Two very different programmes on opposite sides of the Atlantic are making great strides in making education more relevant to their audiences - one by harnessing their existing influences, the other by introducing them to new ones
IN A CORNER OF the library at Michelle Clark Middle School, in Chicago's rough, tough west side, two men put half-a-dozen boys aged 11 to 14 through their paces.
The boys, all with behaviour, learning or emotional difficulties, could be larking about outside. But they have chosen instead to commit themselves to weekly after-school sessions, catching up on their literacy and communication skills, learning the ways of the world outside their rough community and being held to account for everything they say and don't say, do and don't do.
The two men, like the boys, are African-American and members of the Chicago chapter of 100 Black Men of America, a 32-year-old national organisation with a membership of more than 10,000 spread across 86 chapters.
They are successful doctors, lawyers, businessmen and writers who have come together to improve the life of their communities, and particularly the lives of black boys by running volunteer mentor programmes and other initiatives. On a basic level, the 100 Black Men are striving to compensate for the glaring absence of one man in the life of most of these boys - their fathers.
They have their work cut out for them. In the US, black children represent 17 per cent of all students but 41 per cent of all special education placements, particularly in the categories of 'educable mental retardation' and behaviour disorders.