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6A | brentwoodpress.com education AUGUST 22, 2008
A plan to RAAMP up minority education
by Dave Roberts
Staff Writer
On the heels of the bad news that more
than two out of five African-American and
one-third of Hispanic students drop out before
receiving a diploma in the Antioch Unified
School District (AUSD) came the news
last week that only 13 percent of these minority
students are proficient or better in Algebra
I, compared to 21 percent of white students.
The continuing achievement gap is a crisis
that must be dealt with, according to California
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Jack O’Connell.
“It is imperative that we help those students
who have historically struggled the most
to accelerate their learning so they may effectively
and fully participate in school, the workforce,
and in society,” he said in a press release
accompanying the latest state test scores.
Two Antioch Middle School eighthgrade
teachers who have been well aware of
the problem are stepping forward to help
close that gap, at least as far as boys are concerned.
Karla Branch, who teaches math, and
Lawrence Rasheed, who teaches English, are
proposing to launch the RAAMP Charter
Academy in Antioch.
The name comes from the after-school
mentoring program, Reaching African-
American Males’ Potential, that Rasheed
has sponsored for the past two years. He and
Branch are putting together a petition seeking
approval from AUSD officials to start the
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school, which would be open to all male students
but targeted at African-American and
Hispanic students.
Branch has studied the achievement-gap
problem as the focus of her master’s degree
thesis and wants to implement in the real
world what she’s learned in academia. Part of
the problem, she said, is a lack of role models
for many of these boys.
“They just haven’t been taught how to
aspire to something larger,” she said. “They
don’t understand the relevance of education
in their lives. They haven’t been properly guided
toward getting the most out of their education
because they don’t have anybody to look
at and mirror in the education system.”
Rasheed has tried to be that role model
for a couple dozen students, taking them on
trips, bringing in guest speakers, working on
social skills, providing a safe space where they
don’t feel like they need to put on what he
called a “mask of masculinity.” But as a volunteer
with a family of his own, he’s able to do
only so much.
“When Karla approached me about
turning this on a large scale into a school, it
was like real synergy to bring together her
ambition and what I’m doing and making it
broader,” he said. “The need is definitely there.
That’s where we are right now.”
Branch said there are mentoring programs
in every school district, but these programs
are not enough.
“They are band-aids for what is really a
large, gaping wound when you talk about how
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the black and Latino males are performing
academically,” she said.
Branch and Rasheed are proposing to
provide a K-9 school that focuses on math
and science. As a charter school, it will feature
smaller class sizes (no more than 20 students
per class) and more flexibility than a regular
school in its teaching methods. But it would
receive state funding just like a regular school
and must meet the same academic standards.
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Photo by Dave Roberts
Antioch Middle School teachers Karla Branch and Lawrence Rasheed are planning
to open a charter school with a focus on teaching math and science to
minority boys.
They originally had planned on a school beginning
in fifth grade but changed it to kindergarten.
“By fifth grade it’s almost too late, because
habits have been formed, mindsets
have been ingrained,” said Branch. “It takes
a lot to undo students at that stage. We’ll be
giving them the foundation right off the bat
see RAAMP page 14A
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