For the Love Of Ballou

Did they?

Could they?

"My whole thing is to change the stereotype of people in Southeast," said Wayne, who is tall with thick dreadlocks that flip and fall when he moves his head. "We wanted people to say that good, intelligent, athletic students come out of Ballou."

"I feed off him; he feeds off me," said Jachin, explaining that the two decided to establish themselves as role models by tutoring students and competing to graduate at the top of their class. "If I was by myself, without Wayne, I wouldn't do as good.

"When I met Wayne," added Jachin, who is fair-skinned with long, wavy hair, attributes of his biracial heritage, "we decided we could do this together."

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'A Bullet Filled With Peace'

Ballou is a sprawling circa-1960 school that sits on a hill on a quiet street in Congress Heights, across from a vacant lot where old tires, a mattress and a lamp have been dumped. The school has a large grassy campus with tall shade trees, but no one can use it because it is behind fences.

Instead, the morning collection point for students is at the blue entry doors, where they line up and move single file through a metal detector and into a school that reflects much of the data reported across the country depicting how black males are at the bottom of most academic measurements and experience the worst sociological outcomes.

Statistics show that African American males have the lowest reading and math proficiency levels of any group. The Schott Foundation for Public Education paints a particularly bleak picture: Although black boys represent only 8.7 percent of the nation's public school enrollment, they make up 23 percent of students suspended and 22 percent of those expelled -- the largest for any group. Only 45 percent of black males receive high school diplomas with their freshman-year classmates, compared with 70 percent for white males. Moreover, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, black male students are overrepresented in special education programs.

Ballou's attempts to counter such outcomes have been sporadic at best; by most measures, it is a troubled school. SAT scores are among the lowest in the city. Only about 9 percent of last year's 10th-graders were proficient in math -- and 3 percent in reading. Because it is unable to meet proficiency levels under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Ballou will be "restructured" over the summer, requiring all teachers to reapply for their jobs with no guarantees that they will be rehired.

Just as telling: When Jachin and Wayne were freshmen, their class had 330 students; four years later, they were part of a graduating class of 130. What happened to the other 200? School officials could account for only about 40 who were part of a program that allowed them to graduate a year early.