Enough is Enough - Fix How We Elect Leaders

Yesterday I started writing my Memorial Day post and included this front page from the October 1992 Chicago SunTimes.  Before I finished posting I saw the tragic news of another mass murder, this time in a Texas elementary school.

What's the connection? Our elected leaders have done almost nothing to reduce gun violence in America over the past 30 years, even though there are on-going tragedies reminding us that something is very, very wrong.

It's not the huge number of guns, or easy access, though that is one problem.  

It's really how we elect people for Congress and state legislatures.  Until we elect people who are not paid for by wealthy donors or corporate lobbies, like the NRA, we'll never have enough people who provide the type of governance needed to make difficult decisions that help solve the complex problems facing America. 

I've been building a web library since the mid 1990s but only in the past six years have I been aggregating links to websites and articles that focus on fixing our broken Democracy.  

Click here to go to that page. Below are a few websites I'd like to highlight:

Final-Five Voting - Get rid of the party primary - click here
Here's how it's described on the website: "In a Final-Five Voting primary, all candidates running for Congress will appear on a single ballot, and all voters can participate in the primary regardless of whether they are registered with a party." The Final-Five Voting site includes a description of how this differs from Ranked Choice Voting.

Yes, our political system is badly broken. But it doesn't have to be this way.   In this article, Katherine Gehl makes a case for Final-Five Voting

11 Ways to Fix our Broken Democracy - click here
This Sept. 2020 article starts saying,  "The United States has a president who received nearly 3 million fewer votes than his Democratic opponent. Currently, over half the country lives in just nine states, which means that less than half of the population controls 82 percent of the Senate. It also means that Republicans hold a majority in the Senate despite the fact that Democratic senators represent more than half of the American people."

Reclaim the American Dream - click here
From the website's issues page: "Knowledge is power. Change doesn’t happen on its own. It takes ideas. It takes know-how. It takes the confidence you gain from tapping into a network of experience and learning from models of success forged by others. This is what our civic action tool box gives you."

What I value about this website is that it not only clearly shows issues, but it also shows progress being made in different states to pass needed legislation.  Thus, if you're interested in any of the issues they focus on, such as "tools for expanding voter rights" you can find models of legislation that you can bring to your own local representatives. 

These are just a few of the 80+ websites that I point to from this section of the library.  You need to take time to visit these sites, learn about the issues and recommendations, then work to elect people who will make the needed change. 

I've been pushing this boulder uphill for three decades. Not much has changed. Too few are making time for deeper learning that support solving complex problems.

Yet, if we want to stop mass murder in schools, churches, grocery stores, or on the streets of Chicago and other cities, or protect women's rights, minorities, LGBTQ rights, unions, and healthcare, we must have elected leaders willing to stand up to the gun lobby and to wealthy special interests donors.

I'm just a small voice, not heard by many. Here's a Twitter post showing NBA basketball star/coach Steve Kerr, demanding action.

Steve Kerr on today's tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. pic.twitter.com/lsJ8RzPcmC

— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 24, 2022

He needs to finish his rant by saying "go here for more information".  

Too few people are voting, especially in primaries.  This needs to change. There are people smarter than I am who are posting ideas. Visit their sties. Give them your support.  

I dream of a day when we don't wake up to headlines talking about some of these issues. 

I've not forgotten Dantrell Davis. Have you?

Today in the Chicago Tribune you can find a half-page story by Mary Schmich titled "Dantrell Davis shouldn't be forgotten.   If you don't know the name Dantrell was a 7-year old boy shot to death in Cabrini Green as he walked to school in October 1992.

At the left is the front page from the ChicagoSunTimes of October 15, 1992.  The headline says "7-Year Old's Death at Cabrini Requires Action".  I've kept this page in my office as my own reminder and I've posted it in my newsletters and blog at least once a year to remind everyone else.

Mary Schmich has written about life in Cabrini Green for almost 20 years. Her stories are emotional and focus on the struggles and triumphs. However, like most stories in the major media, they don't focus on all of the neighborhoods in Chicago and the suburbs where kids live in fear of violence and attend poorly performing schools.  The don't point to databases of tutor/mentor programs, like the one I host, where volunteers, donors, public leaders, etc. can learn about existing programs working to help kids succeed in school and avoid gangs, or where there are neighborhoods of high poverty, but few or no existing non-school tutor/mentor programs.

It's been 20 years and not enough has changed to improve the lives of youth in poor neighborhoods.  One story in one newspaper on one day is not enough. Stories that don't point to on-line discussion forums, libraries of deeper information, or call on people to volunteer time, talent and dollars TODAY, and every day, tug on the emotions but don't move people to action like a good 50% off Sale at a local retailer does.

Anyone can look at maps of Chicago to see where poverty is concentrated, where poorly performing schools are located, where incidents of violence occur most frequently.  Using the Program Locator or Chicago Program Links library you can identify nearly 180 youth serving organizations who each constantly seek operating dollars, talent, leadership, volunteers and public attention.

If you are want to remember Dantrell Davis pick a neighborhood near where you live or work, or along the route you travel as you go from home to work and adopt a tutor/mentor program. Use the information in the Tutor/Mentor library to build your own understanding of what these programs do, how they differ and how volunteers and donors and third-party supporters can help each program constantly improve over many years of YOUR consistent support.

Dantrell Davis was 7. He would have been 27 now. Because he lived in a high poverty neighborhood he might still be needing people from Chicago's extended business community to serve as mentors and to open doors to jobs and careers for him. Or he might need the same people to be operating a tutor/mentor program in one of Chicago's neighborhoods for his own kids to be enrolled.

In yesterday's article I quoted General Colin Powell as he called on business to become strategically involved. He said "This isn't charity. You're doing it in your own self-interest."

I also pointed to a Wiki Page with quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel .  One says "Remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power. Never forget that you can still do your share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and frustrations and disappointments."

We all have personal power to change the world. Unleash yours.  

Who is Protesting This? Redlining in Education

I'm reading a report titled "Education Redlining in New York City".

This is a quote from the introduction:

However, missing from the vision put forward by the Mayor and the New York Department of Education is any mention of what should be done to address the extremely high levels of segregation by race and class in the city’s neighborhoods and schools. Our leaders have known for some time that most of the “failing” schools in the city were located in the poorest neighborhoods and were serving the most disadvantaged children. So far, no effective action has been taken to begin to ameliorate these profound inequities.

Over the weekend I encourage you to read with me if you're tired of reading about the NATO protests in Chicago. As you do, take a look at some of the other articles I write which are all intended to "increase the number of people who care enough to give serious time, talent and dollars on an ongoing basis to solve the problem."

Fighting Dropout Crisis – Building Public Will

In the article I wrote Friday, title We All Pay a Price for the Dropout Crisis, I provided quotes from some of the leaders who spoke at events held in Chicago this week. The basic message was “High School Drop Outs Cost All of Us, not just the young people who face a “miserable life”.

(This map was created by Learning Point Associates. See this and other maps here.

I’ve attended dozens of events focused on poverty, public education and the dropout crisis. I’ve read all sorts of research on how to make youth programs and schools more effective.

They all have a point where they say “if we had the money” and if we had the “public will” to create policies and funding strategies to support better schools and better workforce-development activities.

But then they don’t go further to say “how do we achieve this?”

That’s what I focus on. I’d like to suggest two strategies in this article, which I’ve written about often in the past.

1)Using maps for accountability, resource distribution and to obtain the 51% of votes needed to enact new legislation. I suggest that leaders and voters could use maps to build understanding where this problem is most severe, build public support, and to hold elected leaders accountable for what they do. The map above shows locations of high drop-out schools in Illinois. They are mostly concentrated in urban areas but they are scattered throughout the state. The map below shows state legislative districts. The third map is from the Tutor/Mentor Program Locator and shows legislative districts in the Chicago area, with overlays showing poorly performing schools, poverty, and locations of existing non-school tutor/mentor programs.

Using maps like this, leaders could determine what districts have high drop out schools. These are districts where elected leaders (and businesses) should be held accountable for what they do to bring resources to the district to combat this problem. The Tutor/Mentor Program Locator map does not show all schools, or have a layer of data showing dropout schools. We could build this if we had the resources. However, such a map may be already available from another sources. If it is, let me know and we can point you to it.

If such a map does not yet exist, then it could be created through a service learning or graduate school project at a local high school or university. I outlined this map-building process in this PDF essay.

Once the map is available on the Internet we can determine how many votes are available from representatives with drop out schools in their districts. If it’s not 51% or more of needed votes, then the next step would be to look at surrounding districts where people and businesses are paying part of the costs of youth not finishing school. We could also look at districts with schools where a large number of youth are not finishing school, but which are not as bad as those in the “high” drop out category.

The goal is to identify enough representatives in the house and senate to get 51 to 60% of the votes needed to pass new legislation.


2) Expand the number of people who “care” enough to vote, volunteer and donate. This is equally important. At Wednesday’s dropout event, Andrea Zopp, President of the Chicago Urban League said “We’re tired. We don’t vote”. We need to get more people into the voting booth.

However, just getting more people in districts with high dropout schools to vote won’t assure 51% of the votes needed to change legislation, unless there are that many legislators representing districts with high drop out schools.

We need to find a way to build empathy and support in more affluent areas where they don’t have a lot of poorly performing schools. We can do that through an effort to increase the number of volunteers who connect with inner city youth in volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.

We can do that if we focus on transforming the volunteer, not just the youth. In October 2009 I wrote an article titled Transforming Adults Involved In Volunteer-Based Tutor/Mentor Programs


This article was converted into this animation by an intern from the University of Michigan working with one of our one-year fellows from Northwestern University. Then it was converted into a video with the help of a volunteer from the United Kingdom.

The point of this article is that volunteers from many parts of the city and suburbs are connecting with inner city youth in non-school and school based tutor/mentor programs. If those volunteers are well supported and stay involved for multiple years some will build a personal bond with the kids, and an empathy for the problem, and will be willing to do more to help the kids move through school and into careers….if they are well-supported in their programs and encouraged in an on-going public education effort.

If we were to have 100 mentor-rich programs in the Chicago region with 50-100 volunteers each, that could be 5000 to 10,000 volunteers who actively advocate for public and private sector policies that help them in their own efforts to help kids to careers, and help schools and others do more of the work that needs to be done.

If in the other big cities throughout the state there were another 100 programs with 25-100 volunteers involved, that could double the number of potential advocates working to change the number of votes available to support new policies that reduce the dropout rate and help more kids through school and into careers out of poverty and contributing to the tax base and the democracy we cherish.

If we keep volunteers connected to kids and programs in years after they do direct service, the total number of potential voters would be even larger after 10 or 20 years. If we also are showing young people what it takes to help them move from poverty to jobs and careers, young people who graduate from these programs can also become voters and advocates.

This represents an army of not-yet-organized potential!

Take time to review these ideas. Share them with people in your own network. Support the infrastructure that leads to a growing number of volunteers connecting with kids in neighborhoods with high-dropout schools. Build map-based accountability and resource distribution strategies that assure that a full range of birth-to-work programs reach kids in neighborhoods with the highest dropout schools.

Instead of paying $200,000 a year to keep a youth in juvenile detention or paying $50,000 to keep an adult in jail, redirect this money to an education and enrichment system that moves more of these young people to jobs and careers.

It can be done.

Documenting Actions to Achieve Social Goals

This is a graphic from the home page of the Tutor/Mentor Connection OHATS web site. I just wrote an article about this in my NICE Network blog. I hope you'll take a look.