“Welcome to Chicago, Mr. President. Here are three kids “Left Behind”

Today the front page of the Chicago SunTimes had a full page picture of President Bush, with the message, “Welcome to Chicago, Mr. President. Here are three kids “Left Behind”. The sub head was President Bush comes to town today, primed to spread the gospel on No Child Left Behind. But so far he hasn’t delivered for too many Chicago Students.”

You can read this story here. http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/728730,CST-EDT-edit07.article

While I agree with the message, I’m disappointed that the paper did not point to web sites with more information on this subject, so that readers can learn more. They could have pointed to NCLB links on the T/MC web site

Or they could have pointed to articles on the tutor/mentor blog, with links to NCLB stories.

The role of a leader, and a newspaper, should be to bring people together, to build a greater understanding of a problem, and to mobilize resources to solve the problem. That's what we're trying to do through the Tutor/Mentor Connection and the resources on our web site.

We think tutoring/mentoring not only transforms the life of a child, but it transforms the life of the volunteer. Longterm involvement in a well organized program creates a bridge of understanding that is crossed by a child as he learns from an adult, and is crossed by the adult as he/she learns about poverty.

Until more adults cross this bridge, this nation will never have the will power or the leadership to make sure No Child is Left Behind. We'll never have enough resources of dollars, volunteers, leaders, technology to reach more of these kids in high poverty neighborhoods with the types of learning and support that overcomes the negative influence of concentrated, big city poverty.

Visit these sites and browse through the sections of this blog to see how you can be a leader in this mobilization.