Oscar Menjivar is the founder of URBAN TxT

Three years ago,  Oscar Menjivar, 35, a former technology consultant, was working for the  Los Angeles Unified School district (LAUSD) to integrate technology into classrooms when he noticed an upsetting trend.

After visiting an 8th grade classroom, he saw that a teacher had posted grades for a recent paper. Out of 16 papers, only two received a C and they belonged to male students.

“I went to the detention rooms and 90-95 percent of the kids there were young men,” Menjivar said.

Disturbed by this discovery, Menjivar researched dropout and incarceration rates. He found statistics to validate his observations — male students were falling behind.

According to the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives, boys receive 70 percent of D and F grades. Sixty percent of high school dropouts are males.

In response, Menjivar founded URBAN TxT, a nonprofit organization to help male teens from South Los Angeles develop leadership and technology skills.

He employs a team of five to staff a 15-week summer academy where the boys learn computer programming and web development. Students are divided into teams where they compete against each other to create a website by the end of the summer. [Read more…]