[VIDEO] My Brother’s Keeper Wins Broad Support

In Newark and Philadelphia, local businesses are engaged, Johnson said. He noted that My Brother’s Keeper has also talked with the Black Chamber of Commerce and that employment and entrepreneurship will be large through the next year. “These young men want to work, Johnson said. “They don’t want to be in trouble.” He also mentioned re-entry programs for young men coming out of the criminal justice system.

Education Is Key

Johnson noted that education is at the core of the initiative’s goals, and is recognized as critical to the success of these boys. “The deputy secretary of education was named executive director to handle the day-to-day work of My Brother’s Keeper. That’s one indication of the importance of the department,” Johnson said. “It’s the Department of Education that makes sure the program is administered and run the right way.”

Johnson is quick to point out that communities that change so that they can invest in young men of color will end up helping all young people.

“What’s exciting is that business leaders and faith leaders and local officials are coming together in ways they hadn’t before,” Johnson said. “For example, a mayor in a city will say he’d been trying to get a local business engaged in an after-school program, and now, with My Brother’s Keeper, there’s a framework to make it happen.”

Johnson said that My Brother’s Keeper is already making a difference, that in many of the initiative’s “action zones” in cities across the country, many of the boys there would be on their way to prison if not for My Brother’s Keeper.

“My Brother’s Keeper aims at identifying and scaling what works,” Johnson said, “and investing in what works rather than doing things that don’t work well or that won’t lead to the kind of change we need.”

For more on My Brother’s Keeper, go to https://www.whitehouse.gov/my-brothers-keeper. If you are an educator, parent, or concerned member of the community and want to examine the discipline guidelines issued by the Department of Education, go to http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/guiding-principles.pdf.