What Works – and What Doesn’t – Educating Male Students of Color

From The Marshall Memo #425

In this Kappan article, NYU professor Pedro Noguera reviews the discouraging statistics on African-American and Latino male students: they are less likely to be placed in programs for high achievers, more likely to be classified as learning disabled or mentally retarded and placed in special education; they have the highest suspension and expulsion rates, well over half drop out; and they are the least likely to enroll in or graduate from college. Even those from middle- and upper-income families lag significantly behind other students. Nationwide, there is a 31-point gap between the high-school graduation rate of white and black males (78% versus 47%). The states with the highest black-white male graduation gaps are Nebraska (43%), New York (43%), Wisconsin (42%), Ohio (37%), and Illinois (36%). On the flip side, four states graduate a higher percentage of black than white male students: Maine (98% versus 81%), North Dakota (93% versus 86%), New Hampshire (83% versus 78%), and Vermont (83% versus 77%).

Are single-gender classrooms and schools the answer, as some believe? “The need to act on the problems confronting black and Latino males is apparent,” says Noguera, “but no research supports the notion that separating young men is the best way to meet their academic and social needs… Clearly, there is no magic to be found in merely separating boys of color from their peers.” The all-male classroom idea is based on what he calls “highly questionable research” that boys learn differently than girls; in fact, neurologists have not found this to be true. Isolated success stories notwithstanding, researchers in the U.S. and abroad haven’t found positive benefits from all-boy classrooms. 

“Most of these initiatives,” says Noguera, “are being carried out by individuals who are sincere and well-meaning about their desire to ‘save’ young men of color, but, in many cases, they lack an clear sense of how to approach their work… Many single-sex schools have been created without a clear sense of instructional supports that the students they serve will need. They also haven’t created a learning climate conducive to academic success and positive youth development. Not surprisingly, these schools are foundering, and the students they serve are not thriving.” 

Noguera then reports on his research in New York City, where he and his colleagues have found more than 20 high schools that consistently graduate over 80% of their black and Latino males – schools like Frederick Douglass Academy and Thurgood Marshall Academy in Harlem and Eagle Academy in the South Bronx. Some of these successful schools are all-male, but others aren’t, which suggests that sex segregation is not the key variable. In fact, at Thurgood Marshall, ninth-grade boys are paired with high-achieving 12^th-grade girls for mentoring. 

What is driving these schools’ impressive results? Strong, positive relationships between teachers and students, personalized learning with mentors, counseling, and other supports that intervene early and effectively when problems arise, and strong, effective, non-authoritarian principals who are regarded as big brothers and father figures. “These are safe schools where students feel as though they can be themselves,” says Noguera, “where the peer culture reinforces the value of learning, and where character, ethics, and moral development are far more important than rigid discipline policies.” 

“Saving Black and Latino Boys: What Schools Can Do to Make a Difference” by Pedro Noguera in Phi Delta Kappan, February 2012 (Vol. 93, #5, p. 8-12), 

http://www.kappanmagazine.org/content/93/5/8.full; Noguera can be reached at pedro.noguera@nyu.edu.