WE have spent the past week in Washington, DC, attending a conference of the National Policy Institute of the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE).

In fact, I was part of a delegation of more than a dozen Bermudian educators and administrators, plus two Berkeley Institute senior students joining academicians, university professors, legislators and administrators from the across the United States, addressing the theme

A view permeating the conference was that the black male in America is an endangered species through lack of academic progress, high drop-out rates, incarceration, high recidivism rates, blacks not being able to take rightful places in the employment market, high unemployment rates ? as well as the increasing disintegration of the traditional family structure and, of course, the impact of the drug culture.

Longstanding concerns that similar factors are impacting on black males in Bermuda have caused leading educators in the island to attempt to put in place strategies that will address such problems.

And, according to Dr. Melvin Bassett, principal of Sandys Secondary Middle School, who is a member of the Board of Directors of NABSE, and Livingston Tuzo, president of the Bermuda School Principals Association, they were just the reasons why special interest was taken in the Washington conference.

"We see trends of our males falling through the cracks and are trying to take a proactive stance in not waiting for the same proportion we have seen in the United States to develop in Bermuda," said Dr. Bassett.

"The problem of the black male is not an American one, but a universal one," he added. "We want to pre-empt that by putting in place strategies in Bermuda's school system at the primary school and elementary school level and most especially at the middle school level, where we have seen a tendency for more and more of our young boys taking the alternative road."

NABSE's president, Dr. Deloris M. Saunders, PhD, along with social scientist Dr. Rosa Smith, put the American problem in sharp focus. They called them "the sad facts", noting that black boys, consisting of only 8.6 per cent of public school enrolments, represented 22 per cent of students expelled from school and 23 per cent of students suspended.

The drop-out rate shows that between 25 and 30 per cent of America's teenagers fail to graduate from high school with a regular high school diploma. However, that figure climbs to more than 50 per cent for black male students in many US cities.

While 61 per cent of black females, 80 per cent of white males and 86 per cent of white females receive diplomas with their high school cohorts nationally, only 50 per cent of black males do so. And another factor was that more black males receive the GED in prison than graduate from college.

Saunders, who is no stranger to Bermuda, told the conference that the plight of African-American males is not a "black problem", but rather a societal one that diminishes the available pool of talent those young men represent.

"When 60 per cent of incarcerated youth are black and mostly male, while they comprise only 8.6 per cent of public school enrolment, America has a problem," she added.

Dr. Bassett is NABSE's International Representative, on its board of directors, representing all overseas units from the Caribbean, UK and Africa.

Four school principals were in the Bermuda delegation to Washington. They were in addition to Dr. Bassett, Mrs. Jeanette Musson, principal of Delwood Middle School; Freddie Evans, principal of Whitney Institute Middle School, and Livingston Tuzo, principal of West End Primary School.

Among others, there were the president of Sandys Secondary Middle School (SSMS) Parent-Teachers Association, Edward Lightbourne; its treasurer, Ed Godfrey; Austin Warner, Sandys guidance counsellor; Philip Pearson, co-ordinator of Sandys' After School Programme. And there were Stephen Caisey, head boy of the Berkeley Institute, and Juan Looby.

The Berkeley Institute boys were in a panel discussion at a plenary session with four other American boys articulating matters confronting black males, as they viewed them. One interesting point made by Stephen Caisey was the impact living in an affluent society such as Bermuda's had on youths dropping out of school.

The "get-rich quick" mentality as opposed to the drug culture was a most serious factor, he said.

Also joining the Bermuda delegation was Mychal Wynn, author of several books, including his latest,

He is an educational consultant working with the Bermuda Ministry of Education and with Sandys Secondary School. His book was used to help focus on the conference theme.