Smart Communities

Numbers Reveal Desperate Situation for Many Black Men

The New York Times published a story earlier this month that was very disturbing and underlines some of what is at stake in the struggle to help American children receive a high school degree.  Titled "Plight Deepens for Black Men"  the article looked at findings from a number of new studies and concluded that African-American men are, as a group, facing much worse problems with regard to education and incarceration than have been previously documented.  Among the more alarming findings:

• about 50% of young black men in inner cities graduate high school
• in 2004, 72% of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless
• before reaching age forty, 60% of black male high school dropouts had spent time in prison
• "among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day (34%) than are working (30%)"

These numbers are set against a backdrop of Hispanic and white males who have dropped-out of school.  For these groups the rates of joblessness and incarceration are much lower.  This is especially troubling since Hispanics have comparable dropout rates to black males but yet, as a group, don't have nearly the same rate of incarceration.

This must be a wakeup call. I fail to see how this cannot be anything but a clarion call for something to be done about our high school dropout rate.  In some places it may be.  I wouldn't be surprised if this story was part of the backdrop to the decision of the Maryland School Board to assume control over four Baltimore schools under provisions in No Child Left Behind.  That was, no doubt, a tough decision for those involved but it certainly seems to be motivated by a sense of urgency.

We definitely do need a sense of urgency about this issue but there also needs to be more than No Child Left Behind; there needs to be more help demonstrating to teens the positive alternatives generated by having a high school diploma.  The Times article made the consequences of failing to do so abundantly clear.

New LeadershipPlenty Website

Are you or your organization interested in how to "grow" new leaders in your community?  The Pew Partnership for Civic Change is partnering with organizations across the country to deliver its well-tested and comprehensive leadership curriculum known as LeadershipPlenty.

In order to better respond to those looking to be trained in LeadershipPlenty we have launched several new webpages with more information about the program.  Here's what's new:

• detailed information indicating how LeadershipPlenty helps individuals learn important civic leadership skills
•  success stories describing how the program is being used to effect change by community, regional, and nonprofit organizations
• full descriptions of the program modules and a downloadable sample module
• comprehensive guide to understanding the process of learning, and then implementing, LeadershipPlenty
• frequently asked questions about the program and how to apply it locally

This is the most program information we've ever offered online and this move coincides with a new partnership we have entered-into with Virginia Tech to offer LeadershipPlenty at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in Roanoke, VA.

Katrina was not a Focusing Event for Poverty

Media coverage of Hurricane Katrina did not act as a focusing event for poverty according to recent research out of Stanford (download the study in PDF.)  Many Americans claimed to be aware of the presence of poverty prior to the tragic events in the gulf coast region and this particular incident apparently did little to further increase the level of importance they accord to poverty.  Sadly, a news release about the study indicates that "awareness of poverty and inequality actually decreased among some groups of Americans after Katrina, suggesting that some people may have reacted negatively to news coverage by what they claimed to be a 'liberally biased media'."

Unfortunately, giving once to a hurricane relief fund has the tendency of putting the issue right off the agenda.  What is needed is a consistent drumbeat, a regular highlighting of the problems poverty poses for all residents in a community.  One step toward this is efforts like those undertaken by the folks at the Brookings Institution.  There they have established a Katrina Index that keeps track of developments out of New Orleans specifically.  This is one effort but we need to have others from communities across the nation both in times of distress and in time periods of relative calm.  It would also help to move beyond the compelling descriptions of poverty we get from news stories and start talking about the effects of poverty on whole communities and regions.  When we see the ripple effect from poverty then we not only see how closely linked poverty is to our own lives and livelihoods but it also makes it that much easier for us to begin talking about ways of effectively solving the underlying causes of poverty.

Encouraging Public Employees to Mentor Youth

Rick Baker, the mayor of St. Petersburg, FL, has undertaken an interesting program to encourage city employees to act as mentors to young people in the local school system.  He has an administrative policy that allows for an hour of each week (plus travel time) to be devoted by city employees to mentoring.  According to the website for the Mayor's Mentors initiative Baker also holds monthly contests to encourage more city employees to participate.

There are costs associated with participation – participants have to attend a mentor training class and register with the school as a volunteer – but these are minimal compared to the benefit of mentoring a youth.  This isn't the only program offered through the mayor's office that seeks to make a difference in the lives of young people in St. Pete.  Visit the St. Pete mentor’s website to learn more about the breadth of the programs directed at improving the education of children in this area.

Amarillo Gets a Down Payment on its Future

Exciting news out of Amarillo, TX where a $40,000 grant has been established to help communities invest right the first time based on a Smart Communities seminar we did in Amarillo in January.  The funding for the grant came from a (generous) donation by a private citizen named Richard Ware.

The grant is aimed at funding projects (up to $10,000 each) that match Panhandle Twenty/20’s areas of interest including health, the economy, civic engagement, education, and quality of life.  As Twenty/20 Board Chair Anette Carlisle told the Amarillo Globe News, "I can't imagine anything that wouldn't fit into one of those [categories.]  It may provide the seed capital for a project that could really help impact the community."

I’m really happy to see how Amarillo has taken the initiative and is working to provide the kind of support needed for significant growth further down the road. To the people of Amarillo, keep up the good work – the commitment you're making to your future is exciting to watch.

Teach for America Exports Ideas

On March 4th the British newspaper The Telegraph ran an interesting article on a new program in London and Manchester called Teach First.  The program  recruits the cream-of-the-crop graduates from top universities, gives them a six-week course in the principles of teaching, and then places them in schools in need of real help. The program was recently expanded to incorporate successful private sector employees into the schools as well.

For Americans, this will sound all too familiar. Launched in 2002 and inspired by our own Teach for America, this program is matching the best and the brightest with corporate sponsors to provide schools that have at least a third of the students from severely deprived backgrounds with enthusiastic new teachers. Called a "scheme" (as in "plan", no negative connotation here) in the British press, Teach for America’s founder Wendy Kopp deserves another round of applause for her commitment to this "scheme" in the States. There are more than 4,000 teachers in the U.S. program who are making a real difference. The British program selects 200 teachers a year from an applicant pool of 1,000 so they have room to grow and develop. As Education Editor John Clare writes, "Teach First is a brilliant idea because everybody wins."

We agree. This kind of entrepreneurial "scheme" on both sides of the Atlantic is a viable way to make inroads into improving public education. For the American part of this, we need to expand this program beyond its current levels and encourage a whole generation of teachers and advocates for the public schools.

Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming our Democracy

David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation, has captured an important theme for public education in his new book. He makes a powerful and persuasive case that the public (all of us) have abdicated our sense of ownership for the public schools. In his words, "Many educators don't see a responsible public capable of taking collective ownership in education because, in fact, there isn't one." The notion that people in a community, with or without school-age children, might refer to "our" school is almost an anachronism in today's lingo. But Mathews gives us some hope. He believes that the there are things that could improve the situation. First, he suggests that the public and educators be involved in "naming and framing" issues around education. Engage the public in understanding school issues in public terms. Second, he suggests that communities look at how decisions are made. Are the issues surrounding the schools symptomatic of the ways that democracy is practiced in a community? Third, get the community and professional educators to think about education beyond schooling. That is, how can the community be mobilized to teach children in new and innovative ways? Pioneered by former Teacher's College president and Pulitzer Prize winning historian Lawrence Cremin, citizens are encouraged to broaden their vision of what an educational strategy might be beyond a traditional school board with the set responsibilities of hiring a superintendent and attending to policies. Cremin and Mathews suggest a broader notion of the "educators" in a community than just professionals.

This book provides some fresh ideas about reconnecting the public schools with democracy. As Mathews writes, "The mission of the public schools should grow out of the broad objectives of our democracy. And the first job of citizens is deciding on those objectives or purposes." It is time for the public to weigh in or reweigh in on the public schools. Blame and finger pointing should be left at the door and we need to collectively answer these questions: How can the public schools create the kind of democracy that we need and want? What needs to happen nationally and locally to realize that vision? What is my responsibility as a citizen? This new book will help all of us think through our answers.

What the Arts Teach Us

Last week we blogged about the importance of the arts to the education of students. In some places across the country the arts are seen as an expendable line item when dollars get tight. We think just the opposite.

The arts teach skills that are critically important to an educated person. A book by Elliot Eisner, The Arts and the Creation of the Mind, drives that point home. According to Eisner, there are ten lessons that the arts teach.  They teach good judgment about qualitative relationships; they teach children that problems can have more than one solution and can be approached from multiple perspectives; they teach children to look for unanticipated possibilities and solutions; they show and teach the limits of language as the primary cognitive skill; they show the importance of subtleties; they teach children to think through and within a material so that images become real; they help children learn to say and experience what cannot be said or easily described by encouraging them to articulate their feelings and reactions; and finally, an investment in the arts sends a signal about what adults believe is important.  This book gives real ammunition to those who are defending the arts budget in their district or school. Can we have comprehensive learning without the arts? We think not.

For more information on the importance of the arts to educational success check out the website for the National Art Education Association.

Education Really is Everyone's Responsibility

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a seminar in Washington, DC on the public’s role in public education co-hosted by Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation. The occasion was the launching of a new book by David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation.  The book, Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming our Democracy, will be reviewed in a series of blogs next week. I want to set the stage for that by focusing today on remarks by one of the panelists at the seminar, Wendy Purifoy, president of the Public Education Network. The gist of her message was this: Public education is the most important public institution in a democracy and we must insure that every child has access to a quality education. While she and others cited the importance of teachers, school leaders, adequate funding, etc., an ingredient that must be present is public responsibility.

She listed a number of ways for the public to be more involved both actively and passively. We can vote for candidates that support education and equitable access. Elected officials can think about the long haul and not short-term expediency and live up to their campaign promises. School personnel can implement ways of organizing schools and teaching that allow all children to learn and thrive. The community at large can provide resources, help support families, and mentor. In a word, there is more that we all can and must do. Ms. Purifoy sees all of this through the lens of democracy. She sees quality, accessible public education as a powerful engine of democratic principles and progress that must be reclaimed, revitalized, and re-invested in but everyone in a community. We at the Pew Partnership for Civic Change agree wholeheartedly.

Including the Arts in a Portrait of educational Achievement

For some, educating young people is still all about the schoolhouse curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  There isn't any question that these are necessary skills, how could we even begin to communicate in a web-savvy world without them?  Not all students are equally friendly to standard methods of instruction, though, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that something ought to be done to better motivate young people to learn.  One way to motivate youths and better incorporate their interests into the learning environment is by integrating the arts into the standard school curriculum.

In the February 2006 edition of Educational Leadership Nick Rabin and Robin Redmond write that by integrating arts into the learning environment some schools are realizing positive developments in educational achievement.  Among the benefits to arts integration cited by the authors:

• a significant (and growing!) correlation between arts participation and academic performance
• the greatest gains associated with arts participation were for students in the lowest socio-economic quartile whom the authors describe as "most at risk of academic failure"
• arts programs attract higher risk students than sports or community service programs and appear, according to one decade-long study, to have greater academic benefits

The most exciting aspect of Rabin and Redmond's article is that arts can, and are, being used "to make conceptual connections between an art form and another subject – between music and math, for example."  Students are learning about sound waves and how the human ear canal works while learning the structure of songs and critiquing them as well.  There are benefits that exceed a child's ability to express their feelings or achieve some greater degree of self-actualization.  As the authors note, "arts integration turns the curriculum toward work that does not merely reproduce knowledge, but uses knowledge in authentic intellectual ways."

This is not to say that integrating arts with other forms of learning is an unmitigated good.  Obviously much depends on the commitment of a school system to this approach and the willingness of the community to accept and support the venture.  It certainly seems that exploring this approach might yield positive results with the very children we must be striving hardest to reach.