The academic struggles of black males will be the topic of a series of town hall meetings this month at Florida's historically black colleges.
By RON MATUS, Times Staff Writer
Published July 3, 2005
"We got a pandemic going on in the state of Florida," said Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, who organized the meetings and heads the state's legislative black caucus. "Stevie Wonder can see this, and he's blind."
Hill said an April 17 St. Petersburg Times story inspired the four-city tour, which will kick off July 25 at Florida Memorial College in Miami and is being sponsored by Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Both Hill and two Florida State University students featured in the story are members of the fraternity.
As the story noted, black males are more likely than any other group to be suspended and expelled, to be placed in special education programs, to fail standardized tests and to drop out. The trend is especially troublesome for Florida, which has more school-age black males than any state in the country and among the worst dropout rates.
Hill said each meeting will focus on a different part of the education system: elementary school, middle school, high school and college. Each will feature expert panels and guest speakers. The wrapup is July 29-30 at Florida A&M University.
Afterward, organizers will fashion recommendations for the Legislature to consider next year.
Hill already has some ideas.
He wants the state to model a program for creating more black male teachers after one at Clemson University in South Carolina. He wants his fraternity to mentor at-risk students in middle and high schools.
It would also help, Hill said, if somebody tracked black-male-specific programs under way in different corners of the state to see which ones are effective and need replicating. "We got a lot of people doing something, but we're not connecting the dots."
