BY MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- More than 150 participants Tuesday night combined to make dozens of suggestions on improving black male student achievement.

Oddly, the brainstormers' spokespeople all skipped a major point of the evening in their end-of-session recommendations: Bottle the energy in the W.G. Pearson Elementary School cafeteria and use it to put all the other suggestions into action.

Look one way and you could see a young black man talking passionately about the positive and negative influence of hip-hop. Look another way and there was an older white woman talking about how children are sensitive to expectations others have for them. The sound of people sharing ideas on education resembled an ocean's roar.

Tuesday's "kitchen-table conversation" was part of the run-up to a grant application. If Durham's bid is successful, the National Education Association will award it $1.5 million to help black male students.

As the event wound down, the school board chairwoman had some thoughts of her own.

"Closing the achievement gap is the focus of Durham Public Schools," Minnie Forte-Brown said.

Forte-Brown added that the strategies suggested Tuesday will be used whether the district wins the grant or not. And she told listeners that their continued participation will be vital to that process, grant or no grant.

The crowd was divided into groups of eight to 10 people who discussed what the district is doing now that is helping black males, what challenges black males face, and what more can be done to help them.

The large and diverse crowd had several ideas in common. Among the front-runners:

- Provide teachers training in cultural diversity, including the different ways some black males prefer to learn.

- Hire more black male teachers and administrators.

- Get more social workers and psychologists to help children whose problems originate outside of the classroom.

- Get the whole community -- teachers, parents, churches, and businesses -- involved in education.

- Set high expectations for everyone -- or as one woman put it, "Remove the option to fail."

- De-emphasize so-called teaching to the test, which drew a shout-out and enthusiastic applause when mentioned.

The application will be submitted at year's end, with a response from the grant-maker due in early 2010.

Tuesday's meeting was just one part of the grant application process.

The district has two partners in the effort: the Durham Association of Educators and a team of professors at UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. Central University. They have been meeting with focus groups of parents, students and teachers to gather their input on useful strategies. Efforts to bring businesses and religious groups into the process are also being made.

The process attracted a lot of attention. Michael Page, the chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, attended Tuesday's event, as did City Councilman Howard Clement. Two officials with the North Carolina Association of Educators were also on hand to witness the proceedings.