Collaborate for success of boys

What's up with boys?

More than a year ago, President Obama launched the My Brother's Keeper initiative to ensure that all youth -- though the emphasis was on "boys and young men of color" -- have a chance to overcome barriers and improve their life outcomes.

Chattanooga was one of the first 100 municipalities to accept the president's challenge to create plans on how to address some of the issues defined by the White House related to disadvantages faced by the group.

Last week, McCallie School, a 110-year-old private school that enrolls only boys, announced plans for a National Center for the Development of Boys, a nonprofit housed at the school that will advance research and best practices on the development and learning of boys.

The two programs aren't related but could and should share data and research where possible.

For nearly two decades, educators and researchers have been looking into why boys are drifting, falling behind educationally and sometimes winding up violent.

Both the My Brother's Keeper initiative and McCallie Headmaster Lee Burns identified mentoring as crucial.

The federal initiative's Task Force chose its words carefully, mentioning "the importance of caring adults being present and active in the lives of children." What it is actually referring to is the lack of male role models -- fathers, mostly -- in the lives of "boys and young men of color."

The percentage of black children who grow up in single-parent households in the United States has remained level at 66-67 percent -- roughly two-thirds of all households -- for the last five years in which records are available, according to the Kids Count Data Center.

Burns, in a meeting with Times Free Press reporters and editors last week, sees male teachers as especially significant for boys.

"I see them as mentors to inspire young men" and to help shape and guide them, he said.

Boys, according to Burns, are more high-energy, impulsive and have shorter attention spans than girls. What works well for girls in the classroom doesn't always resonate with boys.

The new center, he said, will explore those areas and others such as the latest in brain research, the social and emotional health of boys, equipping mentors, and the role of boys and men in society.

The federal government has put at least $64 million into various programs that address recommendations in the My Brother's Keeper Task Force and has enticed $194 million in investments from leading philanthropies and $100 million from businesses and nonprofits.

Several individuals associated with the McCallie community have funded the National Center for the Development of Boys program in an amount approaching $1 million. Its research, programs, resources, conferences and ideas will be free or at very little cost to the public.

The My Brother's Keeper Community Challenge calls for heads of communities, within 45 days of accepting the challenge, to convene a summit with key public and private sector stakeholders to assess needs, determine priorities and decide what combination of the above objectives they will tackle.

Chattanooga's initiative held a conference call late last month to offer an update on plans and solicit volunteers. Soon, according to an email from Mayor Andy Berke, "volunteers will begin interviewing organizations already in the field to help us learn what's working and what they see as their greatest challenges."

McCallie, meanwhile, is in the midst of a national search for an executive director and in the naming of its board of trustees but hopes to be able to host activities at the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

Burns emphasized the new nonprofit in no way will cater only to private-school families but it for everybody. And he hopes it will have the input from residents across the community.

"We're all on the same team," he said. "We all want great outcomes, great opportunities for our boys."

Not everyone is convinced there is such a boy crisis. Judith Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, for instance, believes it's a matter of schools needing to "consistently promote a culture of high academic achievement" -- that "a rising tide of educational expectation will raise all boats."

Nevertheless, boys have fallen behind girls in academic achievement, whether the reason is boys playing too many video games spending less time on homework and on reading in general, taking more prescription drugs or being too cool for school -- all reasons put forth by various researchers.

For example, 57 percent of college attendees are female, by the eighth grade 48 percent of girls compared to 31 percent of boys receive a mix of A's and B's, and boys account for 71 percent of all public school suspensions.

An Internet search reveals a wide variety of Chattanooga organizations that purport to help youth. My Brother's Keeper and The National Center for the Development of Boys are two more but are more focused in their scope. Though one is backed by the federal government and the other by a private school, the two have some goals in common. If they share what they learn with each other, boys in the Chattanooga area and beyond can have a brighter future.