Ministry has adopted one of the three recommended programmes, says Premier
By Mikaela Ian Pearman
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Columbia University Professor Ronald Mincy (right) speaks at a press conference yesterday overseen by Premier Brown and Rolf Commissiong.
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Photo by Mark Tatem
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The Minister of Education has already decided to implement one of the three programmes recommended in an in-depth study on the Island's young black males.
The $400,000 study, 'On the Wall or on the Margins? A study of employment, earnings and educational attainment gaps between young black males and their same age peers,' by Columbia Professor Ronald Mincy, was released yesterday.
Premier Ewart Brown said: "Minister El James has already adopted one of the report's key recommendations and is leading its implementation now.
"I promised my colleagues and Minister James that we would not be any more specific about that programme. It will be announced in the Throne Speech on Friday."
It is believed to be the first time statistics on young black males' educational successes and failures have been made public.
The three programmes the study recommends are called Multiple Pathways, the Quantum Opportunities Project and Career Academics.
● Multiple Pathways has been used by the New York City Department of Education since 2005 and is designed to identify the risk factors for becoming an over-age or under-credited student and to move these students from a traditional school to two alternative models: the transfer school and the Youth Adult Borough Center (YABC).
The transfer schools are small but academically rigorous, full-time, high schools for students at risk of dropping out. They provide individual learning environments, maintain rigorous academic standards, pupil-oriented teaching methods, support for learning and development goals, and connections to college.
YABC's are also small but are full-time evening programmes also for at-risk students where they can take only the classes they need to graduate.
● Career Academics are small schools, with 100 to 200 students, which organise education around specific career-based themes such as health and hospitals.
Students can take academic, career, and technical courses and participate in job-shadowing experiences through school-local employer collaborations.
"A long-term rigorous evaluation has shown very positive results on school completion, earnings especially for at-risk black males in United States. This places Career Academies in a class of its own," the study said.
Career Academies could be created in existing school facilities, with dedicated teachers and school administrators, trained to deliver the Career Academy programme, which has now been replicated in more than 100 communities in the US.
● The Quantum Opportunities Project (QOP) is an after-school programme that refers poor-performing ninth graders to community-based organisations for mentoring, case management, and tutoring, and other youth development activities.
It was originally targeted at the children of welfare recipients, mostly single mothers, which is a reason why it may help black Bermudian males, especially those raised in single mother homes.
The programme identifies at-risk students in middle schools, and would serve them for five years after enrolment.
The 222-page report is available today on our website: click here.
