Tutor/Mentor Connection needed in many places

I've been digitizing my files to further downsize and preserve my history. Hopefully someone(s) in the future will use these to teach new leaders to build information-based problem-solving intermediary organizations like the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which I launched in 1993, and which has been led by the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC since 2011.

This week I found this email, sent to me in 1999 by a community leader from a rural part of Washington State.  Click on the image to enlarge it and read it.

It starts by saying "I have been visiting your tutor/mentor website and am very impressed with what I see there."    That's the goal of the website and thousands of people have visited since the late 1990s.

Then she says, "I would like to see more of what your organization is doing, being done out here and within rural communities.  Even though the numbers of youth within rural communities are smaller, the issues are often similar.  The needs and barriers that youth and families face require "villages" of all types to rase a child."

She finishes by saying, "Thank you for your input, resources, ideas and time that you give to those of us who are on the Mott AfterSchool list serve. Your information is extremely valuable."

During conferences that I hosted every six months from May 1994 to May 2015 I've had others tell me of the need for something like the Tutor/Mentor Connection in rural areas.  I've also had similar conversations with people from Africa, South America and Europe.

I've encouraged all of them to duplicate the Tutor/Mentor Connection and build something like it in their area.

My goal is that in every place where there is persistent poverty there would be blogs and news reports showing someone holding a "Directory" listing youth programs in that region, and inviting volunteers, donors and business leaders to support them.  

I never found consistent donors, or high profile people to help me do that.  But if you read letters sent to me in the past, you'll see an appreciation for the Tutor/Mentor Connection.  That should motivate you and others to borrow my ideas and build T/MC type strategies in  your own community.

Here's one more reason.  

My friends at the UCLA Center included a link in their latest eMail, to this article, titled "The Soft Bigotry of High Expectations"  It starts by saying, "To combat the black-white school achievement gap, worry about their persistent segregation, don't hope for miracle teachers."

I've been putting links to articles like this in my library for over 20 years.  For instance, the graphic below was created in 2013. 

At the left, is a Chicago Tribune map showing shootings in 2013. In the middle is one showing areas where the Get In Chicago group was focusing their efforts. At the right is the Tutor/Mentor Connection map showing poorly performing schools from the 2006 Illinois schools on probation list.  The Tribune map, and T/MC map, both highlight areas of high poverty.

The graphic below shows similar maps, which I shared in Tutor/Mentor Conferences held in the 2000s. These also highlight areas of high poverty. 

Here's another graphic, using the three maps above, with a "birth-to-work" timeline.

This graphic emphasizes the long-term investment needed to help kids in high poverty areas move from "birth to work" and shows a goal of connecting youth in these neighborhoods with adults from a wide range of business, professional and educational backgrounds.

That is a strategy for building "bridging social capital" which expands the community assets supporting kids and helps them through school and into adult lives.

Read this article titled "Maps, Time and Social Capital" which I posted in 2022.  It's one of many in this collection that talks about expanding the "village" of support for kids living in areas of persistent poverty, which usually are also highly segregated. 

A couple of people recently expressed interest in helping me pass the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC on to others. As I've said in the past to other people, "Start reading my blog articles and browsing my website."

Then, start sharing what you read with others,  using your own social networks and creativity. Browse articles at the T/MC Intern blog to see how college students did this for 10 years.  

I think this is the hardest lesson. To duplicate my efforts you have to be willing to become an evangelist, to do all you can to spread the message and draw attention to the information hosted in web libraries like mine.  

Furthermore, you need to focus on drawing operating dollars, talent and ideas to every area with high poverty, and to every youth serving program in those areas.  You need to be committed to doing this for a decade or longer, then passing that commitment on to others, just as I am trying to do.

That's enough for today, don't you think?  

Thanks for reading.  Please connect with me on social media (see links here). 

Finally, if you value what I'm writing and want to help me continue, please visit this page and make a contribution to help Fund the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. 

Is Public Education in a State of Crisis?

Often in past years I shared articles from the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools via articles on the TutorMentorConnection.org site. That's an archive now so I'm not able to add new articles there.  Thus, from time-to-time I will share on these blogs.  Below is there eMail from April 21, 2022.

----- begin -----

From the Center for MH & Student/Learning Supports at UCLA 

Is public education in a state of crisis?

We note that a great many folks are stressing that public education is in a state of crisis. (Google the matter for a sample of what the media are saying.) And most of the statements are better examples of problem-naming than problem-solving.

At the same time, Secretary Cardona notes: “We are at the doorstep of a new chapter in American education.” And he has some things he is asking to happen to make things better. However, who will make it happen is not clear from what he says.

How are most of you perceiving the current state of public education?

And if you think public education is in crisis, what do you think would turn things around?

Our view is that the key mechanisms for stimulating the magnitude of fundamental and transformative changes needed reside at the state level. Such changes require sophisticated and unified policy actions by state legislators, chief state school officers, and boards of education, with support from a wide range of public education leaders and stakeholders.

We suggest that three fundamental changes in state education policies are needed to counter the factors threatening public education and the inequities experienced by so many schools, students, and families. These changes involve

 (1) increasing school budgets so that are competitive enough to attract and maintain a high quality professional work force (i.e., teachers, student/learning support staff, administrators),

 (2) transforming the policy framework for school improvement and accountability to include a primary focus on establishing a unified, comprehensive, and equitable system of student/learning supports that weaves together available school, home, and community resources,

 (3) supporting the establishment of structured school-community collaboratives designed to facilitate the weaving together of school, home, and community resources (e.g., collaboratives that bring together the resources of complexes of schools, a broad range of family representative, and a wide range of community stakeholders to work on unifying mutually beneficial efforts and blending resources).

These and related matters are detailed in

 > Improving School Improvement 

 > Addressing Barriers to Learning: In the Classroom and Schoolwide

 > Embedding Mental Health as Schools Change
   Access at http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/improving_school_improvement.html

 >Improving Teacher Retention, Performance, and Student Outcomes    http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/newteach.pdf

Finally, it would help if the many advocates for specific initiatives temporarily moved their lobbying efforts to deal with an agenda that addresses a big picture for school improvement policy and practice. The reality is that they currently are competing for the same sparse resources, and the winners are pursuing initiatives that cannot have more than a marginal impact in countering the factors threatening public education.
 ___________________

We don't have email addresses for all who we hope will read this, so please share this with your colleagues. And as always, we ask that you share with us whatever you think others might find relevant. Send to Linda Taylor at Ltaylor@ucla.edu

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Visit the http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu and get to know the many resources in their web library.  

6-15-2022 update - the UCLA Center is planning a national online summit focused on unifying student/learning supports with mental health concerns fully embedded.  Read more in this PDF issues by the Center on June 15, 2022.

9-15-2022 update - Here's most recent "Rethinking Learning Supports" PDF from the UCLA Center for Mental Health in schools.  click here

8-8-2024 update - Here's another PDF from the UCLA Center, titled "A Brief Guide for Moving in New Directions".  It's from 2022.  It's full of charts and visualizations.  

Frameworks for Systemic Transformations of Student and Learning Supports

I'd like to encourage you to review a white paper I received this week from the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools, titled "Frameworks for Systemic Transformation of Student and Learning Supports"

In the preface the authors write "if school improvement efforts are to be effective in enabling all students to have equal opportunity to succeed at school, we all must move significantly beyond prevailing thinking. Current policy (NCLB) and practice is a grossly inadequate response to the many complex factors that interfere with positive development, learning,and teaching."

Basically they say that "teaching to the test and the federal No Child Left Behind" strategy is a flawed policy because it does not give equal weight to the social emotional and extra learning needs of children, especially those in high poverty areas.

I agree. I wonder what our presidential candidates think about this.

The UCLA group is in the process of building a community of people who are interested in their work, and who begin to use it to support their own actions in many cities and states. With enough support communities around the country might begin to implement these ideas, and public policy, and funding, might support such a strategy.

Building such support is a difficult process. I'm not sure it can be achieved without expanding the base to include workforce development goals of businesses, hospitals and universities.

The UCLA plan is a school-centered strategy, with a community based component. I approach this challenge from a child and community centered perspective, where the school is one of the stakeholders, but not the automatic leader. The child is the center of this universe and we're all part of the "village" of people working to help that child to a career.

I feel that volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring is a way to expand the range of people involved in helping kids grow up. If workplace volunteers are targeted, this is also a way to build business involvement in education goals.

The May and November conference, and the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site, offer meeting places, and a library of ideas, for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge and become more strategic in how they use their time, talent and/or dollars to help inner city kids succeed in school, and in life.

I hope that you'll read the UCLA paper and add the T/MC ideas to this strategy and that you'll connect with us in one of these forums.

Learning Supports needed to make NCLB work

In a September 2005 blog I wrote about the High School Summit, held in Chicago. The link is http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_tutormentor_archive.html

My criticism was that the plan to create a system of excellent schools did not include a strategy or vision for also creating a system of excellent non-school learning supports, such as comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

I've been looking for leaders and organizations who were also delivering this message, but with greater visibility and a more national impact than the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I have found such an organization.

I have added a link to this site to the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org LINKS library to
a pdf titled Promoting a Systematic Focus on Learning Supports to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching. This is a Policy Brief, provided the UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools.

For those leading non-school tutor/mentor programs who struggle to get attention in a funding environment that focuses so much attention and resources to curriculum, teachers, class size, principles, etc., this is a really important resource.

After I read the PDF I followed the links to the UCLA web site at http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/ Open the What's New section and follow the links to the Student Support Initiative. You'll find a national network and a wealth of resources that I hope you'll put to work in your own communities, and which I hope will lead to greater support for comprehensive, long-term, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

School starts in less than 8 weeks and for most inner-city kids, the supports they need won't be in place because there are too few leaders with a vision and a strategy. However, if you're interested in supporting volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring, in Chicago, or in any other city, we can help you find places where you can be a volunteer, donor and/or leader.

While we may not be able to put the entire infrastructure of learning supports in place by September, we can connect hundreds of additional volunteers with inner city kids, and we can make a dramatic change in the cash flow of individual organizations.

That can make a quantum difference for many kids in cities throughout the country.