My Brother’s Keeper is an initiative by President Obama to reach at-risk black and Latino boys and get them on paths to success. The program brought its message that education is critical to Charles Drew Charter School Monday with a panel aimed at middle and high school students.
Among the panelists was Michael D. Smith, special assistant to the President and senior director of cabinet affairs for My Brother's Keeper. He shared some of the distressing statistics about minority males that prompted Obama's involvement:
•One in two young black men grew up without dads in the home.
•Eighty percent of black and Latino boys were not reading at grade level in third grade, the year when learning to read has to broaden to reading to learn.
•Black boys were 6 percent of the nation’s population, but almost half of the nation’s murder victims.
To read more about My Brother's Keeper and Monday's APS panel, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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