An article in today's New York Times describes the efforts of Ossing New York to focus on Black Boys to help improve their academic success beginning at early grades.
The special efforts for Ossining’s black male students began in 2005 with a college-preparatory program for high schoolers and, starting last month, now stretch all the way to kindergarten, with 5-year-olds going on field trips to the American Museum of Natural History and Knicks and Mets games to practice counting.
Black Boys are singled out because their scores in high school are the lowest of any group, and the district feels that early intervention can change that. The boys have black teachers as mentors.

But some minority students, the black boys at Brookside, are set apart, in a way, by a special mentoring program that pairs them with black teachers for one-on-one guidance outside class, extra homework help, and cultural activities during the school day. “All the black boys used to end up in the office, so we had to do something,” said Lorraine Richardson, a second-grade teacher and mentor. “We wanted to teach them to help each other” instead of fight each other.

While this approach is reminiscent of the Eagle Academy for Young Men and other efforts fostered by the Conspiracy of Care it differs in that it is happening in an integrated district. While all the parents inetrviewed supported the program, others from outside the district questioned whether having a special program for Black boys would have long term negative effects on the boys.

The Times cites other efforts with the same focus:
In New York and other large cities, such concerns have spurred the creation of all-male schools aimed at drawing black students. Now, with debate over the achievement gap spreading beyond city borders, efforts like Ossining’s — though few as comprehensive — are sprouting up in suburbs nationwide.

In Teaneck, N.J., school officials formed an after-school club for black boys in 2005, with local black businessmen serving as role models. In the Cleveland suburbs, the South Euclid-Lyndhurst district has spent more than $20,000 a year on clubs that reward black male students for good grades with sleepovers and guest speakers.

And in the neighboring community of Shaker Heights, one of the nation’s best-known honors programs for black male students, the Minority Achievement Committee Scholars, has since 2004 received calls from more than 40 school districts that want to copy its efforts.