Success story of an all male, urban charter school in Chicago. The young men they interviewed were incredibly bright, motivated, articulate, and very PROUD of their accomplishments--many, if not all, coming from areas of concentrated poverty. Success like this can be realized when schools take chances and side step mainstream methods. Good luck to the all male charter school starting next year. Hope you get the support you need to be as successful.
Yvonne Villareale http://www.urbanprep.org/100percent/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews/ct-met-urban-prep-college-20100305,0,3299917.story Four years ago, Bryant Alexander watched his mother weep.She stared down at a muddle of D's and F's on his eighth-grade report card and threatened to kick him out. He had barely passed elementary school, and high school wasn't even on his radar.
"Something just clicked," Alexander, now 18, said. "I knew I had to do something."
On Friday, Alexander proudly swapped his high school's red uniform tie for a striped red and gold one the ritual at Englewood's Urban Prep Academy for Young Men that signifies a student has been accepted into college.
As the Roseland resident and 12 others tied their knots, Chicago's only public all-male, all-African-American high school fulfilled its mission: 100 percent of its first senior class had been accepted to four-year colleges.
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/politics/government/richard-m.-daley-PEPLT007475.topic>Mayor Richard Daley and city schools chief <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/schools/ron-huberman-PEPLT0000076.topic>Ron Huberman surprised students at the all-school assembly Friday morning with congratulations, and school leaders announced that as a reward, prom would be free.
The achievement might not merit a visit from top brass if it happened at one of the city's elite, selective enrollment high schools. But Urban Prep, a <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/schools/charter-schools/chicago-charter-schools-5005000966.topic>charter school that enrolls all comers in one of Chicago's most beleaguered neighborhoods, faced much more difficult odds.
Only 4 percent of this year's senior class read at grade level as freshmen, said Tim King, the school's founder and CEO.
"There were those who told me that you can't defy the data," King said. "Black boys are killed. Black boys drop out of high school. Black boys go to jail. Black boys don't go to college. Black boys don't graduate from college.
"They were wrong," he said.Every day, before attending advanced placement biology classes and lectures on changing the world, students must first pass through the neighborhood, then metal detectors.
"Poverty, gangs, drugs, crime, low graduation rates, teen pregnancy you name it, Englewood has it," said Kenneth Hutchinson, the school's director of college counseling, who was born and raised in Englewood.
He met the students the summer before they began their freshman year during a field trip to <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/northwestern-university-OREDU0000132.topic>Northwestern University, the first time many of them had ever stepped foot on a college campus. At the time, Hutchinson was Northwestern's assistant director of undergraduate admissions. Inspired by what he'd seen, he started working for Urban Prep two months later.
"I'm them," he said Friday as he fought back tears. "Being accepted to college is the first step to changing their lives and their communities."
Hutchinson plays a major role in the school, where college is omnipresent. Students are assigned college counselors from day one. To prepare students for the next level, the school offers a longer than typical day about 170,000 minutes longer, over four years, than other city schools and more than double the usual number of English credits, King said
Even the school's voice-mail system has a student declaring "I am college-bound" before asking callers to dial an extension.
The rigorous academic environment and strict uniform policy of black blazers, red ties and khakis isn't for everyone. The first senior class began with 150 students. Of those who left, many moved out of the area and some moved into neighborhoods that were too dangerous to cross to get to the school, King said. Fewer than 10 were expelled or dropped out, he said.
At last count, the 107 seniors gained acceptance to a total of 72 different colleges, including Northwestern University, Morehouse College, <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/howard-university-OREDU0000172.topic>Howard University, <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/rutgers-university-OREDU0000234.topic>Rutgers University and <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/colleges-universities/university-of-illinois-at-urbana-champaign-OREDU0000155.topic>University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Alexander was accepted to <http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/happynews//topic/education/depaul-university-OREDU000019.topic>DePaul University.
While college acceptance is an enormous hurdle to jump, school leaders said they know their job isn't done; they want to make sure the students actually attend.
To that aim, King said, staff made sure that every student has completed the dreaded Free Application for Federal Student Aid, lest the red tape deter them.
Later in the year, the school plans to hold a college signing day where every student is to sign a promise to go to college, he said. Staff will stay in touch through the summer and hopefully in the first years of school.
"We don't want to send them off and say, ?Call us when you're ready to make a donation to your alma mater,' " King said. "If we fulfill our mission, that means they not only are accepted to college, but graduate from it."
For now, students are enjoying the glow of reaching their immediate goal.Normally, it takes 18-year-old Jerry Hinds two buses and 45 minutes to get home from school. On the day the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana was to post his admission decision online at 5 p.m., he asked a friend to drive him to his home in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
He went into his bedroom, told his well-wishing mother this was something he had to do alone, closed the door and logged in.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" he remembers screaming. His mother burst in and began crying.That night he made more than 30 phone calls, at times shouting "I got in" on his cell phone and home phone at the same time.
"We're breaking barriers," he said. "And that feels great." At 04:13 PM 3/19/2010, you wrote:
My research and familiarity with this subject is why I am a co-founder and co-applicant for the University Preparatory Charter School for Young Men, scheduled to open in Sept 2010, here in Rochester, NY. Check out the website at: www.Upreprochester.org. I belief we each can make a difference by doing something and not be paralyzed by the games people play with labels when it comes to the important issue of educating our young people. No matter how much we talk about the issues, if we do not act, nothing will change; for the future will not wait for us to figure it out!! And in turn, we cannot sacrifice the future. Thanks for sharing, good reading. Peace.Hussain B. Ahmed, Ed.D. --- On Thu, 3/18/10, NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx> wrote: From: NSMULTER@xxxxxxx <NSMULTER@xxxxxxx> Subject: [regional_school] Why Boys Fail - interview with Richard Whitmire To: regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010, 8:40 PMWish I knew how to forward this interview video - you'll have to put the web address in your browser.It's definitely worth it! <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/whyboysfail/2010/03/cep_report_on_gender_gaps_released.html?print=1>http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/whyboysfail/2010/03/cep_report_on_gender_gaps_released.html?print=1Also: in the EducationWeek piece below, Jack Jennings, president and CEO of the <http://www.cep-dc.org/>Center on Education Policy - a Washington-based research and advocacy group that just released results of their gender gap study, says: â??Something is going on in our schools holding back boys.â??Yes, yes, yes!!!! And the why is so obvious to those of us with knowledge about brain development who've been closely observing PreK and Kindergarten classrooms over the past 15 years! Finally someone is speaking out and has found a national audience!! According to Richard Whitmire, it all started about 20 years when the Governors got together to upgrade standards! (Sound familiar?) Moving second grade literacy standards into Kindergarten back then did not take into account the hard wiring of the male brain! And it's just the tip of the iceberg!Education Week Published Online: March 17, 2010 Boys Trail Girls in Reading Across States By <http://www.edweek.org/ew/contributors/erik.robelen.html>Erik W. RobelenA new study on gender differences in academic achievement, offering what it calls â??good news for girls and bad news for boys,â?? finds that, overall, male students in every state where data were available lag behind females in reading, based on an analysis of recent state test results. At the same time, in mathematics, a subject in which girls have historically trailed, the percentages of both genders scoring â??proficientâ?? or higher were roughly the same, with boys edging out girls slightly in some states and girls posting somewhat stronger scores in others.In certain states, such as Arkansas, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Vermont, the gender gap for reading proficiency was 10 percentage points or higher, based on 2008 test data.â??The most pressing issue related to gender gaps is the lagging performance of boys in reading,â?? says the report, released today by the <http://www.cep-dc.org/>Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.In a conference call with reporters, Jack Jennings, the groupâ??s president and chief executive officer, noted that whether looking at student outcomes at the elementary, middle, or high school level, male rates of proficiency were lower than for females across all states studied in 2008. (Forty-five states had data available for all three levels.)â??There is a consistent achievement gap,â?? he said. â??Something is going on in our schools holding back boys.â?? The report does offer some encouragement for boys in reading, suggesting that as a group, they are making some gains over time, and that the gender gap has narrowed in many states.For instance, in 38 out of 44 states, the percentages of 4th grade boys scoring proficient or higher climbed between 2002 and 2008. Also, in 24 out of 44 states, the gender gap for 4th graders in the percentage of students scoring proficient or higher narrowed over that time period, though it widened in another 14 states.When looking at the data another way, however, based on changes in the average of test scores, the gaps between boys and girls in reading â??widened across all three grade levels [elementary, middle, and high school] as often as they narrowed.â??â??Clear and Startlingâ?? DifferencesThe new report from the Center on Education Policy is part of a series of studies the organization has been conducting that examine trends on state tests since 2002, when the federal No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush.Math Percentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in Math on State Tests, 2008 [] ReadingPercentage of Female and Male Students Proficient in Reading on State Tests, 2008[] SOURCE: Center on Education PolicyThe center notes that one reason for the reportâ??s focus on the rate of students deemed â??proficientâ?? is that the designation is the key indicator used to determine whether districts and schools have made adequate yearly progress under the federal law. However, as the report emphasizes, each state uses its own tests to gauge proficiency and also sets its own cutoff score for what it judges proficient.The report says that research has long noted historical differences in the achievement of boys and girls in reading and math, though considerable recent research suggests there is no longer a gender gap in math achievement.With its state-by-state analysis, the report is able to identify those states that appear to struggle the most with gender gaps in reading. In Arkansas, the gap was 13 percentage points at the elementary level and 14 percentage points at both middle and high school in 2008. On state tests in Hawaii that year, boys came in 14 percentage points behind at the elementary level, 13 in middle school, and 16 in high school.In the conference call, Mr. Jennings noted that even Massachusetts, a state known for its strong academic standards and performance, has a sizable gender gap, at 13 percentage points for elementary students in 2008.Some other states, however, such as Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, and Virginia, had much smaller reading gaps at all levels. In Virginia, for example, the gender gap for boys was 3 percentage points at the elementary and middle levels and just 1 percentage point in high school.In most cases, the gender gap in state math achievement did not exceed 5 percentage points, the 2008 data show.Susan B. Neuman, an education professor at the University of Michigan who specializes in literacy development, called the new study â??an extraordinarily important document.â??Ms. Neuman, a former U.S. assistant education secretary under President Bush who was invited to participate in the conference call but was not involved in the study, emphasized the findings with regard to boysâ?? achievement, noting that it is a relatively recent trend.â??Weâ??ve been talking about closing the achievement gap in so many different ways, ... but we have not focused on the gender gap, which is very clear and startling in this report.â??She added, â??I think we have to re-evaluate our curricula, re-evaluate how we are managing our classrooms.â??Vol. 29, Issue 27 <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/27gender.h29.html?tkn=QUWFFACOCp9dRJixqIXUzDtAjsWu8TC2Ewmg&cmp=clp-edweek>http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/17/27gender.h29..html?tkn=QUWFFACOCp9dRJixqIXUzDtAjsWu8TC2Ewmg&cmp=clp-edweek
