Smart Communities

LeadershipPlenty and Rural Results

This week I attended a partners meeting of the Northwest Area Foundation's Horizons program. As you might remember from past posts, Horizons is a poverty reduction program in towns of 5,000 population or less with poverty rates at 10 percent or higher. Since the pilot in 2003 almost 400 communities have participated. All of those communities have participated in our LeadershipPlenty program. The Horizons program has three distinct phases: communitywide dialogue on poverty that is lead by Everyday Democracy (Study Circles), LeadershipPlenty, and a Visioning and Action. 

At this meeting we heard the outside evaluation results from the first rounds of Horizons. LeadershipPlenty was shown to be significantly effective at building new leadership skills, encouraging new leadership in the community, and with other parts of the program increasing civic engagement. In other words, this program works in communities of all sizes no question about it. Our internal evaluation had shown exactly that from thousands of participants over the last 10 years but it is affirming to see it in aggregate once again. What was particularly encouraging was a finding from the pilot that concluded in 2005. Of the communities participating in the evaluation, 50 percent said that they were continuing to offer LeadeshipPlenty or another leadership program. One of our goals is sustainability with this program. Continuing to prepare more people to participate in community life was a founding principle. Looks like it is working. Thanks to the Northwest Area Foundation for this tremendous opportunity to partner on this important issue.

Memorial Day--Remembering

Today is the day that soldiers from all wars are remembered. Originally founded in Waterloo, NY, in 1868, Decoration Day honored Civil War dead on both sides. It built on the Southern tradition begun by  Southern women to honor their fallen heroes. Women were the initiators so writes an historian at Purdue University because if the Confederate veterans had done it at the time, it would have been considered treason. Decoration Day was born. In 1968 our country designated the last Monday in May as Memorial Day.

We are remembering those who gave their lives at Petersburg or Flanders or Normandy Beach or Vietnam or Iraq or perhaps hundreds of sites not known who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Who is a hero? A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.  ~Joseph Campbell

Public Housing as a Place to Start for Academic Success

When we talk on this site and it most media outlets around the country, we often don't know where to start. We wring our hands about the high dropout rates or low test scores and we cite the demographics of the most effected populations. What we haven't been able to do effectively is to isolate the educational challenges outside the classroom so that the community can get involved. As you might guess, I have an answer to that this morning. Students and young adults who live in public housing are often the most at-risk of not having academic success. That, of course, matches some of the demographics that we know already concerning socio-economic income and school success. Where we have not been as effective is identifying this population of children and teens as a separate audience for resources. The full report from the Furman Center at NYU will give you a glimpse into the situation in New York City.

Just yesterday I was part of a meeting with our local housing authority and local community college to discuss just that. There are programs that work with the residents but what we are after is a seamless strategy that helps children succeed in school, stay in school, and get a job or go on for higher education afterward. That does not happen on its on or can it be done by one agency. This is not to say that other parts of the city should be ignored but rather that it is good place to start to address some the systemic problems that prevent all children from succeeding.

Community Leadership: Is Dull Better?

In a New York Times column published on May 18, 2009, David Brooks writes about the effective traits of successful business CEOs. It seems that study after study confirms that dull is better. That is, flamboyant and some may say interesting creative traits do not add to the bottom line as much as persistence, attention to detail, and a dogged determination to be the best at what you do. This is dull? Essentially Brooks is arguing that emotive, charismatic types that the are the toast of dinner parties might not be the best people to lead companies. He cites Jim Collins' Good to Great among other studies and concludes that dull is better for business. Can you extrapolate these studies to community leadership as well? I think there are some definite parallels.

Communities need leaders who have vision and persistence: people who can see it and see it through. I am assuming that Brooks is not equating his definition of dullness with lack of creativity or imagination. Rather, what appeals to me about this article is that it makes clear that effectiveness is about constancy of purpose and staying on task. I think his description of too many CEOs as "flashes in the pan" (my words) really points to the turning point for community leadership. We look for quick fixes, easy answers, and miracle solutions. The most successful communities know that these are myths and are going deeper on issues, building in sustainability, and measuring the results as they go along. This is really the only way to get better in a company or in a community. Wall Street and Main Street are strewn with names of people and organizations that got a lot of press initially. What is making headlines today is who is still there, how well the company, local government, or organization is doing, and the strategic plans for the future. If that is dull, count me in.

So what do effective community leaders do? This list from the UK's Improvement Development Agency for local government (IDeA) is a good place to remind yourself of what works.

Childhood Poverty on the Rise

A Child Trends briefing done in April 2009 shows that childhood poverty is on the rise. Nearly one in five children lives in poverty. This is an excellent resource to help you and others in your community know the national statistics and have them as a baseline as you examine poverty in your own community. It is often said that poverty is hidden. That is true in almost all of our communities. Unless you have reason to know, people live in poverty are often a statistic. It is when we put a face with the statistic that we become energized to act. 

The current economic crisis has put more people at risk no doubt but we have plenty living in poverty before. So solving this crisis will help some people who have lost their jobs or their homes but it will likely not affect overall rates of poverty unless we are very intentional about it. This briefing provides some practical policy strategies for making this happen.  

High Jump--Access to the Opportunity

High Jump, the academic enrichment program is celebrating its 20th anniversary. This program admits middle school students with high academic achievement and low economic means to an enrichment program that is changing the prospects for hundreds of students. The program runs on Saturdays for 2 and 1/2 years and during the summer.

One of the questions I am asked most frequently is, "what really works?" Well High Jump seems to be very effective. To date 650 students have completed the program and all have gone on the college prep high schools. There is a strong emphasis on problem solving skills but also exposure to a wide range of cultural and artistic sites in the city. One of the academic partners is Cornell University. The university has provided an engineering curriculum that both exposes and prepares students to think about careers in the field. This is the kind of program needed in every community but not just for the high performers but also for those who are struggling. Middle school is critical to long-term academic success. The Learning to Finish campaign focuses on eighth graders because of this very fact. Take a look at this program.

College Readiness and Dropouts

As a person interested in reversing the negative high school graduation rates a.k.a. dropouts, it may seem strange that I am writing this about college readiness. If you drop out obviously you are not "ready" for college. Unfortunately the two are related. In a couple of articles today (May 18, 2009) the Washington Post highlighted this problem. One of the references was to a 2003  Manhattan Institute study by Jay Greene and Greg Forster on the three components of college readiness. The three are: 1) high school diploma; 2) required sequence of courses for most colleges including four years of English, three years of math, and two years each of a foreign language, natural science, and social science; and 3) basic literacy. According to this study only about one-third of all students have met these three criteria.

It seems to be the link is obvious. It is basic literacy. My proposition all along on the dropout issue is to focus on reading and comprehension at the first sign of delay. That includes colors and the alphabet at pre-school on to the scores on reading tests at higher grades. If you cannot read you cannot do math, geography, biology, or certainly English with any proficiency. It seems to me that this report and the others this morning point to this basic skill as the launch pad for college but also for getting the minimum needed to succeed--a high school diploma. Communities if you are looking for a place to start to address our economic and social crisis--here it is.

Early Childhood Education: Another Opinion

Just this week I wrote another blog about the importance of early childhood education. I stay by that and believe it wholeheartedly. But today there was another opinion by Chester Finn in the Washington Post. Dr. Finn argues that the investment in universal early childhood education siphons money away from families that could be better used, provides resources to children whose families don't need it, has limited impact on long-term educational outcomes, and does not address the issues that limit the scope and effectiveness of Head Start. Well... That is a different story.

While I don't agree with Dr. Finn completely on any of these points, we should listen. Because if he is even partially right the points he raises have implications for what is funded and how much, how we evaluate these programs and why, and most importantly, prevents us from making some serious mistakes that would prevent children from getting the start they need. Rather than reject out of whole cloth as was my first instinct, I am re-reading, doing some research, and taking note. His recommendations for what to do are also important to vet. Children and their future cannot be a partisan issue. 

Assets: Using the hand you are dealt

I have written in this blog more than once about communities that use a person, place, or thing to build an industry or an identity. We have talked about crafts in North Carolina, the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, and festivals galore throughout the country but I have to give an entrepreneurial recognition to Gibsland, LA for the Bonnie and Clyde Festival. It has been 75 years since the famous pair were killed there. Each year people come to learn and exchange stories about the bank robbers made famous by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. You have to hand it to them: they are building on a part of their history that sparks people's interest. The National Museum of Crime and Punishment also has an exhibit.

Another part of this story is that there is a new film coming out about the pair as well as new book. Yet another hook for the festival and a boost to tourism. There are a couple "ahas" here. The first is never discount any part of your history that might be interesting. Second, figure out if there is a hook you can use to market your history. And finally, think about who might be interested. In this case it could be a genre of non-fiction writers, law enforcement, etc. 

Home Ownership: Not Quite Fair

A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center reports that the recent foreclosure and home ownership crisis is affecting African Americans and Latinos in greater proportion than whites according to an article in the New York Times (May 13, 2009). The subprime crisis (that is paying more for loans than the rest of us) was in overdrive in my view with minority communities. After teaching housing for the last semester, I can tell you that this is not a new phenomenon. Minorities have been left out of the American Dream of home ownership for decades. The early days of the Federal Home Administration (FHA) saw huge disparities in who and what neighborhoods received FHA-approved loans. Neighborhoods were color-coded, i.e., red-lining, to indicate level of risk in lending. In essence this government program provide loans for people who wanted to get out of the inner city thus the rise of the suburbs and denied loans to people who wanted to stay or wanted to move into inner city neighborhoods. This is a bit of an overgeneralization but essentially this was the effect. Now why I am sharing this bit of history with you?

We run the same risk of have and have-not home ownership now. Just read this new study and I think you will understand why. There are three ways to build wealth: 1) education, 2) home ownership, and 3) starting your own business. Often the equity acquired in a home is the ticket or guarantee for the other two. We have got to fix this problem--now.