Fewer Black males drop out in Baltimore schools

11-02-2010

By Dakarai I. Aarons/Education Week

It started with being late. Brandan Howard would show up here at W.E.B. DuBois High School 2½ hours after school started—if he came at all. After a while, he’d fallen behind in all his classes. “When I realized there was so much I had to do to graduate, I dropped out,” the 19-year-old said. But the Baltimore public school system wasn’t content to let Mr. Howard go. It kept tabs on him after he left last spring and urged him to return. “They got in contact with just about anybody who had a tie to me. She wouldn’t let up,” he said, looking at a smiling Delores Berry-Binder, DuBois High’s principal. School leaders in Baltimore have mounted an offensive over the past three years to keep more students in school and on track. Last month, news came that the effort has produced a welcome dividend: Black male students are driving a marked increase in the district’s graduation rate and a decrease in its dropout rate, and showing improvement at a faster clip than the rest of the system. (more...)

Personal tools

Sections

Fewer Black males drop out in Baltimore schools

Document Actions