This city needs every mentoring program it can get, especially programs that can be expected to directly affect Jacksonville’s high murder rate.

That is why state Sen. Tony Hill and School Board member Betty Burney are proposing a mentoring program that targets young black males, a group in this city that can be described as in a crisis.

Statistics don’t lie:

• High school graduation rates for African-Americans in Duval County are at 54 percent.

• Dropout rates for blacks in Jacksonville are almost double the state average (7.3 percent here vs. 4.1 percent in the state.)

Hill would like Jacksonville to model a mentoring program after 5000 Role Models of Excellence, begun in Miami-Dade County. Its motto is “Men guiding boys to manhood.”

More than 6,500 mentors, mostly African-American, have joined as mentors since it was started in 1993 at the urging of Frederica Wilson, then a member of the Miami-Dade School Board, now a member of the Florida Senate.

Jacksonville.com full story >