EXCLUSIVE — A major public school district in Wisconsin has partnered with a nonprofit organization to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion programming that would give minority male high school students specialized educational opportunities.
Madison Metropolitan School District, the state’s second-largest school system, signed a three-year contract with Improve Your Tomorrow, a California-based DEI academic counseling group “committed to closing the college achievement gap for young men of color,” according to documents obtained by Defending Education and shared exclusively with the Washington Examiner.
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As part of this partnership, Improve Your Tomorrow will provide students at Capital High School and La Follette High School in Madison with mentorship services, career advising, and college exposure activities “designed specifically to support the educational outcomes of young men of color.”
In messages to members of MMSD’s Board of Education, Improve Your Tomorrow recommended that school administrators approve more than $113,000 in estimated expenditures on the partnership project for the 2025-2027 school years.
According to the terms of the agreement memorandum, the school district will provide Improve Your Tomorrow with a list of students to reach out to and enroll as “brothers” in the program. A subsection titled “Target Student Population” stipulates that MMSD, however, must “approve all IYT brothers.”
Improve Your Tomorrow staff will accordingly have access to suspension data, attendance numbers, GPA, and course grades to monitor the academic improvement of program participants.
“There is nothing wrong with wanting to offer extra help to young men of color. But it is illegal to include or exclude students in programs based on race,” Defending Education’s director of communications, Erika Sanzi, told the Washington Examiner.
Sanzi noted that many other male students are in need of additional academic support and urged the school district to use different criteria, one that does not appear to be racially selective, to determine which students require supplemental instruction.
“And not for nothing, but Title IX also prohibits sex-based discrimination in school districts — so that’s a problem too,” Sanzi said.
One of the project’s main goals is to “create culturally affirming environments for [young men of color],” ensuring that MMSD schools are “inclusive, safe, and thriving.” IYT will measure the program’s effectiveness by gauging students’ “sense of belonging,” a priority outcome and “the first indicator of program success.”
To see whether program enrollment is “moving the needle on desired outcomes,” students after two semesters of participation will complete the Member Success Survey, answering questions about “participants’ feelings regarding being an accepted member of a group and being a part of something greater than themselves.”
A spokesperson for IYT told the Washington Examiner that the organization accepts all students into its programs regardless of race.
The representative noted that IYT maintains a nondiscrimination policy clarifying that IYT programs “are open to and serve youth of all races and backgrounds.”
“In accordance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, IYT does not exclude, deny benefits to, or discriminate against any individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” the policy states.
IYT says its mission is to increase the number of minority men who attend and graduate from college.
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According to reporting from Defending Education, IYT has implemented its demographically tailored college-preparation programming in 18 other school districts across the country. Defending Education reported that IYT, a 501(c)(3) charity, has raked in more than $30 million from school contracts, federal grants, and state funding over the years.
The Washington Examiner contacted MMSD for comment.
