Black Star Rising: Increasing African American Achievement

 
 
 

Goal: Increase Black student access and engagement in rigorous STEM courses, and improve STEM outcomes

Black Star Rising, a program of the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative (AAALI), supported by Spark, is a groundbreaking high school readiness and success program designed to engage and prepare African American students (grades 8-12) in San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) for postsecondary STEM courses and STEM careers through direct math and science instruction, credit recovery, early college coursework, STEM career exposure, and an internship that introduces students to workplace readiness skills.

The goal of the program is to increase access and engagement and reverse lower success rates for African American students by immersing them in 8th and 9th grade rigorous STEM course work and providing deep exposure to STEM, a field in which African Americans are severely underrepresented.

“When I walked into Algebra in the 9th grade, I already felt comfortable with it and knew that I could succeed. This feeling of success continues now that I’m taking Geometry.”
— Michael Lowe, 15 years old Mission High School Sophomore and Black Star Rising Graduate

All BSR courses are taught by Black credentialed mathematicians and paraprofessionals. BSR provides multiple course offerings of instruction including: the BSR Freedom Academy for 8th grade students; a BSR summer STEM program for rising 9th graders with continued case management and a newly designed fall algebra lab; dual enrollment in Community College of San Francisco, credit recovery, and accelerated geometry for 10th grade; and dual enrollment, credit recovery, and cross mapped checks which emphasize serving the whole student (including reviewing their wellbeing, transcripts, any academic support needs,etc.) during 11th and 12 grades. Students who participate in BSR are also provided the opportunity to engage and apply hands-on skills alongside Black STEM professionals from UCSF and other college access professionals. 

The program continues to be effective in engaging students and families with high completion, attendance and satisfaction rates:

  • 88% of students completed BSR Freedom Academy 2022-23, an increase of 18 percentage points from 2021-22. 86% of students completed BSR Summer 2022-23, an increase of 7 percentage points from 2021-22.

  • BSR Freedom Academy had an average daily attendance rate of 92%, and BSR Summer had an average daily attendance rate of 95%.

  • 84.2% of Dual Enrollment students received a C or better in their summer course. In fact, 42% received an A letter grade and 26.3% received a B.

We are deeply grateful to the Bayer Fund, Golden State Warriors Foundation, Goodwin Memorial Trust, LinkedIn, PCL Construction and Salesforce for their support of the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative.