positive direction.
Smiley interviewed kids who said that their new schools connected them with adults who were on their side. For some, it is the first time an influential adult has listened to them.
Dr. Alfred W. Tatum, associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, brings this out in his annual African American Adolescent Male Summer Literacy Institute which gives boys an opportunity to improve their writing skills and express their perspective on life.
Dr. Tatum writes, “The United States has become a nation in which too many young people surrender their life chances before they get to know their life choices. This is particularly true for young black males who live in communities of turmoil. They are struggling to negotiate their existence amidst an awful national narrative that traps them within the limiting confines of blackness and maleness. Without a full recognition of their humanity, outsiders begin to look on as silent bystanders who have lost faith in the intellectual and creative prowess of these young males. Taking a cue from the outsiders, many black males have learned to become accomplices to their own failure.”
The 2008 Schott 50-State Report on Public education and Black Males, Given Half a Chance, cites some astounding statistics, most importantly,
More than half of Black males did not receive diplomas with their cohort in 2005/2006.
Principal William Wade, of Philadelphia calls these boys “victims of society.” These children are citizens of our country, born into circumstances that the rest of us know about only through sordid news reports or cheap action films. They have witnessed murders, have one or more parents in jail, live in high crime, drug-infested neighborhoods, sometimes without a parent or adult caretaker. Overall, the little we are doing for them is not working.
There are some bright spots. Smiley meets with former Philadelphia Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Arlene Ackerman. Her district promoted Promise Academies, with grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods Initiative. Urban Preparatory School in Chicago, http://www.urbanprep.org/, is a non-profit organization founded by Georgetown University Law School graduate, Tim King. As a charter school, it offers open enrollment through a lottery to ninth grade African-American males.
Watch the hour-long show,
or see a preview,
take a look at the Schott Report,
