WASHINGTON, D.C. – When it comes to making a difference in educational outcomes for young men of color, it’s better to be in the trenches than at the podium.
That was the heart of the message that Eagle Academy Foundation president and CEO David Banks delivered recently at the National Press Club.
“We got a lot of people writing books. We got a lot of people speaking out from policy,” Banks said at the College Board event titled “Young Men of Color: Charting a Way for Educational Success.”
“We don’t have a lot of people on the front lines,” Banks said. Banks was invited to share his experience as one of several co-founders of Eagle Academy for Young Men in New York City—the first in a network of all-boys public schools in New York and one of several schools throughout the nation seen as exemplary for making a difference in getting more minority males into higher education.
The schools—which serve “at-risk inner city young men”—have distinguished themselves with a graduation rate of 87 percent and by sending 95 percent of their graduates on to college, according to the Eagle Academy Foundation website.
Whenever asked about the challenges faced in setting up the school, where 21 percent of the students have received special education services, Banks said he often quips, “there were no challenges.”
“There’s not a lot of competition for that space,” Banks said of educating young men of color. “We jumped into this not having all the answers, but we had the courage of our convictions to do something.”
