KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — Kalamazoo Public Schools are launching a multi-layered and focused effort to improve the academic achievement of African-American male students.
The district says it’s the one group of students that needs the most help. They trail black females by nearly 15 percent in graduation rates and white students by even more.
Dr. Michael Rice, the superintendent of the district, said it shouldn’t be that way.
“African-American girls grow up in the same families, in the same neighborhoods and in same communities and go to the same schools,” Rice said. “African-American males should be able to perform at the same levels.”
Rice announced Thursday that 180 men on staff have each agreed to mentor five under-achieving male students.
He is also recruiting mentors from the community, and said officials with the district will be looking into the socialization of black males in the schools.
Second, we will be looking at research and best-practices associated with African-American student achievement,” Rice said. “Third, we will be continuing our work with culturally-responsive education.”
Rice said they have instituted many programs in the past few years to improve the academic opportunities and achievements of students.
– John McNeill
The full text of Rice’s announcement is below:
Good evening. I’m pleased to report that it has been a great beginning of the school year!
Students and staff are focused, the schools look good, and the vibe is very positive. We had two great celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the Kalamazoo Promise: one on August 15 before the beginning of the school year in Bronson Park, and the other last week at Kalamazoo Central, prior to the Norrix-Central football game.
Though enrollment in the state continues to decline and enrollment in the county is stable, I’m delighted to announce that KPS enrollment is on the rise. Indeed, while children continue to register and return to school, we expect that total enrollment will be higher than last year’s AND higher than projected as well. This is a tribute to the hard work of staff and community, which continue to improve what we do and how we do it for KPS children.
Every major indicator in the district has improved over the last several years: reading, writing, math, and science state test results; Advanced Placement participation; graduation rates; college-going rates; and college-completion rates. Yes, we continue to have more work to do, but we have made substantial progress.
This progress is a function of tens of thousands of actions of staff and community members, as well as dozens of major reforms that we have made in the district and community.
– It is a function of an almost doubling of pre-kindergarten slots over the last few years.
– A quintupling of full-day kindergarten students.
– A new K-5 English language arts series, rich in nonfiction.
– The creation of Lift Up Through Literacy parent education and family literacy programs that have served more than 2,000 families at sites throughout the community.
– The summer sending of books to the homes of children going into 4th, 5th and 6th grades.
– One thousand (1,000) 1st graders going to a branch of the Kalamazoo Public Library three times a year with their schools, to learn how libraries operate and how important they are.
– One thousand (1,000) 3rd graders talking in their classes with me about their dreams for their lives, poetry, education, reading, writing, and libraries.
– One thousand (1,000) 6th graders spending a day on Western Michigan University’s campus to learn about college life and to further strengthen the feeling that regardless of who their parents are or how much money they have, ONE DAY THEY TOO can be a student on this OR ANY OTHER CAMPUS.
– The establishment of a free breakfast program at our elementary schools.
– The changing of the middle school schedule—from 7 periods a day to 6 periods a day–to incorporate more time for core course study for all students and more time to double block for those who are behind in reading and math.
– The changing of the high school schedule—from 4 periods per semester to 5 periods per trimester–to permit more opportunities for Michigan Merit Curriculum, credit retrieval, and Advanced Placement course work.
– The creation of the county’s only dual language school, El Sol Elementary.
– The creation of the county’s only middle school alternative program, the Middle School Alternative Learning Program.
– A restructured and larger Phoenix High School.
– The writing or rewriting of hundreds of curriculum guides and pacing charts.
– The establishment of expectations for children at every age of their development as well as for the adults that support children: parents, educators, support staff, and community members.
– Significant professional development in writing: Lucy Caulkins at the elementary level and John Collins at the secondary level.
– The creation of LINK CREW and WEB programs to develop leadership among our older students and a smooth acculturation at the next educational level among our younger students at the high schools and middle schools, respectively.
In spite of all the tremendous work that we have undertaken the last several years, we continue to have much to accomplish.
I’d like to discuss one area on which we are going to work in the coming year: the achievement of our African American male students.
Let me share a context with you. Across the country, the achievement of African American males is of issue.
Nationally, the graduation rate of females exceeds that of males, and the graduation rate of African American females substantially exceeds that of African American males.
In Michigan, the five-year graduation rate of African American females was 72.5 percent, while the rate for African American males was 59.1 percent, a difference of 13.4 percentage points. For white females and males, the five-year rates were 88.3 percent and 81.9 percent, respectively, a difference of 6.4 percentage points.
In KPS, the five-year graduation rate of African American females was 73.4 percent, actually higher than the state’s rate, while the rate for African American males was 58.2 percent, a little lower than the state’s rate. Our African American male graduation rate is higher than that of Grand Rapids and Battle Creek, and the same as Lansing’s, but not where it needs to be. The gap between African American females and males in KPS is 15.2 percentage points, in the same ballpark as that of the state. For white females and males, the five-year rates were 78.7 percent and 76.6 percent, respectively, a gap of 2.1 percentage points.
I compare African American females to African American males for a variety of reasons. Our African American girls grow up in the same families, in the same neighborhoods, and in the same communities, and go to the same schools. Our African American young men should be able to perform at the same levels. And yet across the state and country, they perform at lower levels than African American young women. So we need to examine the socialization of our young men, not simply in schools, although that is extremely important, but also in the community.
When one analyzes education data by ethnicity, it is important to realize that one is also analyzing, at the same time, education data by socioeconomic status. For example, in the Kalamazoo Public Schools, 88 percent of African American students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, while only 44 percent of white students, exactly half as much, are similarly eligible. This pattern of “half as much” is mimicked at the state level as well: 75 percent of African American children statewide are free or reduced-price lunch eligible, while only 37 percent of white children are.
Interestingly enough, from our research, it appears that African American students in KPS are tied with those in one other district for the highest free/reduced-price lunch percentage in the state. KPS African American students have a higher aggregate free/reduced-price lunch percentage than those in Detroit, Flint, Flint Beecher, Muskegon, and Benton Harbor.
It is this confluence of challenges—gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomics—that compels us to action.
On Monday, August 24, I had my first Instructional Leadership meeting of the year with my building-based and central administrators. I shared much of what I have shared with you today, in much the same way that I have shared it with you today, and indicated that I would be mentoring five African American young men, once a week, at Phoenix High School this year. I asked who among my male administrators were prepared to do the same.
I did say male mentors. Everywhere that organizations run, and run well, they do so with female leadership of one sort or the other. That said, however, our young men need to be mentored by men, and our men need to rise to the challenge.
I did say African American. I understand that there are other young men that could benefit from mentoring, and we will mentor them as well. But I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that the group that needs the most—our African American males—should receive the most mentoring.
I did say male students. I understand that there are female students who need mentoring, and I am delighted that we have many women, both in the district and outside, that have chosen to mentor our young ladies. But the fact is that it is our male students who require the most, and it is our male students who should receive the focus of this mentoring effort as a result.
On August 24, I asked who among my male administrators were prepared to mentor five African American young men at least once a week. All rose to the challenge. I am pleased to say that all will be mentoring this year.
On August 31, at our back-to-school staff meeting at Miller Auditorium, I shared the same information in the same way. There, I said that I wasn’t going to put male staff members on the spot at that time, but that I would be asking their principals who among them were prepared to mentor five young men once a week, as all male administrators and I were prepared to do.
The next day, on September 1, I spoke to the NAACP of Metropolitan Kalamazoo, of which I am a life member. Supportive of the idea of mentoring our young men, Dr. Charles Warfield, the president, was kind enough to permit me to address the group, and Johnny Edwards, our director of secondary education, and I spoke with NAACP members for approximately an hour. I asked the group to poll its male members to see who among them would rise to the challenge to mentor our young men.
The following day, on September 2, Dr. Warfield and I met with Rev. Addis Moore, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church and president of the Northside Ministerial Alliance (NMA). Rev. Moore expressed support for the idea of expanded mentoring, and invited me to speak to the NMA on September 22, which I will do next week, on this important subject.
Supportive of this work, the NAACP has also asked me to speak publicly on the need for mentors, which I will do as well, on September 24 at NACD. Yes, there are already people mentoring our young men, and they are doing a fine job, but there are not nearly enough mentors. We need to expand our numbers and by extension expand our support of our young men.
So tonight, I am pleased to announce that a number of our male staff members have risen to the challenge. Indeed, 180 male staff members will be mentoring 900 male students this year. This is an outstanding beginning in this important area. I appreciate the early efforts on this initiative by our teachers, principals, Director of Elementary Education Judy D’Arcangelis, and Director of Secondary Education Johnny Edwards, both of whom are here this evening, as is Ms. Bea Cunningham, who regularly provides wise counsel to me.
Over the next few weeks, we will be working to establish a broad protocol for the work of our internal mentors. Roughly speaking, the mentoring should take place at least once a week, for at least a lunch period in duration. The focus of the mentoring should be on the child: his interests, his hopes, his dreams. In a nutshell, we’re trying to demonstrate a level of explicit caring and attempting to help young men figure out how to go from where they are to where they want to be in life.
Board members, I know that you are as pleased as I am that there is interest among men in the community in becoming mentors. We will begin the expansion of mentoring with our internal mentors, but will also be recruiting community mentors as well. These community mentors may be mentors in churches and community organizations, but they may also mentor within schools, depending upon our mutual schedules, their interests and backgrounds, and ours as well.
We have many lessons to learn in this process, and we look forward to partnering with many in the community on this journey. Indeed, I have spoken to Amy Kuchta, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Pam Kingery, executive director of Communities in Schools-Kalamazoo, and we will be meeting soon to discuss ways that we might expand mentoring and put to best use our mentoring capacity in the community. I will be meeting with others as well.
As important as mentoring is, however, and it is enormously important, our work is bigger than simply mentoring. For the last few months, a Culturally Responsive Education Committee, comprised primarily but not exclusively of KPS teachers and administrators, has been working to develop professional development for secondary teachers. This professional development session, with committee members as group leaders, took place on September 1, prior to the beginning of the school year. The committee will continue to meet periodically, and it is expected that additional professional development will be offered, first to elementary staff members and subsequently and additionally to secondary staff members. I appreciate the leadership of Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Cindy Green, Western Professors Joe Morris and Mary Z Anderson, and Student Services Administrators Nkenge Bergan and Rikki Saunders in this effort.
In early August, Five KPS administrators — Ms. Green, Director of Secondary Education Johnny Edwards, Principals Valerie and Dr. Jeffery Boggan, and I — attended the African American Young Men in Michigan Conference. We learned a great deal at the conference, and I anticipate that the lessons learned will help shape our thinking in the coming months.
In addition to mentoring, we will be engaged in a variety of efforts in this area.
First, we will be exploring the socialization of African American males, with a particular emphasis on the socialization of our black male students within our schools.
Second, we will be looking at research and best practices associated with African American male student achievement.
Third, we will continue our work with culturally responsive education as well.
President Sholler-Barber, members of the board, members of the community, it is said in Ecclesiastes that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. And I think that has relevance to us this year in KPS.
But this year, I’m not thinking about Ecclesiastes. I’m operating on the Noah Principle: No more prizes for predicting rain; prizes only for building arks.
I look forward to our work as a board, administration, and community on this critical national issue.
