A Better Chance - program for talented African American students

Ebony, May, 1997 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

IT'S as simple as A-B-C. Provide a decent environment, give students a better chance and you can not only save lives but you can also produce students who can compete with the best America has to offer.

For more than 30 years, a Boston-based program called A Better Chance has been giving gifted children of color a better chance at the rare air of achievement oftentimes reserved only for the scions of the extremely wealthy. The program has also saved the lives of thousands of young people it has plucked from the dual dangers of murder by drive-by shootings and/or low expectations.

Judith Berry Griffin, president of the 34-year-old organization, says it is her job to "catch dreams." And the organization, which has received no federal funding since 1971, has become a "clearinghouse of dreams," working miracles on a shoestring budget.

Founded in 1963, A Better Chance is the only national program that gives talented children of color access to some of the nation's most academically rigorous college preparatory programs in public schools, private boarding schools and day schools. The College Preparatory Program, the largest ABC initiative, includes 189 member schools which offer ABC students more than $12 million in full and partial scholarships.

A Better Chance specializes in identifying and recruiting gifted students, starting in junior high school, and matching them with top prep schools, which provide scholarships.

The organization's mission is to harvest American promise languishing m fields of gunfire, poverty and lost hopes. The success of its work can be measured, in part, by the following statistics:

* One-third of ABC students come from families living at or below the poverty level. Most come from low-income and working-class families.

* More than 99 percent of ABC graduating seniors immediately in college, where nine out of 10 receive college degrees and many go on to pursue graduate study as well.

* Currently, 1,146 students are enrolled in ABC college preparatory programs, 334 students from 23 states were placed in member schools in the 1996-97 school year.

* More than 2,000 students are involved in ABC programs in more than 25 states.

* Sixty-seven percent of ABC students are African-American, 24 percent are Hispanic, 7 percent are Asian and 2 percent are Native American.

* The program has more than 8,500 alumni in every walk of life, from doctors to business executives, including celebrated singer and songwriter Tracy Chapman; William M. Lewis Jr., managing director of Morgan Stanley Realty; and Deval Patrick, former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Patrick attended Milton Academy in Milton, Mass. He said he arrived there in 1970 after living a "life of want, of deeply segregated and ill-equipped schools, of gang violence and limited hope." He was shocked when he arrived at the eastern boarding school to see so much "privately owned lawn."

He admits he had a lot to learn. The most significant lesson, he says, was to appreciate a good education, "as more than accumulated information and prestige, but instead, to borrow from Robert Frost, `Learning to listen to anything, without losing your temper or your self-confidence.'"

A Better Chance students brim with self-confidence. It's not uncommon for students who start out as mild-mannered freshmen to end their boarding school years as campus leaders.

Seventeen-year-old Jacob Jeffries is a prime illustration of that point. A senior at St. George's School in Newport, R.I., the Newark, N. J., native could rightfully hold the title of "Mr. Extracurricular Activity."

While taking a full load of courses, including physics, calculus, English, advanced placement Spanish and also a theater course, the honor roll student was elected this year as Head of School, a responsibility earned by only the most competent and respected senior in a school of 330 students. Roughly 10 percent are minorities. Jeffries is also editor-in-chief of the yearbook, heads four school clubs, including, Insight, the multicultural organization, and had the lead in the school's fall play. He has applied to 12 colleges, but Stanford is his first choice.

"At first it felt kind of awkward being here, but I eventually adjusted," he says. "I think it's more, to a great extent, an economic difference than a cultural one."

He advises students in their "journey through boarding school" to remember who they are. "Some people try too hard to fit m, and they can lose their way."

St. George's School has a relatively large contingent of 19 ABC students. The prestigious boarding school on the Atlantic coast celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1996.

Charles Thompson, a seven-year faculty member at St. George's and a former ABC student at Middlesex School in Concord, Mass., is the head of the Computer Science Department. "I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't had a positive experience with the ABC program," he says.

A Better Chance students are well represented on school Prize Days and on the Honor Roll, says Debra White, director of Academic Technology for St. George's.