I encourage you to visit the http://www.district299.com/ blog and read the articles posted on August 17 titled, "Youth Violence & CPS-- A View From Afar"
Links in this article go to newspaper articles in Australia that reflect on the violence in Chicago. This is how the rest of the world sees us.
My vision is that the rest of the world would look at places like http://www.cabriniconnections.net where adults from the Chicago region are connecting with inner city teens in structured, non-school tutoring, mentoring, learning and enrichment programs.
In the Chicago Program Links section of the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site you can find links to many other tutor/mentor programs who also connect youth and adult volunteers.
In many of these programs there are a wealth of stories about kids who have changed the direction of their lives because of the involvement of a caring adult. Such involvement is not consistently possible if there are no structured programs (meaning rent, utilities, staff, technology, etc. and a long-term vision of helping kids stay in school and move to college and careers) .
Here's a presentation that illustrates this structure.
Most CPS education strategies don't focus much attention, or many resources, on making tutor/mentor programs available in every poverty neighborhood. However, that's the mission of the Tutor/Mentor Connection.
All of the tutor/mentor programs in the Chicago region, and in other cities, are now looking for new volunteers, and donors, to launch the 2007-08 school year. You can help them find these roles if you take on the role described in this Collaboration Strategies presentation.
We can change what is written about us by changing what we're all doing to help inner city kids.
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