Social Services, Community, and Education

To continue our discussion from yesterday on connecting school success to community support, Jay Matthews' column from May 2009 gives a personal glimpse. While the majority of children who are not succeeding in school do not the challenges that this young woman faced, there are places like mentoring, tutoring, summer enrichment and the like where the community can play a big role in children who are struggling academically or that have a challenging home life. Daniel Bassill's organization, Tutor/Mentor Connection, featured here shows how to get started. While school-based mentoring has its limitations, it does have merit and impact as you will read in the ABC's of School-Based Mentoring.

While some people may not have the time or the temperament to be a mentor or a tutor, there is a push in many communities to get backpacks ready for all children. That is a place to get involved. Staples is one of the businesses behind that. 

Some school systems are more open to public partnerships than others. My suggestion there is be sure that the superintendent and the school board have these instincts before they are elected or appointed. If they think they can solve the education crisis all by themselves--beware. They can't and they won't. By definition it requires the whole community.

Comments

[Dan Bassill]

Thanks for mentioning the Tutor/Mentor Connection in this post. I hope your readers will use the ideas on our web sites to build strategies that engage the business community, and the faith community, as well as people beyond the neighborhoods of poorly performing schools, in long-term strategies that influence the aspirations of kids and expand their networks of support at the same time.

Articles such as these illustrate the role of volunteers and the role of business leaders in encouraging employee volunteerism, and supporting it with consistent corporate funding:

http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/07/leadership-tools-mapping-social.html

http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/07/suntimes-charters-not-only-way-to-fix.html