Chapter 17: Mentoring Adolescents at Risk Or at Promise: Students’ Experiences with Race and Resource Allocation at a Well Resourced High School

The school performance and social behaviors of American youth persist as pressing issues in education. Despite expansive research in the area of edu- cation, vast experiential knowledge on the subject, and years of educational reform, the nation’s schools are still failing to adequately meet the needs of large numbers of students, particularly African American students. Evidence of this exists in the job market, as well as in the disparate rates of academic failure, dropout, suspension, and expulsion in the country’s public school systems. Some 1 million students drop out of school annually (National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys, 1996). Every 10 seconds of the school day, a youngster drops out of public school; every 2 seconds of the school day, a public school student is suspended (Children’s Defense Fund, 1992). Research verifies that African American adolescents are overrepresented in statistics on school dropout and discipline (National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys, 1996).