Budget cuts and the poor state of education has African American dads banding together to cultivate a new fix to an old failing academic model that has somehow managed to miss two generations of black students.

Personal and impassioned, the professional dads are taking matters into their own hands.

No more Saturday morning sleep-ins. They rise at the crack of dawn to hold back the high school drop out rate and low test scores. They show kids the real definition of social responsibility.

Recently, Brother to Brother, an elite group of black professionals, corralled nearly 500 kids and teens for a full day of career counseling, one-on-one mentoring, at UCLA.

Terry Boykins, ambassador to the Brother to Brother program, said it was a very powerful event, an experience written all over the young faces. Most had never set foot on any campus.

“Just the shock of seeing that many well dressed professional black men all in the same arena,” said Boykins. “It was very unselfish, totally focused.”

The moment of truth for the kids might have been that the event also defied just about every stereotype they had ever known. It was organized and the kids knew it was about taking care of business, and it was strictly about them.

“Everybody is accomplished in their respective fields. There was this aura that we’re not having mediocrity,” he said. “There was respect that so many black men could bring game for these boys.”

The day was spent talking about academic goals, their careers, what to expect from the university experience. Guest speakers attempted to demystify campus life for the kids and get them interested in going after a lifestyle many have never imagined possible.

Boykins also commended local Brother Kevin Hall for his effort in helping pull the event together, and said they intend to bring a similar event to the Inland Empire soon.

On the other side of the equation, Wil Greer, program specialist in the Department of Equity & Targeted Student Achievement for the San Bernardino Unified School District, worries about increasing black students into honors Advanced Placement classes at five comprehensive high schools. Lately, he’s been meeting with the current director of secondary instruction, and counselors.

At San Bernardino, Pacific, Cajon, San Gorgonio, and Arroyo Valley High Schools, his program is looking to compile data of all of the black students at 2.0, or have earned A's and B's over the past three years in core competency areas—math, science, English, or social studies.

He said that many black students are ready and capable of making the AP grade, but counselors aren’t pointing them toward the classes.

Advanced Placement classes are rigorous, but students who get through it have a far greater chance of graduating from a university.

A former history teacher, Greer, who also hosts a separate Saturday Academy focused on mentoring and tutoring, said that he’s trying to change the structure in a positive way, and get students ready by providing stronger support for black students in core competency areas.

This year, he’s also trying to get a better sense of what happens at the classroom level, and the hope is to help teachers become more culturally responsive, and increase expectations of black student achievement.

“The goal of our coaching program is to build capacity, we visit classrooms 25 times throughout the year, and we are looking at every aspect of teaching,” he said.

For now, the main concern is to address the continuing imbalance of black students into AP classes.  Students do not have to test to get into honors and advanced placement, they can self-select, he said. Any student simply has to request that their counselor put them into advanced placement classes.

“It's pretty easy to get in. What we noticed is that African Americans have obviously really low enrollment,” he said. “When we looked at AP test scores, the African American students had the lowest [enrollment] numbers.”