Some disturbing data and a hopeful program that needs your support:
- Only 47% of Black males in America graduate from high school.
- The average 17-year-old Black child has the reading and math scores of the average 14- year-old White child.
- One out of three Black boys born after 2001 will spend time in jail or prison.
- An estimated 50% of Black girls between 14- and 19- years-old have contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
- Between 65% to 70% of Black children are born into single-parent, female-headed households.
- The rates of Black “kids killing kids” (KKK) and Black youth violence is increasing exponentially across America, including 12 Chicago public school children violently killed in the first 5 weeks of this new school year.
The Black Star Project Student Motivation Program
The Black Star Project’s Student Motivation Program, created in 1996, follows a classroom-mentoring program model that strives to:
- Inspire and motivate students to do well in school
- Expose students to various college and career options
- Encourage students towards healthy and positive lives
- Help students to create viable life plans and make good decisions
The Black Star Project manages one of the largest Student Motivation Programs in the United States. Since 1996, The Black Star Project’s motivational speakers have mentored over 100,000 students in more than 200 Chicago public, private and parochial elementary and high schools. This program serves students of all ethnic, racial and faith backgrounds.
The Black Star Project’s Student Motivation Program usually visits a member school four times per school year (every other month) with speakers addressing two or three classes of 6th- through 12th-grade students in groups of 20 to 35 students between 9:00am and 11:00am. For high schools, motivators may be asked to begin at 8:30 am.
The motivators are from business, government, finance, education, construction, medicine, law, engineering, technology, communications and other professions.
Visit www.blackstarproject.org
Founded in 1996 by Phillip Jackson, The Black Star Project is committed to improving the quality of life in Black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.
Our mission is to provide educational services that help pre-school through college students succeed academically and become knowledgeable and productive citizens with the support of their parents, families, schools and communities.