Leadership's Future: The Success Of The M3 Foundation
by Miki SaxonDid you know that six out of ten of the boys who could help build our future drop out of school and end up in jail?
That’s a full 60% and that is one scary number.
These boys are just like your sons—only without the same opportunities.
These boys are black.
The M3 Foundation is changing that one small step at a time.
M3 was started three years ago by KG Charles-Harris, CEO of Emanio, who I met first as a client and now count as a good friend.
The following is from this year’s M3 year-end report.
“M3 has had tremendous success during the past 3 years. We started with 10 underperforming boys at King Middle School in Berkeley in 2006 and expanded to all three middle schools in Berkeley with more than 30 students in the program during the past school year.
The boys achieved an average GPA of 3.0 during the past school year, some starting as low as 0.6 GPA. The average GPA was raised from 2.7 to 3.0 during the last semester.
All our boys are from low-income families, many with single parent or guardian backgrounds. Since 54 percent of black boys drop out of school on a national level, and 73 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area, these results are a tremendous boost. We expect to improve these further during the coming year.”
Take a good look at the numbers. That’s the kind of improvement that No Child Left Behind was supposed to achieve—but didn’t.
M3 accomplished it by working directly with the boys, not by teaching them to take tests or drumming rote memorization into their heads, but by showing them the value of education and providing the attention needed to appeal to their pride.
Instead of being told they could not they were told that they could.
Not just told, but supported and encouraged.
And they succeeded.
Finally, M3 packs a lot more bang for the buck than most programs do—check it out.
Come back next week for an interview with KG Charles-Harris.
Your comments—priceless
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Image credit: M3 Foundation
July 30th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Nice to see this program succeed. I like the programs that are hyper local, believe in the people they are supporting and have a stake in success. Seems the more we move away from that the less the key message gets through — you can, we care, lets go…
July 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Hi Fred, M3 is local for now, but the hope for the future lies in the fact that it is “franchise-able” and can be implemented anywhere.
I agree that the drive and energy must be local, but it’s a lot easier with a proven model and blueprint to tweak as needs be and follow.
We need to quit reinventing the wheel.