Last Wednesday the Chicago Tribune had a front page/back page story devoted to Breast Cancer Month. The goal of the article was to help donors choose which charity to support. It was a great article, and great exposure for Breast Cancer charities.
Among the suggestions to donors was one that said this:
Pick a goal. It might be research toward a cure, or advocacy, or patient support services. Then pick a charity that serves that goal and stick with it.
The article quoted Sandra Miniutti of Charity Navigator who said "We tell donors, if they want to change something in the world, they need to develop a relationship with the charity. Continue to support them over time, so they can keep their costs down and track whether they do what they claim to be doing."
In May, I posted an article showing how difficult it is for non profits to sustain their work because of the inconsistent flow of dollars caused by a system that does not support flexible, long-term problem solving very well.
The Tutor/Mentor Connection focuses on connecting workplace volunteers with inner city kids in long term programs that result in the kids starting jobs/careers by age 25, with the volunteers still connected and helping to set up job interviews.
If a youth joins such a program at age 10 it takes 15 years to achieve this goal. Unless donors chose charities that offer this service and stick with them for most of these 15 years, it's not likely that the program will survive long enough to still be a meeting place for a youth and adult at a time when the youth might be looking for help finding a job.
This is one of the on-going topics of the Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conferences, held in Chicago every six months. The next conference is Nov. 17 and 18 and we're looking for people to participate and share their ideas. We're also looking for people who will blog the conference, or who will help organize on-line workshops that continue the conference topic on the Internet.
If you'd like to help build a better system of supporting on-going operations of any non profit, please join us.
Dan Bassill
tutormentor2@earthlink.net
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Million More March. Here's a Plan.
On Oct. 14, 2005, I read a column from the Chicago Tribune, written by Dawn Turner Trice, titled, "Only real plans make a march a movement." She was referring to this weekend's Million More March. She said, "I wonder what the legacy of this march will be?"
After the first Million Man March 10 years ago, we had a few new people to come in and volunteer at Cabrini Connections. However, most did not stay for long. Mentoring takes a lot of commitment over many years. In a small program like ours, that commitment needs to extend to fund raising, leadership and other organizational activities, if the organization is to do all it needs to do to help kids move through school and into jobs and careers.
I wrote after the last march that I wished there were one person on each bus coming back from DC with a Directory (like the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net) listing tutor/mentor programs in the city where that bus was headed. During the ride back that person could be talking about the Theory of Change offered by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which focuses on getting more people consistently involved in helping kids in poverty neighborhoods grow up and enter jobs/careers.
He could have used maps, like the T/MC creates, to show where poverty and poor schools were located in each city, and where existing programs were located. He could have been teaching the marchers about the constant need each program has for operating dollars, tech support, training and business partners who provide vocational learning, and leadership. He also could have been talking of ways churches, businesses, universities and hospitals could be partnering in sections of a city to launch new programs to fill voids.
Then, as each person got off the bus he could have asked for a pledge that each marcher would reach out to become a supporter of one or more programs, in one or more ways. He could have asked for the Independent Sector's pledge of GIVE Five!, which is five hours a week and five percent of income...not to the church, or the Million Man March, or to the campaign of a political candidate, but directly to a charity helping kids go to school and move to careers.
Finally, he'd ask for a commitment that these people would go to an on-line documentation system like the OHATS at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net where they would document actions that each had taken to build or sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in their community.
The last piece of information would be a web site address, such as http://www.tutormentorconnection.org, where the volunteers could go for more information about poverty, about mentoring and tutoring, and where they could talk to each other in on-line forums. This would also have provided a date and location for a follow up meeting, such as at the Nov. 17 and 18 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference in Chicago.
This was not the plan in 1995. I don't see any evidence that it's the plan in 2005. However, if you read this, you can pass it on to people who were in Washington this weekend. Maybe some will adopt this as their follow up plan.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
After the first Million Man March 10 years ago, we had a few new people to come in and volunteer at Cabrini Connections. However, most did not stay for long. Mentoring takes a lot of commitment over many years. In a small program like ours, that commitment needs to extend to fund raising, leadership and other organizational activities, if the organization is to do all it needs to do to help kids move through school and into jobs and careers.
I wrote after the last march that I wished there were one person on each bus coming back from DC with a Directory (like the Program Locator at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net) listing tutor/mentor programs in the city where that bus was headed. During the ride back that person could be talking about the Theory of Change offered by the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which focuses on getting more people consistently involved in helping kids in poverty neighborhoods grow up and enter jobs/careers.
He could have used maps, like the T/MC creates, to show where poverty and poor schools were located in each city, and where existing programs were located. He could have been teaching the marchers about the constant need each program has for operating dollars, tech support, training and business partners who provide vocational learning, and leadership. He also could have been talking of ways churches, businesses, universities and hospitals could be partnering in sections of a city to launch new programs to fill voids.
Then, as each person got off the bus he could have asked for a pledge that each marcher would reach out to become a supporter of one or more programs, in one or more ways. He could have asked for the Independent Sector's pledge of GIVE Five!, which is five hours a week and five percent of income...not to the church, or the Million Man March, or to the campaign of a political candidate, but directly to a charity helping kids go to school and move to careers.
Finally, he'd ask for a commitment that these people would go to an on-line documentation system like the OHATS at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net where they would document actions that each had taken to build or sustain volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in their community.
The last piece of information would be a web site address, such as http://www.tutormentorconnection.org, where the volunteers could go for more information about poverty, about mentoring and tutoring, and where they could talk to each other in on-line forums. This would also have provided a date and location for a follow up meeting, such as at the Nov. 17 and 18 Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference in Chicago.
This was not the plan in 1995. I don't see any evidence that it's the plan in 2005. However, if you read this, you can pass it on to people who were in Washington this weekend. Maybe some will adopt this as their follow up plan.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Friday, September 30, 2005
Illinois High School Summit, held Sept. 29, 2005
Illinois High School Summit presented by Illinois College Access Network (IllinoisCAN) and Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The discussion at the Summit was framed by the question, “What is the future vision and what must be achieved systematically for high schools to be successful in the 21st century?”
Some of the key speakers and panelists included: * Arne Duncan, CEO of Chicago Public Schools * Jesse Ruiz, Chairman of Illinois State Board of Education * Terry Mazany, President and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust * Allan Alson, Superintendent of the Evanston Township High School * Peggy Luce, Vice President of Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce * Sandra Guthman, President of Polk Bros. Foundation * Donna Carroll, President, Dominican University
Opening: Joan Klaus, Founder Illinois College Access Network
Joan set the stage for the conversation by providing statistics similar to these which were part of a speech given in late September by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in an address to the National Association of Manufactures Board of Directors Meeting in Washington, DC. Among her comments, she said:
Manufacturing executives rank a "high-performing workforce" as the most important factor in their firms' future success. But how can you be a high-performing worker when you don't even have a high school diploma?...
"Among ninth-graders, five out of 10 minority students fail to finish high school on time. Overall, three out of 10 ninth-graders don't finish on time... Leaving our high school students behind is not only morally unacceptable, what the President calls "the soft bigotry of low expectations." It is also economically untenable.
"When you lose a million students every year that has a tremendous impact on our economy. And it represents the American Dream... denied.
"So I would suggest, for this and a host of other reasons, that how well our students are doing is not just an "education issue." It's also an economic issue, a civic issue, a social issue, and a national security issue."
You can read the entire Margaret Spellings speech at: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/09/09282005.html
A similar 2-day summit was held in Washington in September 2005. The two-day event, called The Fate of the American Dream: A National Forum on Strengthening Our Education and Skills Pipeline, was hosted by Jobs for the Future and sponsored by a number of corporations also committed to improving the education and skills pipeline. JFF has put much of this summit on its web site. Visit http://www.jff.org/jff/approaches/econopp/showcase/AmDreamForum.html
The Chicago High School Summit was attended by more than 100 leaders of community organizations, foundations, businesses, schools, etc. It was hosted by the Illinois College Access Network (http://www.illinoiscan.org ) . While the panelist were first rate and the information discussed was critically important, this forum did not have an Internet collaboration portal, thus most of the participants did not get to ask questions, and the comments of most speakers were not recorded or posted on the Internet where others could read them, comment, or reach out to find ways to work together to solve the problems that were discussed.
I’ve commented on this in previous messages that I’ve posted on this blog since April 2005. While the Summit offered time for networking, the number of participants made it impossible for anyone to talk to everyone he/she might have wanted to meet. Such networking is also not suitable for an exchange of complex ideas, which is possible through an Internet discussion portal.
I took notes as I listened to the speakers and below, I’ve posted some quotes that I feel were important. I’ve also added my own comments (see DB: xxx) Whenever I attend a meeting I am always thinking of the purpose of the meeting, and the goals of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, as I listen to speakers. Thus, I’m constantly innovating new ideas making notes of “things to do” as I listen to speakers. Yesterday, for instance, I took 12 pages of notes.
Most of the time these notes just go in a file that I keep, which I refer to for inspiration from time to time. If I had someone who would transcribe these notes for me, I’d post them on a blog like this, so others could share my own thoughts and perhaps innovate along with me.
IF YOU ARE AN ORGANIZER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL SUMMIT, OR IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE SPEAKERS, I HOPE I HAVE NOT MISQUOTED YOU IN ANY WAY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO POST A TRANSCRIPT OF YOUR COMMENTS, ON THIS BLOG, PLEASE DO.
IF YOU HOST YOUR OWN WEB SITE WITH THESE COMMENTS, PLEASE POST THE WEB SITE ADDRESS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
First Panel:
Moderated by Warren Chapman. Vice President for Corporate Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase:
How did we get here? 100 years ago most schools only served 3rd through 8th grade. * High schools began to be built in early 1930’s. Not planned as college prep. Post World War II high schools became national policy issue. In 1960’s became a civil rights issue. In their current states high schools are less than 75 years old.
DB thought. It never was the intention of wealthy to educate masses to hold leadership positions reserved for their own kids.
First panelist: Michael Cohen, President of Achieve, Inc.
Achieve’s web site provides a much better overview of what Michael Cohen added to the forum than I can post here. Visit http://www.achieve.org/achieve.nsf/Challenge_Overview?OpenForm
Cohen: Formal high school sorting process has limited options for many kids by steering them to college or vocational paths. Now, every child needs to be able to chose for himself which path he wants to take
Second Panelist: Allan Alson, Superintendent, Evanston Township High School. Mr. Alson is also part of the Steering Committee for Chicago Public High School’s High School Transformation Project.
DB: I would love a transcript of Mr. Alson's comments. He was right on target.
. Presumptuous to predict where we’ll be in 70 years when the system we’re in is only 70 years old.
. Not one system fits all needs. Need to have goal.
. High schools must serve Equity, Social Justice, Democracy goals
DB: even in US Constitution it may not have been intention of framers to educate all kids
DB: why rebuild box? Why not re-design learning distribution system?
Alson: can’t just fix one part and not fix other connected parts.
. Goal: a) improve curriculum; b) improve instruction; c) connect youth with teachers and other adults
Alson: Let’s not make mistake of saying all kids enter high school at same place (academic preparation)
Kids are not just behind in skills. If you’ve gone through 14 years of your life thinking you cannot succeed, your confidence is eroded.
As you rebuild skills, think of messages we send – high expectations. Every teacher, counselor, adult, needs to say we know you can succeed and paint picture of how to get you there.
DB: wish Alson had his comments on Internet. A ETHS student could interview Alson and post his comments on blog.
Alson. Is a 10 month year sufficient to get done what we need to do? We need to create professional learning communities.
DB: are these connected to peers on other schools?
Broker partnerships with community agencies and business. Give offices inside high school so CBOs can stay connected with same kids from middle school through high school.
DB: Great idea!!
Chapman: How do we organize schools in order to train knowledge workers. What are things that need to happen over next couple of years? From Tops Down and Bottom UP?:
Cohen: organize government and business leaders
a) learn math and English skills required for careers in business
b) research shows that only 3 states require students to take needed courses (state standards too low
c) graduation tests standards too low. In six states the math you need to know to pass the test is equivalent to what kids are expected to know in 7th or 8th grade in other countries.
Cohen – top down
a) get expectations into state policy; bring educators and employers in to picture in ways not done before; make system more transparent
b) build political will to make these changes
c) build different pathways for kids to go through the system to reach common standards of career and technical skills
d) build capacity of the system to deliver results
db: what is the marketing plan that will get millions of people involved and educated on this issue. What is strategy to create this political will?
Alson:
It is one thing to say they need to take this, but Algebra 1 in one school is different than Algebra 1 in other schools. We must address equality in learning.
We must listen to kids. What helps/hinders their education? Turn peer influence into a positive.
Db: this could help with program in peer mentoring at Maine South where my daughter is a 9th grader
Alson: We have broken system on how we recruit, train and support teachers.
a) Must be building human capital to deliver goods
b) This must be a K-16 system. Need to look backwards
c) Knit communities together. All work together.
Chapman conclusion: I hope this panel inspires you to think about these issues.
Arnie Duncan – CEO of Chicago Public Schools
Improving performance of high schools is most important issue in America. We need to figure out how to make this viable.
Db: Tutor/Mentor Connection is not just a connection of volunteers with kids. It is a connection of a volunteer with the issues of educating youth for 21st century careers. This is a social, democratic issue and is a strategy of engagement. Why don’t schools understand this?
Duncan: Every other city mirrors what is happening in Chicago. Goal is to have systems of excellence instead of just islands of excellence.
Duncan talked about research team that came up with new plan for high schools. Goal was how to take system to next level?
DB: no one on research team every talked to me. I cannot find a web site collecting public input.
Duncan; We’ve improved. We’re down to a 10% annual drop out per year.
DB: that’s 40% over 4 years.
Duncan: We need a laser-like focus
a) raise expectations
b) improve quality of teachers
c) improve quality of opportunities
Improve quality of teachers and classroom instruction
1) better tools; better support
2) RFP out for new curriculum (DB, don’t we change curriculum too often? Shouldn’t we stay with something long enough to make it work?)
3) Pilot in 15 schools per year (DB, with 600 high schools in system, that will take 25 years to reach all schools
Need to hire 100 great principles. No good organization without good leaders. We need to figure out how to get better at this.
a) shrink principle eligibility pool (fewer choices of higher quality people)
b) area managers spend more time on development of leaders
c) hire recruiter to go national in looking for talent
db: how to address retention of quality people in system
Expand Quality Options - need more schools like Whitney Young. Average students don’t have quality options. Students need more choices. Need 6-8-10 great options in each section of city.
DB: What about social and emotional development, civic education, community and career mentoring? Adopt a neighborhood vs adopt a school. What about elearning? I did not hear anything all day about Internet learning.
What are we doing to get kids better prepared to enter high school with a chance to succeed? This means we need to focus on elementary schools.
URGENCY: Easy to say this is theoretical issue. We need to recognize how important this is. 85% of CPS students live in poverty. This is a life transforming opportunity. Where we don’t educate well, we perpetuate poverty.
They can rebuild New Orleans all they want, but if they don’t change the education system you’ll still have the same poverty 30 years from now.
Media not going to put spotlight on education. We need to find ways to do it ourselves.
DB: this is why I don’t understand his not embracing T/MC strategy.
Duncan’s conclusion: we must move from islands of excellence to a system of excellence.
From 9:30 to 10:30 A Panel Discussion was moderated by Peggy Luce: Her first question to Jesse H. Ruiz, Chair of the Illinois State Board of Education, was “Is there one challenge? One magic answer?”
Ruiz: Remove bureaucracy; raise standards. Gary Chico appointed to lead Illinois Education Task Force.
The second panelist was Cynthia Barron, Instructional Officer, Small Schools Area for Chicago Public Schools:
Luce to Barron: “What is most important issues of keeping students on track and bringing others up.”
Barron -
a) curriculum is most important element of high school transformation,
b) we’ve been teaching to the middle. We need to have personal plans for every student
c) every high school needs to offer advance placement classes for students that want rigor
d) at risk students, those who enter unprepared, what do we do?
e) Rigor, Relevance, Relationships-every school needs support structure to catch youth who begin to fail; intervene early
DB: where is mentoring in strategy? If boys tune out at 3rd grade, support needs to start earlier.
f) going to take ton of strategic planning to keep the momentum going
DB: what is strategy for public engagement? Building the political will?
The third panelist was Donna Carroll, Pres. Dominican University; and Federation of Independent Colleges and Universities –
Ms. Carroll introduced herself as “the university voice in college readiness”.
Remediation –access to higher education is a promise, and a presumption. I don’t think colleges will ever be out of the remediation business.
DB: universities need to re purpose resources. Look for other ways to use resources to impact college readiness goals. Colleges have army of students, faculty and alumnii.
Systemic issues of college prep. Dominican University’s average ACT is 23. CPS average ACT is 17.
Expectations and self-assessment. Students need mechanisms for understanding themselves. Most college students say
a) I wish my High School teachers pushed me harder
b) I wish I studied harder
c) I wish I knew what was expected for me to have the career I want
DB: I wish kids would listen to adults when we gave them all of this information, over and over again.
Colleges looking for students who persists vs students who do not.
Collaboration – we need to communicate more.
a) connect college and high school faculty. We need to create capacity and time to do that
b) very often it is student with potential who is working two jobs just to attend college. How can we expect him to do college work? We need to provide financial support.
Db: this is that question of political will again.
The next panelist was Jeff Mays, President, Illinois Business Round Table:
Role of business: help shape message; help reach broader audience
DB: Read ROLE of LEADERS in Tutor/Mentor Institute at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
How they (youth) make decisions scares me. We need to do more to influence how they make decisions.
The next panelist was Terrell Burges – an African American teacher at Lane Tech high school. Burges was a recipient of the Golden Apple Scholarship and was a Bank One Saturday Scholar. He still works with Saturday Scholars in the summer.
a) many students don’t have access to technology and classroom support
b) need to provide authentic professional development for teachers; more collaboration time
c) provide extra learning opportunities. Saturday Scholars gave time to empower students to think
d) When students have opportunity to discover on their own, they learn
e) Only way to do this is to empower teachers
DB: but his help came from mentors in a non-school, privately funded tutor/mentor program. What about making more of these available?
The final panelist was Sandra Guthman, CEO, Polk Bros. Foundation. Funds Chicago HS Redesign Initiative.
DB: Polk Bros Foundation has funded the Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Program for several years, yet, they don’t seem to have any interest in the Tutor/Mentor Connection. It seems that foundation’s who fund mentoring, don’t automatically include mentoring in strategy of high school redesign. Why not? What are we not doing?
a) need to work as individual foundations to move system forward.
DB: if school reform system does not include mentoring in strategy, foundations won’t make priority to fund
b) some foundations work toward goals in a single community.
Db: Easy to work toward goals in a single community, but leader needs to assure that there is a foundation funding each community
c) Foundation role of critical friend (outside pressure). Maybe we can work together to make it (system) better.
d) New Schools for Chicago – some corporation and foundation supporting specific schools
DB: how do they network and learn from others who do same work in different places. Seems redundant.
At this point the moderator said “A few minutes for questions”. There were more than 100 people in the room. Less than 10 were able to ask questions and most were not able to follow up on the questions they asked.
One man brought up issue of political will. He said “Are the right people involved to make significant change? Are the people driving the process the ones in charge of crafting the solutions? This question was not given an answer and the questioner was invited to email the ICAN to post his question.
DB: this illustrates the need for a forum like this to have an internet component. This person and all others could have posted questions to speakers, and each other, on line.
DB: this event had a self-serving focus on ICAN. Two speakers mentioned Saturday Scholars. However, there was no effort in the meeting to expand mentoring. The two examples of success of CPS were a teacher and a college student, both who participated in Saturday Scholars, a privately funded non-school program. If this is such a good program why are policy makers not trying to get more programs like this?
While we talk of having good schools in every neighborhood, why are we not talking about having good Saturday Scholar type programs in every neighborhood?
Final speaker: Omar, a Saturday Scholar. He was one of the best speakers. I asked him to blog his comments for T/MC
Wish list for schools:
a) financial literacy
b) people of different backgrounds working together
c) cultivate good social skills
d) sports for everyone, not just talented
e) ought to be programs for students to make sure they are there (at college) on first day of classes. Transition from inner city high school to college terrifying to some
DB: I understand this need. A couple of y ears ago we had one volunteer drive a student to Wisconsin for first day of school just to make sure he got enrolled.
Terry Mazany, President, Chicago Community Trust, concluded the meeting
Mazany listed school reform funding goals of Trust:
Read the Strategic Vision of the Education Initiative at: http://www.cct.org/grantsseekers/grantprograms/education/index.html
DB: CCT Education Initiative Goals do not seem to include funding of community supports or funding of elearning and collaboration.
We’re in third decade of school reform post A Nation At Risk. We know a lot. There is a paradigm shift. We’re now trying to prepare all youth for higher education.
Education is means to fulfill promise of American Dream
Failure to create school system that works leaves young people out of American Dream.
DB: suggest he say “learning system” instead of “school system”
a) 8 hour school day needed; staffing ratios that provide time for planning
b) counseling ratios of 100 to 1 needed
c) inner city schools need more resources than suburban schools because of poverty
d) resources needed for technology; need more buckets of water. Illinois is 49th in state funding of education
e) Fourth R: real world connections. Need pathways to careers.
DB: if foundations follow lead of schools and schools do not show non-school mentoring as priority, then funding will not support these programs. If these programs not in place, neither are pathways or adult supports.
The formal presentations ended at 11:15am and many participants continued to introduce themselves to others and network. I had the opportunity to talk to more than a dozen people who work with the T/MC, or who I have approached in the past for support. That’s the value of forums like this that bring people together face to face. As I left I was talking to an African American woman and she saw that my name tag said Cabrini Connections.
She asked if I served the Cabrini-Green neighborhood and when I said “yes” she told me she grew up in Cabrini-Green. I asked if she had ever gone to Montgomery Ward for tutoring and she said “yes”. I told her that I was the leader of that program when she was attending. I also told her of my goal of attracting many of the 4000 volunteers and more than 2000 youth who have participated in the Wards program since 1965 to the http://www.cabriniconnections.net web site where they can share their stories and talk about how the opportunity to connect with a tutor or mentor at Montgomery Ward has influenced their lives. By bringing people who have been enriched by this process back together via the internet, we can continue to connect youth and adults from different backgrounds in the on-going networking that removes social and economic isolation and creates pipelines and pathways to careers.
We also can build an army of support for the vision of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which is to have programs like Cabrini Connections available to young people in every poverty neighborhood of Chicago and every other large American city.
IF YOU WERE QUOTED IN THIS SUMMARY, AND WOULD LIKE TO WRITE A COMPLETE SUMMARY OF YOUR COMMENTS, PLEASE POST THEM IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS BLOG.
IF YOU HOST YOUR COMMENTS ON YOUR OWN WEB SITE, OR IF THERE IS AN INTERNET FORUM WHERE THIS TOPIC IS BEING DISCUSSED, PLEASE PROVIDE THE ADDRESS SO THE REST OF US CAN PARTICIPATE.
Some of the key speakers and panelists included: * Arne Duncan, CEO of Chicago Public Schools * Jesse Ruiz, Chairman of Illinois State Board of Education * Terry Mazany, President and CEO of the Chicago Community Trust * Allan Alson, Superintendent of the Evanston Township High School * Peggy Luce, Vice President of Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce * Sandra Guthman, President of Polk Bros. Foundation * Donna Carroll, President, Dominican University
Opening: Joan Klaus, Founder Illinois College Access Network
Joan set the stage for the conversation by providing statistics similar to these which were part of a speech given in late September by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in an address to the National Association of Manufactures Board of Directors Meeting in Washington, DC. Among her comments, she said:
Manufacturing executives rank a "high-performing workforce" as the most important factor in their firms' future success. But how can you be a high-performing worker when you don't even have a high school diploma?...
"Among ninth-graders, five out of 10 minority students fail to finish high school on time. Overall, three out of 10 ninth-graders don't finish on time... Leaving our high school students behind is not only morally unacceptable, what the President calls "the soft bigotry of low expectations." It is also economically untenable.
"When you lose a million students every year that has a tremendous impact on our economy. And it represents the American Dream... denied.
"So I would suggest, for this and a host of other reasons, that how well our students are doing is not just an "education issue." It's also an economic issue, a civic issue, a social issue, and a national security issue."
You can read the entire Margaret Spellings speech at: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/09/09282005.html
A similar 2-day summit was held in Washington in September 2005. The two-day event, called The Fate of the American Dream: A National Forum on Strengthening Our Education and Skills Pipeline, was hosted by Jobs for the Future and sponsored by a number of corporations also committed to improving the education and skills pipeline. JFF has put much of this summit on its web site. Visit http://www.jff.org/jff/approaches/econopp/showcase/AmDreamForum.html
The Chicago High School Summit was attended by more than 100 leaders of community organizations, foundations, businesses, schools, etc. It was hosted by the Illinois College Access Network (http://www.illinoiscan.org ) . While the panelist were first rate and the information discussed was critically important, this forum did not have an Internet collaboration portal, thus most of the participants did not get to ask questions, and the comments of most speakers were not recorded or posted on the Internet where others could read them, comment, or reach out to find ways to work together to solve the problems that were discussed.
I’ve commented on this in previous messages that I’ve posted on this blog since April 2005. While the Summit offered time for networking, the number of participants made it impossible for anyone to talk to everyone he/she might have wanted to meet. Such networking is also not suitable for an exchange of complex ideas, which is possible through an Internet discussion portal.
I took notes as I listened to the speakers and below, I’ve posted some quotes that I feel were important. I’ve also added my own comments (see DB: xxx) Whenever I attend a meeting I am always thinking of the purpose of the meeting, and the goals of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, as I listen to speakers. Thus, I’m constantly innovating new ideas making notes of “things to do” as I listen to speakers. Yesterday, for instance, I took 12 pages of notes.
Most of the time these notes just go in a file that I keep, which I refer to for inspiration from time to time. If I had someone who would transcribe these notes for me, I’d post them on a blog like this, so others could share my own thoughts and perhaps innovate along with me.
IF YOU ARE AN ORGANIZER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL SUMMIT, OR IF YOU WERE ONE OF THE SPEAKERS, I HOPE I HAVE NOT MISQUOTED YOU IN ANY WAY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO POST A TRANSCRIPT OF YOUR COMMENTS, ON THIS BLOG, PLEASE DO.
IF YOU HOST YOUR OWN WEB SITE WITH THESE COMMENTS, PLEASE POST THE WEB SITE ADDRESS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
First Panel:
Moderated by Warren Chapman. Vice President for Corporate Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase:
How did we get here? 100 years ago most schools only served 3rd through 8th grade. * High schools began to be built in early 1930’s. Not planned as college prep. Post World War II high schools became national policy issue. In 1960’s became a civil rights issue. In their current states high schools are less than 75 years old.
DB thought. It never was the intention of wealthy to educate masses to hold leadership positions reserved for their own kids.
First panelist: Michael Cohen, President of Achieve, Inc.
Achieve’s web site provides a much better overview of what Michael Cohen added to the forum than I can post here. Visit http://www.achieve.org/achieve.nsf/Challenge_Overview?OpenForm
Cohen: Formal high school sorting process has limited options for many kids by steering them to college or vocational paths. Now, every child needs to be able to chose for himself which path he wants to take
Second Panelist: Allan Alson, Superintendent, Evanston Township High School. Mr. Alson is also part of the Steering Committee for Chicago Public High School’s High School Transformation Project.
DB: I would love a transcript of Mr. Alson's comments. He was right on target.
. Presumptuous to predict where we’ll be in 70 years when the system we’re in is only 70 years old.
. Not one system fits all needs. Need to have goal.
. High schools must serve Equity, Social Justice, Democracy goals
DB: even in US Constitution it may not have been intention of framers to educate all kids
DB: why rebuild box? Why not re-design learning distribution system?
Alson: can’t just fix one part and not fix other connected parts.
. Goal: a) improve curriculum; b) improve instruction; c) connect youth with teachers and other adults
Alson: Let’s not make mistake of saying all kids enter high school at same place (academic preparation)
Kids are not just behind in skills. If you’ve gone through 14 years of your life thinking you cannot succeed, your confidence is eroded.
As you rebuild skills, think of messages we send – high expectations. Every teacher, counselor, adult, needs to say we know you can succeed and paint picture of how to get you there.
DB: wish Alson had his comments on Internet. A ETHS student could interview Alson and post his comments on blog.
Alson. Is a 10 month year sufficient to get done what we need to do? We need to create professional learning communities.
DB: are these connected to peers on other schools?
Broker partnerships with community agencies and business. Give offices inside high school so CBOs can stay connected with same kids from middle school through high school.
DB: Great idea!!
Chapman: How do we organize schools in order to train knowledge workers. What are things that need to happen over next couple of years? From Tops Down and Bottom UP?:
Cohen: organize government and business leaders
a) learn math and English skills required for careers in business
b) research shows that only 3 states require students to take needed courses (state standards too low
c) graduation tests standards too low. In six states the math you need to know to pass the test is equivalent to what kids are expected to know in 7th or 8th grade in other countries.
Cohen – top down
a) get expectations into state policy; bring educators and employers in to picture in ways not done before; make system more transparent
b) build political will to make these changes
c) build different pathways for kids to go through the system to reach common standards of career and technical skills
d) build capacity of the system to deliver results
db: what is the marketing plan that will get millions of people involved and educated on this issue. What is strategy to create this political will?
Alson:
It is one thing to say they need to take this, but Algebra 1 in one school is different than Algebra 1 in other schools. We must address equality in learning.
We must listen to kids. What helps/hinders their education? Turn peer influence into a positive.
Db: this could help with program in peer mentoring at Maine South where my daughter is a 9th grader
Alson: We have broken system on how we recruit, train and support teachers.
a) Must be building human capital to deliver goods
b) This must be a K-16 system. Need to look backwards
c) Knit communities together. All work together.
Chapman conclusion: I hope this panel inspires you to think about these issues.
Arnie Duncan – CEO of Chicago Public Schools
Improving performance of high schools is most important issue in America. We need to figure out how to make this viable.
Db: Tutor/Mentor Connection is not just a connection of volunteers with kids. It is a connection of a volunteer with the issues of educating youth for 21st century careers. This is a social, democratic issue and is a strategy of engagement. Why don’t schools understand this?
Duncan: Every other city mirrors what is happening in Chicago. Goal is to have systems of excellence instead of just islands of excellence.
Duncan talked about research team that came up with new plan for high schools. Goal was how to take system to next level?
DB: no one on research team every talked to me. I cannot find a web site collecting public input.
Duncan; We’ve improved. We’re down to a 10% annual drop out per year.
DB: that’s 40% over 4 years.
Duncan: We need a laser-like focus
a) raise expectations
b) improve quality of teachers
c) improve quality of opportunities
Improve quality of teachers and classroom instruction
1) better tools; better support
2) RFP out for new curriculum (DB, don’t we change curriculum too often? Shouldn’t we stay with something long enough to make it work?)
3) Pilot in 15 schools per year (DB, with 600 high schools in system, that will take 25 years to reach all schools
Need to hire 100 great principles. No good organization without good leaders. We need to figure out how to get better at this.
a) shrink principle eligibility pool (fewer choices of higher quality people)
b) area managers spend more time on development of leaders
c) hire recruiter to go national in looking for talent
db: how to address retention of quality people in system
Expand Quality Options - need more schools like Whitney Young. Average students don’t have quality options. Students need more choices. Need 6-8-10 great options in each section of city.
DB: What about social and emotional development, civic education, community and career mentoring? Adopt a neighborhood vs adopt a school. What about elearning? I did not hear anything all day about Internet learning.
What are we doing to get kids better prepared to enter high school with a chance to succeed? This means we need to focus on elementary schools.
URGENCY: Easy to say this is theoretical issue. We need to recognize how important this is. 85% of CPS students live in poverty. This is a life transforming opportunity. Where we don’t educate well, we perpetuate poverty.
They can rebuild New Orleans all they want, but if they don’t change the education system you’ll still have the same poverty 30 years from now.
Media not going to put spotlight on education. We need to find ways to do it ourselves.
DB: this is why I don’t understand his not embracing T/MC strategy.
Duncan’s conclusion: we must move from islands of excellence to a system of excellence.
From 9:30 to 10:30 A Panel Discussion was moderated by Peggy Luce: Her first question to Jesse H. Ruiz, Chair of the Illinois State Board of Education, was “Is there one challenge? One magic answer?”
Ruiz: Remove bureaucracy; raise standards. Gary Chico appointed to lead Illinois Education Task Force.
The second panelist was Cynthia Barron, Instructional Officer, Small Schools Area for Chicago Public Schools:
Luce to Barron: “What is most important issues of keeping students on track and bringing others up.”
Barron -
a) curriculum is most important element of high school transformation,
b) we’ve been teaching to the middle. We need to have personal plans for every student
c) every high school needs to offer advance placement classes for students that want rigor
d) at risk students, those who enter unprepared, what do we do?
e) Rigor, Relevance, Relationships-every school needs support structure to catch youth who begin to fail; intervene early
DB: where is mentoring in strategy? If boys tune out at 3rd grade, support needs to start earlier.
f) going to take ton of strategic planning to keep the momentum going
DB: what is strategy for public engagement? Building the political will?
The third panelist was Donna Carroll, Pres. Dominican University; and Federation of Independent Colleges and Universities –
Ms. Carroll introduced herself as “the university voice in college readiness”.
Remediation –access to higher education is a promise, and a presumption. I don’t think colleges will ever be out of the remediation business.
DB: universities need to re purpose resources. Look for other ways to use resources to impact college readiness goals. Colleges have army of students, faculty and alumnii.
Systemic issues of college prep. Dominican University’s average ACT is 23. CPS average ACT is 17.
Expectations and self-assessment. Students need mechanisms for understanding themselves. Most college students say
a) I wish my High School teachers pushed me harder
b) I wish I studied harder
c) I wish I knew what was expected for me to have the career I want
DB: I wish kids would listen to adults when we gave them all of this information, over and over again.
Colleges looking for students who persists vs students who do not.
Collaboration – we need to communicate more.
a) connect college and high school faculty. We need to create capacity and time to do that
b) very often it is student with potential who is working two jobs just to attend college. How can we expect him to do college work? We need to provide financial support.
Db: this is that question of political will again.
The next panelist was Jeff Mays, President, Illinois Business Round Table:
Role of business: help shape message; help reach broader audience
DB: Read ROLE of LEADERS in Tutor/Mentor Institute at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
How they (youth) make decisions scares me. We need to do more to influence how they make decisions.
The next panelist was Terrell Burges – an African American teacher at Lane Tech high school. Burges was a recipient of the Golden Apple Scholarship and was a Bank One Saturday Scholar. He still works with Saturday Scholars in the summer.
a) many students don’t have access to technology and classroom support
b) need to provide authentic professional development for teachers; more collaboration time
c) provide extra learning opportunities. Saturday Scholars gave time to empower students to think
d) When students have opportunity to discover on their own, they learn
e) Only way to do this is to empower teachers
DB: but his help came from mentors in a non-school, privately funded tutor/mentor program. What about making more of these available?
The final panelist was Sandra Guthman, CEO, Polk Bros. Foundation. Funds Chicago HS Redesign Initiative.
DB: Polk Bros Foundation has funded the Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Program for several years, yet, they don’t seem to have any interest in the Tutor/Mentor Connection. It seems that foundation’s who fund mentoring, don’t automatically include mentoring in strategy of high school redesign. Why not? What are we not doing?
a) need to work as individual foundations to move system forward.
DB: if school reform system does not include mentoring in strategy, foundations won’t make priority to fund
b) some foundations work toward goals in a single community.
Db: Easy to work toward goals in a single community, but leader needs to assure that there is a foundation funding each community
c) Foundation role of critical friend (outside pressure). Maybe we can work together to make it (system) better.
d) New Schools for Chicago – some corporation and foundation supporting specific schools
DB: how do they network and learn from others who do same work in different places. Seems redundant.
At this point the moderator said “A few minutes for questions”. There were more than 100 people in the room. Less than 10 were able to ask questions and most were not able to follow up on the questions they asked.
One man brought up issue of political will. He said “Are the right people involved to make significant change? Are the people driving the process the ones in charge of crafting the solutions? This question was not given an answer and the questioner was invited to email the ICAN to post his question.
DB: this illustrates the need for a forum like this to have an internet component. This person and all others could have posted questions to speakers, and each other, on line.
DB: this event had a self-serving focus on ICAN. Two speakers mentioned Saturday Scholars. However, there was no effort in the meeting to expand mentoring. The two examples of success of CPS were a teacher and a college student, both who participated in Saturday Scholars, a privately funded non-school program. If this is such a good program why are policy makers not trying to get more programs like this?
While we talk of having good schools in every neighborhood, why are we not talking about having good Saturday Scholar type programs in every neighborhood?
Final speaker: Omar, a Saturday Scholar. He was one of the best speakers. I asked him to blog his comments for T/MC
Wish list for schools:
a) financial literacy
b) people of different backgrounds working together
c) cultivate good social skills
d) sports for everyone, not just talented
e) ought to be programs for students to make sure they are there (at college) on first day of classes. Transition from inner city high school to college terrifying to some
DB: I understand this need. A couple of y ears ago we had one volunteer drive a student to Wisconsin for first day of school just to make sure he got enrolled.
Terry Mazany, President, Chicago Community Trust, concluded the meeting
Mazany listed school reform funding goals of Trust:
Read the Strategic Vision of the Education Initiative at: http://www.cct.org/grantsseekers/grantprograms/education/index.html
DB: CCT Education Initiative Goals do not seem to include funding of community supports or funding of elearning and collaboration.
We’re in third decade of school reform post A Nation At Risk. We know a lot. There is a paradigm shift. We’re now trying to prepare all youth for higher education.
Education is means to fulfill promise of American Dream
Failure to create school system that works leaves young people out of American Dream.
DB: suggest he say “learning system” instead of “school system”
a) 8 hour school day needed; staffing ratios that provide time for planning
b) counseling ratios of 100 to 1 needed
c) inner city schools need more resources than suburban schools because of poverty
d) resources needed for technology; need more buckets of water. Illinois is 49th in state funding of education
e) Fourth R: real world connections. Need pathways to careers.
DB: if foundations follow lead of schools and schools do not show non-school mentoring as priority, then funding will not support these programs. If these programs not in place, neither are pathways or adult supports.
The formal presentations ended at 11:15am and many participants continued to introduce themselves to others and network. I had the opportunity to talk to more than a dozen people who work with the T/MC, or who I have approached in the past for support. That’s the value of forums like this that bring people together face to face. As I left I was talking to an African American woman and she saw that my name tag said Cabrini Connections.
She asked if I served the Cabrini-Green neighborhood and when I said “yes” she told me she grew up in Cabrini-Green. I asked if she had ever gone to Montgomery Ward for tutoring and she said “yes”. I told her that I was the leader of that program when she was attending. I also told her of my goal of attracting many of the 4000 volunteers and more than 2000 youth who have participated in the Wards program since 1965 to the http://www.cabriniconnections.net web site where they can share their stories and talk about how the opportunity to connect with a tutor or mentor at Montgomery Ward has influenced their lives. By bringing people who have been enriched by this process back together via the internet, we can continue to connect youth and adults from different backgrounds in the on-going networking that removes social and economic isolation and creates pipelines and pathways to careers.
We also can build an army of support for the vision of the Tutor/Mentor Connection, which is to have programs like Cabrini Connections available to young people in every poverty neighborhood of Chicago and every other large American city.
IF YOU WERE QUOTED IN THIS SUMMARY, AND WOULD LIKE TO WRITE A COMPLETE SUMMARY OF YOUR COMMENTS, PLEASE POST THEM IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS BLOG.
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Sunday, September 25, 2005
I'm up to my neck in alligators. No time to drain the swamp.
This past week Cabrini Connections started its 13th year of service to teens living in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago. We’ve more than 80 teens on the roster, which is the most we’ve started with since 1999. Of our volunteers, two are alumni who started with us between 1993 and 1996 as 7th and 8th graders. One has already graduated from college and the other is a senior.
You can read about this program at http://www.cabriniconnections.net. It’s doing great things.
It just doesn’t have any money. Because we’re a small charity our cash flow is always low during September and October and then picks up during November and December when we do holiday fund raising. This means we struggle to pay the rent while at the same time we’re doing work that has great value to many people.
I’ve written about how difficult it is to raise money in previous blog entries. I’m not sure how much the Hurricanes are going to impact me, but I’m sure that since 2000 the economy, the 9/11 attack, the war, the highly contested presidential elections, the 2004 hurricanes, the December 2004 Tsunami, and now Katrina, have contributed to me raising about 70% as much now as I was in 2000.
I’m sure this is a problem for other volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, too. That’s why we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. We think it’s always been tough to find consistent funding. Thus, we’re trying to create a more consistent public awareness that would draw more volunteers and donors to support tutor/mentor programs in all parts of Chicago (and in other cities), not just our program. We’re also working to help business and professional groups form leadership strategies where they use their own visibility and resources to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs. The Chicago Bar Association’s Lend A Hand Program is the best example of this strategy. See http://www.lend-a-hand.net
So, since we’re all struggling, why is it so hard to get programs to come together to innovate new ways to increase public awareness, increase volunteer turnout, and increase the amount of money available for volunteer-based programs?
This year we had fewer programs participate in planning the Aug./Sept. Volunteer Recruitment Campaign than in past years. Part of the problem was that I no longer have funds to pay a part-time person to reach out and draw programs together. But since we all need volunteers as school starts, it would seem that more programs would want to find ways to increase the pool of potential volunteers.
On Nov. 17 and 18 I’m hosting a 24th Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference. I’m going to hold a two-day symposium where leaders of tutor/mentor programs talk about why our work is important, ways we can improve what we do, and ways we can collaborate to increase visibility, volunteers and dollars distributed to all programs in any major city. If we can create some media attention, this could have an impact on year-end fund raising for many tutor/mentor programs.
I’m hoping that leaders of other programs are as desperate as I am for finding new ways to generate revenue and that we’ll have a number of organizations offer to participate on panels, or to help facilitate each discussion. I’m also hoping that people who cannot come to Chicago to participate directly will come to our Internet portal to take part in this discussion on-line.
I believe that “we” working together can overcome some of the challenges that individual programs working alone cannot. However, we must make time to participate in this process, even though we’re up to our neck in alligators in trying to keep the rent and other bills paid while supporting effective connections between youth and volunteer tutors/mentors in our own programs.
If you’d like to get involved, e-mail me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net. You can see details about the conference at http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
You can read about this program at http://www.cabriniconnections.net. It’s doing great things.
It just doesn’t have any money. Because we’re a small charity our cash flow is always low during September and October and then picks up during November and December when we do holiday fund raising. This means we struggle to pay the rent while at the same time we’re doing work that has great value to many people.
I’ve written about how difficult it is to raise money in previous blog entries. I’m not sure how much the Hurricanes are going to impact me, but I’m sure that since 2000 the economy, the 9/11 attack, the war, the highly contested presidential elections, the 2004 hurricanes, the December 2004 Tsunami, and now Katrina, have contributed to me raising about 70% as much now as I was in 2000.
I’m sure this is a problem for other volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, too. That’s why we created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993. We think it’s always been tough to find consistent funding. Thus, we’re trying to create a more consistent public awareness that would draw more volunteers and donors to support tutor/mentor programs in all parts of Chicago (and in other cities), not just our program. We’re also working to help business and professional groups form leadership strategies where they use their own visibility and resources to draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs. The Chicago Bar Association’s Lend A Hand Program is the best example of this strategy. See http://www.lend-a-hand.net
So, since we’re all struggling, why is it so hard to get programs to come together to innovate new ways to increase public awareness, increase volunteer turnout, and increase the amount of money available for volunteer-based programs?
This year we had fewer programs participate in planning the Aug./Sept. Volunteer Recruitment Campaign than in past years. Part of the problem was that I no longer have funds to pay a part-time person to reach out and draw programs together. But since we all need volunteers as school starts, it would seem that more programs would want to find ways to increase the pool of potential volunteers.
On Nov. 17 and 18 I’m hosting a 24th Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference. I’m going to hold a two-day symposium where leaders of tutor/mentor programs talk about why our work is important, ways we can improve what we do, and ways we can collaborate to increase visibility, volunteers and dollars distributed to all programs in any major city. If we can create some media attention, this could have an impact on year-end fund raising for many tutor/mentor programs.
I’m hoping that leaders of other programs are as desperate as I am for finding new ways to generate revenue and that we’ll have a number of organizations offer to participate on panels, or to help facilitate each discussion. I’m also hoping that people who cannot come to Chicago to participate directly will come to our Internet portal to take part in this discussion on-line.
I believe that “we” working together can overcome some of the challenges that individual programs working alone cannot. However, we must make time to participate in this process, even though we’re up to our neck in alligators in trying to keep the rent and other bills paid while supporting effective connections between youth and volunteer tutors/mentors in our own programs.
If you’d like to get involved, e-mail me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net. You can see details about the conference at http://www.tutormentorconference.bigstep.com
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Monday, September 19, 2005
Race and Poverty in America. Will We be Talking about This Six Months From Now?
Why does it take a natural disaster to get us talking about how to help the disadvantaged in America? I read through several back issues of Time and Newsweek this weekend. There are all sorts of articles talking about Race and Poverty and how we don't focus on these issues other than in times like now. I've posted articles in this blog before about the random coverage of this topic in Chicago's major papers.
I'm also part of the Digital Divide Network and feel that volunteers using IT skills could play a role in building on-going participation in the Race/Poverty discussion, as well as in distributing attention and resources to all of the places and all of the issues that need to be considered when thinking about this subject.
On Sept. 18 I posted a Race and Poverty blog at http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/dbassill1 . I encourage you to read it. (2017 note: this site is no longer available)
I also feel that volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring can be one of the best strategies for connecting people who don't live in poverty with youth and families who do. If such programs can keep volunteers involved for more than a year or two, many of those volunteers will build a personal understanding of poverty through their weekly involvement, and a personal commitment to do something, because of their growing commitment to the kids they mentor.
Many of the volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in America do not have this as a goal, and do not have a structure to encourage long-term involvement.
Thus, in many places where various forms of mentoring are taking place, purposeful efforts to transform the lives of volunteers, and convert them to leaders, are not taking place. I feel that if we're to have more people in business and professions taking a leadership and financial role in supporting the growth of volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring, or mentoring-to-career strategies, more programs will need to add this concept to their strategic design.
You can read more about these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute library at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
If you have any comments, or suggestions for ways we can expand the number of people interested in this topic, or how we can build a week to week, or month to month involvement, I look forward to hearing from you.
I'm also part of the Digital Divide Network and feel that volunteers using IT skills could play a role in building on-going participation in the Race/Poverty discussion, as well as in distributing attention and resources to all of the places and all of the issues that need to be considered when thinking about this subject.
On Sept. 18 I posted a Race and Poverty blog at http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/dbassill1 . I encourage you to read it. (2017 note: this site is no longer available)
I also feel that volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring can be one of the best strategies for connecting people who don't live in poverty with youth and families who do. If such programs can keep volunteers involved for more than a year or two, many of those volunteers will build a personal understanding of poverty through their weekly involvement, and a personal commitment to do something, because of their growing commitment to the kids they mentor.
Many of the volunteer based tutoring and/or mentoring programs in America do not have this as a goal, and do not have a structure to encourage long-term involvement.
Thus, in many places where various forms of mentoring are taking place, purposeful efforts to transform the lives of volunteers, and convert them to leaders, are not taking place. I feel that if we're to have more people in business and professions taking a leadership and financial role in supporting the growth of volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring, or mentoring-to-career strategies, more programs will need to add this concept to their strategic design.
You can read more about these ideas in the Tutor/Mentor Institute library at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
If you have any comments, or suggestions for ways we can expand the number of people interested in this topic, or how we can build a week to week, or month to month involvement, I look forward to hearing from you.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Non profit Blog Exchange - Impact of Katrina on Charities
A few weeks ago I agreed to participate in a non profit blog exchange, which connects bloggers in non profits with each other. I've been trying to create a network of tutor/mentor bloggers, so feel this is a good way to try to further that cause.
I was matched with a blog titled Nonprofiteer: Helping Till it Hurts. (2014 Editor note: site not longer active)
The latest message posted is one close to my heart. The author talks about how the fragile fund raising efforts of many small non profits have been negatively impacted by the huge charitable response to Hurricane Katrina. In an earlier blog you can read my own thoughts like this. I feel we're a nation that focuses on random acts of kindness and we don't have the leadership to focus consistent attention over a long period of time on all of the different efforts that are needed to solve any significant social issue.
I don't think that leadership will ever come from elected people. For the most part their only goal seems to be to get elected, or stay elected. I think the leadership has to come from private sector organizations of people who are deeply committed to a cause and who will find ways to sustain their efforts over many years.
Of course, those people need consistent funding, unless they are independently wealthy, which I am not. Which leads us back to charity and random acts of kindness.
In the web links to the left you can see how I have tried to provide a solution to this. I've created a program that connects those who can help with those who need help and use traditional advertising concepts, which I learned during 17 years of advertising for a nationwide retail store chain. I've also piloted the use of GIS maps and searchable databases to focus on all of the areas of the city of Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, not just on my own program, or a few brand name programs or highly visible neighborhoods. Without the map its too easy to make a contribution to one place and think the problem is solved. Until there are good programs every place where they are needed, the problem will persist.
I've also made an attempt at creating visual blueprints to show that many services need to be supported in a single charitable category, not just one or two. I use the analogy of the blueprint for a building to illustrate my point. A blueprint shows all of the steps needed to build a building, from the foundation to the top. It also shows all of the sub contractors who need to do the right thing, at the right time, if the project is to be completed. They all need to be paid.
If we could create blueprints showing all of the actions that are needed to assure that kids born today are in jobs/careers by age 25, then we'd be more likely to be able to lead a campaign intended to pay all of those people. That's the only way this is going to work.
Of course I don't have the dollars that company spent every year, so I've innovated some other ways to create reach and frequency, such as enlisting the self interest of my peers in trying to share the responsibility for building visibility for all tutor/mentor programs.
I encourage anyone who's willing to take the time to look through the sites and understand the strategy to offer me feedback or become a partner. I'd like to find ways to motivate people to give until it hurts. That's not the ultimate sacrifice, but it's the type of generosity that's more likely to sustain charitable services in all the different places where they are needed.
Dan Bassill
PS: Learn more about the Non Profit Blog exchange at http://nonprofitblogexchange.blogspot.com/
I was matched with a blog titled Nonprofiteer: Helping Till it Hurts. (2014 Editor note: site not longer active)
The latest message posted is one close to my heart. The author talks about how the fragile fund raising efforts of many small non profits have been negatively impacted by the huge charitable response to Hurricane Katrina. In an earlier blog you can read my own thoughts like this. I feel we're a nation that focuses on random acts of kindness and we don't have the leadership to focus consistent attention over a long period of time on all of the different efforts that are needed to solve any significant social issue.
I don't think that leadership will ever come from elected people. For the most part their only goal seems to be to get elected, or stay elected. I think the leadership has to come from private sector organizations of people who are deeply committed to a cause and who will find ways to sustain their efforts over many years.
Of course, those people need consistent funding, unless they are independently wealthy, which I am not. Which leads us back to charity and random acts of kindness.
In the web links to the left you can see how I have tried to provide a solution to this. I've created a program that connects those who can help with those who need help and use traditional advertising concepts, which I learned during 17 years of advertising for a nationwide retail store chain. I've also piloted the use of GIS maps and searchable databases to focus on all of the areas of the city of Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, not just on my own program, or a few brand name programs or highly visible neighborhoods. Without the map its too easy to make a contribution to one place and think the problem is solved. Until there are good programs every place where they are needed, the problem will persist.
I've also made an attempt at creating visual blueprints to show that many services need to be supported in a single charitable category, not just one or two. I use the analogy of the blueprint for a building to illustrate my point. A blueprint shows all of the steps needed to build a building, from the foundation to the top. It also shows all of the sub contractors who need to do the right thing, at the right time, if the project is to be completed. They all need to be paid.
If we could create blueprints showing all of the actions that are needed to assure that kids born today are in jobs/careers by age 25, then we'd be more likely to be able to lead a campaign intended to pay all of those people. That's the only way this is going to work.
Of course I don't have the dollars that company spent every year, so I've innovated some other ways to create reach and frequency, such as enlisting the self interest of my peers in trying to share the responsibility for building visibility for all tutor/mentor programs.
By showing all of the various sub contractors how they are related to each other, I feel it's also a first step toward getting them to work as a group to tackle the funding issue, rather than competing constantly against each other. The maps do this. So can the blueprints.
I encourage anyone who's willing to take the time to look through the sites and understand the strategy to offer me feedback or become a partner. I'd like to find ways to motivate people to give until it hurts. That's not the ultimate sacrifice, but it's the type of generosity that's more likely to sustain charitable services in all the different places where they are needed.
Dan Bassill
PS: Learn more about the Non Profit Blog exchange at http://nonprofitblogexchange.blogspot.com/
Bridges that connect people on both sides of the poverty line.
As I read newspaper reports of the Hurricane Katrina disaster a thought comes to my mind.
What if the City of New Orleans had had dozens of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections, which connect inner city kids and business/professional volunteers in long term relationships where the volunteer begins to act like a surrogate parent, aunt or uncle? When it came time to evacuate would there have been a few more people with cars or means of transportation calling kids and families living in the flood zone, asking if they needed help getting out of the city?
At Cabrini Connections (www.cabriniconnections.net) more than 30% of our kids and 20% of our volunteers have been with the program for 3 or more years. Some volunteers go to extraordinary lengths to help kids stay in school and move toward jobs and careers. If a city was full of such programs I feel there would not be the disconnect between those in poverty and the rest of society that seems to be in every major city of the USA.
However, no city will have dozens of these programs by accident (and New Orleans may have had dozens of these programs. I don't know) . It takes leaders with a long-term, day to day commitment to do what's needed to build a city of such programs. Such leaders need to help programs get started, and then help them get a steady flow of volunteers, operating dollars, training, tech support, etc. Such leadership needs to be sustained even when the spotlight is pointing in a different direction. Tutor/Mentor Programs need to be sustained from year to year if they are to create strong bonds between youth and adults.
We're starting school now. Yesterday the Tutor/Mentor Connection hosted a volunteer recruitment fair at the James Thompson Center in Chicago. 13 programs were there to recruit volunteers. Many more can be found at a CAN CALL TV 42 bulleting board, or in the Program Locator section of www.tutormentorexchange.net . I did not see any articles in the major Chicago papers this week encouraging adults to seek out tutor/mentor programs, as volunteers or as donors. Does this mean I did a poor job of marketing this campaign , or that there are too few leaders in Chicago who care?
The Program locator at www.tutormentorexchange.net can be searched by zip code, type of program, age group served and time of day service is provided to determine if there are any organizations that offer services for specific age groups in specific neighborhoods. I doubt that such a service exists in any other major city, yet the lessons of New Orleans is that we are a nation where many people live in poverty and isolation and too few people think about this unless they are forced to. Building a database of existing programs and helping those programs get volunteers and dollars is the first step toward making such programs available to more children in more places.
Getting an adult to be a volunteer is just the first step in the journey of helping that adult become a coach, mentor or change-agent in the life of a teen. Getting a youth into a tutor/mentor program and matched with a volunteer is just the first step of a 10 or 15 year process that must repeat year after year if the goal of the program is that the youth is in a job and able to take care of himself and his family by age 25.
Making this type of program available in all of the places where they are needed should be a priority of many of the people who are now in the blame game, or who are outraged by the sudden discovery of poverty and racism in America.
I've been working at this for more than 30 years yet I'm still just a whisper in the wilderness. I hope that in the 2005-06 school year some of you will take ownership and become leaders of the Tutor/Mentor Connection's vision, so our whisper can become a roar that leads to more bridges connecting youth living in poverty with adults from the other side of this economic and social divide
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
What if the City of New Orleans had had dozens of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs like Cabrini Connections, which connect inner city kids and business/professional volunteers in long term relationships where the volunteer begins to act like a surrogate parent, aunt or uncle? When it came time to evacuate would there have been a few more people with cars or means of transportation calling kids and families living in the flood zone, asking if they needed help getting out of the city?
At Cabrini Connections (www.cabriniconnections.net) more than 30% of our kids and 20% of our volunteers have been with the program for 3 or more years. Some volunteers go to extraordinary lengths to help kids stay in school and move toward jobs and careers. If a city was full of such programs I feel there would not be the disconnect between those in poverty and the rest of society that seems to be in every major city of the USA.
However, no city will have dozens of these programs by accident (and New Orleans may have had dozens of these programs. I don't know) . It takes leaders with a long-term, day to day commitment to do what's needed to build a city of such programs. Such leaders need to help programs get started, and then help them get a steady flow of volunteers, operating dollars, training, tech support, etc. Such leadership needs to be sustained even when the spotlight is pointing in a different direction. Tutor/Mentor Programs need to be sustained from year to year if they are to create strong bonds between youth and adults.
We're starting school now. Yesterday the Tutor/Mentor Connection hosted a volunteer recruitment fair at the James Thompson Center in Chicago. 13 programs were there to recruit volunteers. Many more can be found at a CAN CALL TV 42 bulleting board, or in the Program Locator section of www.tutormentorexchange.net . I did not see any articles in the major Chicago papers this week encouraging adults to seek out tutor/mentor programs, as volunteers or as donors. Does this mean I did a poor job of marketing this campaign , or that there are too few leaders in Chicago who care?
The Program locator at www.tutormentorexchange.net can be searched by zip code, type of program, age group served and time of day service is provided to determine if there are any organizations that offer services for specific age groups in specific neighborhoods. I doubt that such a service exists in any other major city, yet the lessons of New Orleans is that we are a nation where many people live in poverty and isolation and too few people think about this unless they are forced to. Building a database of existing programs and helping those programs get volunteers and dollars is the first step toward making such programs available to more children in more places.
Getting an adult to be a volunteer is just the first step in the journey of helping that adult become a coach, mentor or change-agent in the life of a teen. Getting a youth into a tutor/mentor program and matched with a volunteer is just the first step of a 10 or 15 year process that must repeat year after year if the goal of the program is that the youth is in a job and able to take care of himself and his family by age 25.
Making this type of program available in all of the places where they are needed should be a priority of many of the people who are now in the blame game, or who are outraged by the sudden discovery of poverty and racism in America.
I've been working at this for more than 30 years yet I'm still just a whisper in the wilderness. I hope that in the 2005-06 school year some of you will take ownership and become leaders of the Tutor/Mentor Connection's vision, so our whisper can become a roar that leads to more bridges connecting youth living in poverty with adults from the other side of this economic and social divide
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Friday, September 02, 2005
Disaster challenges all of us
I'm as riveted to the TV and the newspapers as probably every one of you are. This is the Tsunami, but it's in our back yard. Of course, in scope it's not the Tsunami, where the death toll was over 175,000 people. But for each person affected, it's the same thing.
For the next few weeks there will be a tremendous outpouring of charitable donations to support relief efforts, just as there was in the weeks following the Tsunami. However, following this there will be a need for donations to continue for a decade or more.
However, in six months or a year there will be another disaster that will mobilize public attention. Then the people who need Tsunami aid, and the people who need Katrina aid, will be off the front page and struggling to find the dollars needed to continue rebuilding their communities.
I understand this struggle all too well. At Cabrini Connections we're building lives. It takes 12 years for one of our 7th graders to reach age 25. Marquita Hall will be a volunteer with us this year. She is still only 24. Yet she has finished college and has a job helping other people. She first joined us when she was in 8th grade, after being part of the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program since elementary school. She's still connected to some of the volunteers she first met more than 10 years ago.
Our small charity and the many other large and small charities that have been created throughout the Tsunami region, and will be created along the Gulf Coast, will need a constant flow of charity dollars for the next 10 years if today's 7th graders are to become the Marquita's of a decade from now, or if all of the people who have lost everything do to the forces of nature are to have their lives rebuilt.
We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 because we recognized the problem charities have of consistently attracting donors. While a few programs are great at getting funds, not every program is as good, thus there is a poor distribution of good programs in all places where they are needed.
I spent 17 years doing corporate advertising for a large retail store. We sent out 3 waves of advertising to 20 million people in 40 states telling potential customers that we had stoves, clothes, tires and other merchandise they wanted in one of 400 stores that we operated. We also spent millions of dollars in making sure we had the right merchandise in those stores, well trained people, and that the stores were in the right locations.
Each store had a responsibility to do its own advertising and training but because of the support from the national advertising and training, each store was able to attract customers on a regular basis, at a fraction of what it would cost if each had to create their own advertising campaign.
We've created a master database of tutor/mentor programs serving Chicago, and we are working to build a powerful advertising/evangelism that encourages people who have been blessed to look at the database once or twice a month and determine where and how they can help a charity like Cabrini Connections get the resources (volunteers, dollars, technology, training) it consistently needs to help kids to careers. The Program Locator at www.tutormentorexchange.net is the portal that people can search to locate charities who need their help.
I had a conversation with a friend in Texas yesterday and suggested that this same type of thinking and technology needs to be put in place in many cities, and to support many causes so that when the spotlight has moved to another tragedy there is still a way to draw dollars, volunteers and public attention to all of the places where rebuilding takes years. She's a friend of the Mayor of New Orleans and will be sharing that information.
If we can continue to get the help we need to fully develop the Program Locator, and integrate it with GIS maps that visually show where need is greatest in a geographic area, we can offer it to people in the South, or in the Tsunami area, or where ever the next disaster hits, at no cost, and they can be using it in a few months to connect those who can help with the millions who will need help.
If you'd like to help us, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net
--------------------------------------------------
Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
For the next few weeks there will be a tremendous outpouring of charitable donations to support relief efforts, just as there was in the weeks following the Tsunami. However, following this there will be a need for donations to continue for a decade or more.
However, in six months or a year there will be another disaster that will mobilize public attention. Then the people who need Tsunami aid, and the people who need Katrina aid, will be off the front page and struggling to find the dollars needed to continue rebuilding their communities.
I understand this struggle all too well. At Cabrini Connections we're building lives. It takes 12 years for one of our 7th graders to reach age 25. Marquita Hall will be a volunteer with us this year. She is still only 24. Yet she has finished college and has a job helping other people. She first joined us when she was in 8th grade, after being part of the Cabrini-Green Tutoring Program since elementary school. She's still connected to some of the volunteers she first met more than 10 years ago.
Our small charity and the many other large and small charities that have been created throughout the Tsunami region, and will be created along the Gulf Coast, will need a constant flow of charity dollars for the next 10 years if today's 7th graders are to become the Marquita's of a decade from now, or if all of the people who have lost everything do to the forces of nature are to have their lives rebuilt.
We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 because we recognized the problem charities have of consistently attracting donors. While a few programs are great at getting funds, not every program is as good, thus there is a poor distribution of good programs in all places where they are needed.
I spent 17 years doing corporate advertising for a large retail store. We sent out 3 waves of advertising to 20 million people in 40 states telling potential customers that we had stoves, clothes, tires and other merchandise they wanted in one of 400 stores that we operated. We also spent millions of dollars in making sure we had the right merchandise in those stores, well trained people, and that the stores were in the right locations.
Each store had a responsibility to do its own advertising and training but because of the support from the national advertising and training, each store was able to attract customers on a regular basis, at a fraction of what it would cost if each had to create their own advertising campaign.
We've created a master database of tutor/mentor programs serving Chicago, and we are working to build a powerful advertising/evangelism that encourages people who have been blessed to look at the database once or twice a month and determine where and how they can help a charity like Cabrini Connections get the resources (volunteers, dollars, technology, training) it consistently needs to help kids to careers. The Program Locator at www.tutormentorexchange.net is the portal that people can search to locate charities who need their help.
I had a conversation with a friend in Texas yesterday and suggested that this same type of thinking and technology needs to be put in place in many cities, and to support many causes so that when the spotlight has moved to another tragedy there is still a way to draw dollars, volunteers and public attention to all of the places where rebuilding takes years. She's a friend of the Mayor of New Orleans and will be sharing that information.
If we can continue to get the help we need to fully develop the Program Locator, and integrate it with GIS maps that visually show where need is greatest in a geographic area, we can offer it to people in the South, or in the Tsunami area, or where ever the next disaster hits, at no cost, and they can be using it in a few months to connect those who can help with the millions who will need help.
If you'd like to help us, email tutormentor2@earthlink.net
--------------------------------------------------
Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Invitation to Universities any where in the world
As school is starting for another year, millions of people are starting another round of conversations that loosely could be titled "How do we motivate kids to learn?", or, "What role does my organization have in helping kids from poverty reach jobs and careers?"
If you're one of those people, or if you know someone who is thinking about these questions, please consider my introduction and invitation:
I am president of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), based in Chicago. The T/MC was started by a small non profit called Cabrini Connection, back in 1993. I've provided web links below that I hope you'll visit to learn more about our work and our history.
I'm also a Commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, so while my primary focus is increasing volunteer based tutoring/mentoring in Illinois, my ideas apply to increasing effective volunteerism and service in all parts of Illinois.
For the past 30 years I've been accumulating knowledge and experience about how to connect workplace volunteers and inner city kids in long-term mentoring relationships that transform the lives of both youth and adults. Since I learned how to put information on the Internet in 1998, I've been putting my knowledge on T/MC web sites, so that others could learn from me. I've also been building a library of web links, that connect visitors to the knowledge of other people who are concerned with poverty and workforce development, and education and diversity. Thus, visitors to our web site can learn from many people, not just from me.
I've been reaching out all over the world looking for colleges that might take a role in helping to facilitate the use of this knowledge among students and alumni.
The goal of such programs is teach students and graduates to be leaders of programs that connect workplace adults with, knowledge, with peers, with resources, and with inner-city kids in long-term tutoring/mentoring strategies that lead kids into jobs/careers by age 25.
While we lead one program with this strategy (Cabrini Connections), we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help every tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the resources (volunteers, leaders, dollars, training, technology, etc.) that would enable them to grow in their ability to mentor kids to careers. Through the Internet, this now helps people all over the world.
In the Tutor/Mentor Connection portal (http:/www.tutormentorconnection.org) the navigation bar will lead you to a variety of sections that help you understand this strategy and that help people connect with programs, with information, and with each other in an on-going process aimed at helping every youth born in poverty today be starting a job/career by age 25.
I encourage you to visit the Program Locator section and see how we're using GIS maps and a searchable database to help people understand where programs are needed, and where existing programs are located.
I also encourage you to visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute section and read some of the power point essays. They not only illustrate our role, but they illustrate the role that companies or business associations can take to lead strategies that engage their employees in volunteerism, and in strategies that create future employees and customers.
Among the power point essays you can see a few that show how this might take shape in a university, in a hospital, and in the legal community.
You'll see that our web sites have a ton of information and that some sections focus on elearning, collaboration and innovation. If you think of our web sites as our Bible, or a Curriculum, then our goal is to help groups of people read and reflect on sections of this information on a weekly basis.
If learners tie this reading and reflection into their volunteerism, philanthropy and direct service, then each time they meet with a youth in a volunteer program, the information in the T/MC portal will become more relevant and important to them. As they become an advocate for the kids they personally get to know, some will use their talent, leadership, and wealth (obtained as they grow older) to build the infrastructure needed to help every kid in the Chicago region (or any other city) get more of the support they need to go up the pipeline into a career.
The reason I am looking for university partners is that this information needs to be packaged in a 4 to 6 year curriculum where students learn through regular classwork, and through a variety of internships, service-learning, work-study and volunteer activities. I believe that if a university adopted this as a curriculum, its graduates would soon be in demand from volunteer based programs in all parts of the country.
Furthermore, I believe that alumni who don't go into direct service, but go into industry and professions, would become leaders in workplace and government strategies that PULL kids to careers, using their employees, dollars and jobs as resources. If we can teach people to take that leadership role, we can make a huge impact on how successful non profits are in getting the resources they need to successfully do their work.
My organization is too small to do this. Universities are already doing some of this, but I've not found one who expresses the mentoring-to-career strategy, or the citywide support strategy, that we outline at the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Thus, this offers a teaching opportunity for anyone who might want to take this on.
While we host an Internet strategy, we also host a November and May Leadership and Networking Conference (http://www.tutormentorconference.org) to share these ideas and to enable other tutor/mentor leaders to network and share their own vision for how to help kids to careers. Colleges have provided space for these conferences since 1994, which has enabled us to keep the costs low.
I'm looking for a host for the November 2005 conference. If you're interested in talking about the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a strategic partner, you also might want to consider hosting the conference.
Once you've had a chance to browse the web site, I hope you'll want to meet to learn more about what we're doing and ways we might integrate what we're doing with some of the goals of your university. Furthermore, I hope you'll want to discuss how the strategies of the T/MC could increase support for all steams of volunteerism, not just tutoring/mentoring.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you'll forward it to others who might be interested.
Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections (1992-2011)
Tutor/Mentor Connection (1992-present)
Commissioner
Illinois Commission on Volunteerism
and Community Service
http://www.tutormentorconnection.org
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
(2016 note: this blog has been edited to update web sites to current locations)
If you're one of those people, or if you know someone who is thinking about these questions, please consider my introduction and invitation:
I am president of the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), based in Chicago. The T/MC was started by a small non profit called Cabrini Connection, back in 1993. I've provided web links below that I hope you'll visit to learn more about our work and our history.
I'm also a Commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service, so while my primary focus is increasing volunteer based tutoring/mentoring in Illinois, my ideas apply to increasing effective volunteerism and service in all parts of Illinois.
For the past 30 years I've been accumulating knowledge and experience about how to connect workplace volunteers and inner city kids in long-term mentoring relationships that transform the lives of both youth and adults. Since I learned how to put information on the Internet in 1998, I've been putting my knowledge on T/MC web sites, so that others could learn from me. I've also been building a library of web links, that connect visitors to the knowledge of other people who are concerned with poverty and workforce development, and education and diversity. Thus, visitors to our web site can learn from many people, not just from me.
I've been reaching out all over the world looking for colleges that might take a role in helping to facilitate the use of this knowledge among students and alumni.
The goal of such programs is teach students and graduates to be leaders of programs that connect workplace adults with, knowledge, with peers, with resources, and with inner-city kids in long-term tutoring/mentoring strategies that lead kids into jobs/careers by age 25.
While we lead one program with this strategy (Cabrini Connections), we formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 to help every tutor/mentor program in the Chicago region get the resources (volunteers, leaders, dollars, training, technology, etc.) that would enable them to grow in their ability to mentor kids to careers. Through the Internet, this now helps people all over the world.
In the Tutor/Mentor Connection portal (http:/www.tutormentorconnection.org) the navigation bar will lead you to a variety of sections that help you understand this strategy and that help people connect with programs, with information, and with each other in an on-going process aimed at helping every youth born in poverty today be starting a job/career by age 25.
I encourage you to visit the Program Locator section and see how we're using GIS maps and a searchable database to help people understand where programs are needed, and where existing programs are located.
I also encourage you to visit the Tutor/Mentor Institute section and read some of the power point essays. They not only illustrate our role, but they illustrate the role that companies or business associations can take to lead strategies that engage their employees in volunteerism, and in strategies that create future employees and customers.
Among the power point essays you can see a few that show how this might take shape in a university, in a hospital, and in the legal community.
You'll see that our web sites have a ton of information and that some sections focus on elearning, collaboration and innovation. If you think of our web sites as our Bible, or a Curriculum, then our goal is to help groups of people read and reflect on sections of this information on a weekly basis.
If learners tie this reading and reflection into their volunteerism, philanthropy and direct service, then each time they meet with a youth in a volunteer program, the information in the T/MC portal will become more relevant and important to them. As they become an advocate for the kids they personally get to know, some will use their talent, leadership, and wealth (obtained as they grow older) to build the infrastructure needed to help every kid in the Chicago region (or any other city) get more of the support they need to go up the pipeline into a career.
The reason I am looking for university partners is that this information needs to be packaged in a 4 to 6 year curriculum where students learn through regular classwork, and through a variety of internships, service-learning, work-study and volunteer activities. I believe that if a university adopted this as a curriculum, its graduates would soon be in demand from volunteer based programs in all parts of the country.
Furthermore, I believe that alumni who don't go into direct service, but go into industry and professions, would become leaders in workplace and government strategies that PULL kids to careers, using their employees, dollars and jobs as resources. If we can teach people to take that leadership role, we can make a huge impact on how successful non profits are in getting the resources they need to successfully do their work.
My organization is too small to do this. Universities are already doing some of this, but I've not found one who expresses the mentoring-to-career strategy, or the citywide support strategy, that we outline at the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Thus, this offers a teaching opportunity for anyone who might want to take this on.
While we host an Internet strategy, we also host a November and May Leadership and Networking Conference (http://www.tutormentorconference.org) to share these ideas and to enable other tutor/mentor leaders to network and share their own vision for how to help kids to careers. Colleges have provided space for these conferences since 1994, which has enabled us to keep the costs low.
I'm looking for a host for the November 2005 conference. If you're interested in talking about the Tutor/Mentor Connection as a strategic partner, you also might want to consider hosting the conference.
Once you've had a chance to browse the web site, I hope you'll want to meet to learn more about what we're doing and ways we might integrate what we're doing with some of the goals of your university. Furthermore, I hope you'll want to discuss how the strategies of the T/MC could increase support for all steams of volunteerism, not just tutoring/mentoring.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you'll forward it to others who might be interested.
Daniel F. Bassill
President
Cabrini Connections (1992-2011)
Tutor/Mentor Connection (1992-present)
Commissioner
Illinois Commission on Volunteerism
and Community Service
http://www.tutormentorconnection.org
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com
(2016 note: this blog has been edited to update web sites to current locations)
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Missing the Tutor Connection, guest message from Rey Carr, Ph.D.
From Rey Carr, Ph.D. hosts a comprehensive peer mentoring and coaching resource at http://www.peer.ca/peer.html.
Below is the Letter to Editor that Rey sent to the Chicago Tribune following a story and editorial about the No Child Left Behind tutoring in Chicago. Rey sent this to the T/MC with the note, "They didn't contact me to verify, so I suppose it did not get accepted." I offered to post the letter here, as I do with many of my own letters that do not get printed in the Chicago papers.
Thanks Ray, for sharing this.
-------------------------------------
While is was disappointing to learn about the meager results of the
Chicago Public Schools tutoring efforts ("Has tutoring worked?"
August 12, 2005), it was also predictable. The No Child Left Behind
law is wreaking havoc for students across the Nation. It clearly
fails to address root causes of low or poor academic achievement and
gives for-profit businesses an opportunity to skim money from
taxpayers.
Poverty is the primary cause for poor school achievement. And I mean
both financial and relationship poverty. The Chicago Public Schools
study of tutoring might have shown different results had they
compared their No Child Left Behind Act tutoring ventures with the
non-profit, community-based, city-wide tutoring relationship services
facilitated by the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This organization
recognizes that building a relationship with a young person is
essential to the success of tutoring. By combining academic
assignments with social and interpersonal support, this kind of
tutoring has much greater success.
By agreeing with the Federal government to restrict teacher
involvement in tutoring, the Chicago Public Schools is cutting out
those individuals who recognize the importance of
relationship-building as an antidote to the power of poverty to limit
academic achievement. In addition, the schools need to build and
strengthen student-to-student peer tutoring as a way to add further
support for achievement. Without attending to relationship poverty,
the tutoring services of the CPS will continue to show dismal results.
Rey Carr, Ph.D.
*******************************************
Peer Resources
Navigation Tools for the Heart, Mind and Soul
Tel: (250) 595-3503
Fax: (250) 595-3504
rcarr@islandnet.com
Below is the Letter to Editor that Rey sent to the Chicago Tribune following a story and editorial about the No Child Left Behind tutoring in Chicago. Rey sent this to the T/MC with the note, "They didn't contact me to verify, so I suppose it did not get accepted." I offered to post the letter here, as I do with many of my own letters that do not get printed in the Chicago papers.
Thanks Ray, for sharing this.
-------------------------------------
While is was disappointing to learn about the meager results of the
Chicago Public Schools tutoring efforts ("Has tutoring worked?"
August 12, 2005), it was also predictable. The No Child Left Behind
law is wreaking havoc for students across the Nation. It clearly
fails to address root causes of low or poor academic achievement and
gives for-profit businesses an opportunity to skim money from
taxpayers.
Poverty is the primary cause for poor school achievement. And I mean
both financial and relationship poverty. The Chicago Public Schools
study of tutoring might have shown different results had they
compared their No Child Left Behind Act tutoring ventures with the
non-profit, community-based, city-wide tutoring relationship services
facilitated by the Tutor/Mentor Connection. This organization
recognizes that building a relationship with a young person is
essential to the success of tutoring. By combining academic
assignments with social and interpersonal support, this kind of
tutoring has much greater success.
By agreeing with the Federal government to restrict teacher
involvement in tutoring, the Chicago Public Schools is cutting out
those individuals who recognize the importance of
relationship-building as an antidote to the power of poverty to limit
academic achievement. In addition, the schools need to build and
strengthen student-to-student peer tutoring as a way to add further
support for achievement. Without attending to relationship poverty,
the tutoring services of the CPS will continue to show dismal results.
Rey Carr, Ph.D.
*******************************************
Peer Resources
Navigation Tools for the Heart, Mind and Soul
Tel: (250) 595-3503
Fax: (250) 595-3504
rcarr@islandnet.com
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Jon Bon Jovi and Polo Ralph Lauren want to make volunteerism "hip". New Operating System Needed.
From August 3-6 I attended the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service, held in Washington, DC. I attended wearing my hat of Commissioner for the Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service. In that role, I focus on building volunteer recruitment and support strategies that help solve problems in all parts of Illinois. However, I draw from my 30 years of leading a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program when I advocate for a new operating system to support volunteer-based charities.
A new operating system focuses on the infrastructure needed for successful charities. It spreads the responsibility for the success of the non profit organization to all people who benefit. In the current structure the burden for keeping a charity afloat is generally limited to the efforts of the charity and its board of directors. While this works for some programs, it is a poor system to assure an even distribution of critically needed services in all places where they are needed.
Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), I'm trying to create this new operating system, drawing from the help of volunteers of Cabrini Connections, and a network of other program leaders and stakeholders from throughout Chicago and the rest of the world. I'm trying to create a visual blueprint that identifies all of the things a tutor/mentor program needs to be successful. Since our goal is that our teens are starting jobs/careers by age 25, this infrastructure needs to enable us to provide continuous support to some youth for 10-15 years!
Here are some of the key elements that a new operating system would need to address:
a) development of key staff who treat their work as an avocation, not a job, and who have been trained via college or years of experience in the concepts of Total Quality Mentoring. It took me more than 30 years of leading a tutor/mentor program, plus 17 years of being a national advertising manager in a large retail corporation, to learn what I know. When new people join us they need to have learned this via formal training. It takes too long to learn from on-the-job experiences
b) more consistent public awareness (advertising) - When I was an advertising manager at Montgomery Ward (between 1973 and 1990) I was responsible for drafting an annual ad schedule that provided 3 waves of ads going out each week to nearly 20 million people in 40 states where Montgomery Ward had stores. Each ad had the same goal of drawing customers to stores near them.
Wards spent more than $200 million each year on its national advertising during the 1980s. Charities don't have these type of ad dollars and never will. Thus we need strategies in business, churches, colleges and professional groups, and among media and celebrities, that use their resources to build on-going visibility for volunteer-based charities. Jon Bon Jovi was a speaker at last week's conference on volunteerism. Just recently he helped organize the Live8 Concert. We need more people to do what he's doing. Someone needs to be doing a Live8 type event every day! However, we also need to teach leaders and celebrities to put links on their web sites that point potential volunteers and donors to volunteer centers so that they can find the programs that are looking for help.
c) flexible funding - if we cannot find the funds to create decent working conditions and to recruit and retain highly motivate and skilled people, we'll end with high turn over, which works against the first objective of retaining key staff. Instead of every tutor/mentor program in the city constantly searching for funds, we need to develop business type advertising strategies that motivate donors to seek out programs on a more consistent basis. One strategy is to find a way to put tutor/mentor programs in workplace fund raising campaigns. Another is find ways to increase planned giving bequests to tutor/mentor programs, or to organizations like the Chicago Bar Association's Lend A Hand Program, which distributes grants to tutor/mentor programs.
d) talent volunteers - one of the workshops at the National Conference focused on the concept of Talent Volunteers. The presenters showed how most volunteer recruitment advertising focuses on the soft side of volunteerism. This conveys a message that you either become a tutor/mentor or do some other form of hands-on project, or you don't volunteer. While we need dedicated people to volunteer time as tutors/mentors, we also need people to volunteer time as accountants, planners, communicators, tech support, fund raisers, etc. If we can recruit more people to help build the infrastructure of tutor/mentor programs we can expand the support for staff, students and volunteers and come closer to achieving our goals. Imagine the National Mentoring Month campaign being "Who built your web site? instead of "Who mentored you?"
e) elearning/collaboration mentality - there is so little time to network and learn from others, yet is it this process of constantly learning from others that leads to on-going quality improvement. Very few organizations are building this into their strategy. While there were over 2,000 people in Washington last week, most of us only met a few of these people, or attended a few of the workshops being offered. I was in a forum hosted by David Eisner, President of the Corporation for National Service, and Bob Goodwin, President of the Points of Light Foundation. While a few people got to ask questions, most did not. If the discussion had also had an internet component, such as at http://www.techsoup.org or http://www.digitaldivide.net, many of us could have continued to ask questions and network with each other in the weeks and months after the conference. Until we learn to link the Internet with our face-to-face strategies, we will not maximize the potential we have to mobilize the army of volunteers, and donors, who are needed to solve problems and strengthen America.
f) spatial thinking - we need to teach people to use maps to show all of the places in big cities like Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located. Without the map most cities focus on just a few programs, or a few neighborhoods. This means most kids do not have access to services and most programs are constantly struggling to stay in business. We also need charts and blueprints that show all of the different ways volunteers can be involved in a charity, and the continuous support kids need, from many people, to be starting jobs and careers by age 25.
While I share this information with tutor/mentor leaders around the country, I also share it with the volunteers in the tutor/mentor program I lead in Chicago (http://www.cabriniconnections.net). Many of the volunteers we recruited for Cabrini Connections between 1993 and today have offered time and talent and treasure to help us build the services we offer through the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If volunteers from one small program can have this much of an impact, my belief is that hundreds of volunteers from dozens of connected programs can have an even greater impact. My goal is that other volunteer-based organizations adopt this "we" instead of me strategy. It's the only way we will ever get enough people together to build the better operating system that I dream of.
While one of the featured speakers at the National Conference was Jon Bon Jovi, another was David Lauren of http://www.polojeans.com. Both men talked about making volunteerism "hip". Bon Jovi said it was his goal to make volunteerism "the new Black". Polo Jeans has launched a product and ad campaign that converts this vision to action. I went back to Chicago and told my daughter that she could buy her Back to School Jeans at Polo, even though they might cost more, because I want to support this campaign. That's the only way we can motivate hundreds of other companies to duplicate the thinking behind this campaign.
These are all just my opinions. We're trying to make this vision a reality through the work we do in the Tutor/Mentor Connection and at Cabrini Connections. If you agree with these opinions, join us. If you disagree, post your ideas on a web site and let us take a look at your strategy. We can improve what we do if we can learn from you. You can improve what you do if you can learn from us and from other organizations that operate the same way. If you know of other companies who are even more effective than Polo Jeans in making volunteerism "hip" and in drawing attention to volunteer-based organizations, please add the web site link to the new Tutor/Mentor Connection portal.
Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
A new operating system focuses on the infrastructure needed for successful charities. It spreads the responsibility for the success of the non profit organization to all people who benefit. In the current structure the burden for keeping a charity afloat is generally limited to the efforts of the charity and its board of directors. While this works for some programs, it is a poor system to assure an even distribution of critically needed services in all places where they are needed.
Through the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC), I'm trying to create this new operating system, drawing from the help of volunteers of Cabrini Connections, and a network of other program leaders and stakeholders from throughout Chicago and the rest of the world. I'm trying to create a visual blueprint that identifies all of the things a tutor/mentor program needs to be successful. Since our goal is that our teens are starting jobs/careers by age 25, this infrastructure needs to enable us to provide continuous support to some youth for 10-15 years!
Here are some of the key elements that a new operating system would need to address:
a) development of key staff who treat their work as an avocation, not a job, and who have been trained via college or years of experience in the concepts of Total Quality Mentoring. It took me more than 30 years of leading a tutor/mentor program, plus 17 years of being a national advertising manager in a large retail corporation, to learn what I know. When new people join us they need to have learned this via formal training. It takes too long to learn from on-the-job experiences
b) more consistent public awareness (advertising) - When I was an advertising manager at Montgomery Ward (between 1973 and 1990) I was responsible for drafting an annual ad schedule that provided 3 waves of ads going out each week to nearly 20 million people in 40 states where Montgomery Ward had stores. Each ad had the same goal of drawing customers to stores near them.
Wards spent more than $200 million each year on its national advertising during the 1980s. Charities don't have these type of ad dollars and never will. Thus we need strategies in business, churches, colleges and professional groups, and among media and celebrities, that use their resources to build on-going visibility for volunteer-based charities. Jon Bon Jovi was a speaker at last week's conference on volunteerism. Just recently he helped organize the Live8 Concert. We need more people to do what he's doing. Someone needs to be doing a Live8 type event every day! However, we also need to teach leaders and celebrities to put links on their web sites that point potential volunteers and donors to volunteer centers so that they can find the programs that are looking for help.
c) flexible funding - if we cannot find the funds to create decent working conditions and to recruit and retain highly motivate and skilled people, we'll end with high turn over, which works against the first objective of retaining key staff. Instead of every tutor/mentor program in the city constantly searching for funds, we need to develop business type advertising strategies that motivate donors to seek out programs on a more consistent basis. One strategy is to find a way to put tutor/mentor programs in workplace fund raising campaigns. Another is find ways to increase planned giving bequests to tutor/mentor programs, or to organizations like the Chicago Bar Association's Lend A Hand Program, which distributes grants to tutor/mentor programs.
d) talent volunteers - one of the workshops at the National Conference focused on the concept of Talent Volunteers. The presenters showed how most volunteer recruitment advertising focuses on the soft side of volunteerism. This conveys a message that you either become a tutor/mentor or do some other form of hands-on project, or you don't volunteer. While we need dedicated people to volunteer time as tutors/mentors, we also need people to volunteer time as accountants, planners, communicators, tech support, fund raisers, etc. If we can recruit more people to help build the infrastructure of tutor/mentor programs we can expand the support for staff, students and volunteers and come closer to achieving our goals. Imagine the National Mentoring Month campaign being "Who built your web site? instead of "Who mentored you?"
e) elearning/collaboration mentality - there is so little time to network and learn from others, yet is it this process of constantly learning from others that leads to on-going quality improvement. Very few organizations are building this into their strategy. While there were over 2,000 people in Washington last week, most of us only met a few of these people, or attended a few of the workshops being offered. I was in a forum hosted by David Eisner, President of the Corporation for National Service, and Bob Goodwin, President of the Points of Light Foundation. While a few people got to ask questions, most did not. If the discussion had also had an internet component, such as at http://www.techsoup.org or http://www.digitaldivide.net, many of us could have continued to ask questions and network with each other in the weeks and months after the conference. Until we learn to link the Internet with our face-to-face strategies, we will not maximize the potential we have to mobilize the army of volunteers, and donors, who are needed to solve problems and strengthen America.
f) spatial thinking - we need to teach people to use maps to show all of the places in big cities like Chicago where tutor/mentor programs are needed, and where existing programs are located. Without the map most cities focus on just a few programs, or a few neighborhoods. This means most kids do not have access to services and most programs are constantly struggling to stay in business. We also need charts and blueprints that show all of the different ways volunteers can be involved in a charity, and the continuous support kids need, from many people, to be starting jobs and careers by age 25.
While I share this information with tutor/mentor leaders around the country, I also share it with the volunteers in the tutor/mentor program I lead in Chicago (http://www.cabriniconnections.net). Many of the volunteers we recruited for Cabrini Connections between 1993 and today have offered time and talent and treasure to help us build the services we offer through the Tutor/Mentor Connection. If volunteers from one small program can have this much of an impact, my belief is that hundreds of volunteers from dozens of connected programs can have an even greater impact. My goal is that other volunteer-based organizations adopt this "we" instead of me strategy. It's the only way we will ever get enough people together to build the better operating system that I dream of.
While one of the featured speakers at the National Conference was Jon Bon Jovi, another was David Lauren of http://www.polojeans.com. Both men talked about making volunteerism "hip". Bon Jovi said it was his goal to make volunteerism "the new Black". Polo Jeans has launched a product and ad campaign that converts this vision to action. I went back to Chicago and told my daughter that she could buy her Back to School Jeans at Polo, even though they might cost more, because I want to support this campaign. That's the only way we can motivate hundreds of other companies to duplicate the thinking behind this campaign.
These are all just my opinions. We're trying to make this vision a reality through the work we do in the Tutor/Mentor Connection and at Cabrini Connections. If you agree with these opinions, join us. If you disagree, post your ideas on a web site and let us take a look at your strategy. We can improve what we do if we can learn from you. You can improve what you do if you can learn from us and from other organizations that operate the same way. If you know of other companies who are even more effective than Polo Jeans in making volunteerism "hip" and in drawing attention to volunteer-based organizations, please add the web site link to the new Tutor/Mentor Connection portal.
Daniel F. Bassill
President, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection
Friday, August 05, 2005
Serve Communities. Solve Problems. Strengthen America.
This has been the goal of the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service which I'm attending in Washington, DC. Today was the second full day.
My first session was a briefing on goals by David Eisner, CEO for the Corporation for National Service (CNS) and Bob Goodwin, CEO and President, Points of Light Foundation.
Eisner talked about a new 5 year strategic plan for CNS and Goodwin outlined the key focus areas of Points of Light. These were a) build public awareness of the benefits of service; b) help build infrastructure through which service is delivered; c) collect and share knowledge about what works. These points resonated with me. Maybe its because they are the same goals we have for strengthening volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.
This was a pretty open session and many participants were able to make comments or ask questions. When it came my turn, I asked when they would host versions of this type of CEO interaction on the Internet where more people could ask questions and interaction one on one with the leader of the organization, or with each other.
It's not in the pipeline yet, but my question prompted one of the other participants to say "lets talk". This turned out to be Billy Bicket from www.techsoup.org. We spent more than an hour exchanging ideas, with lots of scribbled designs on paper and a commitment to look for ways where our organizations might collaborate.
That was my goal in coming to DC in the first place. Meet people, get good ideas, build collaboration.
Today's lunch was a general session dedicated to recognizing corporations for the good work they do to support volunteerism and service. The featured speaker was David Lauren, Sr. Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications for Polo Ralph Lauren. While we expected another corporate self promotion, this was the real deal. I urge you all to visit www.polojeans.com and learn about The G.I.V.E. Jean. Yesterday Jon Bon Jovi said he wanted to make volunteerism hip. Polo Ralph Lauren is putting this vision into action.
I networked with a variety of other corporate and volunteerism leaders this afternoon, but the focus of all of my efforts were to show people how they could use the good ideas they learned from the companies like Polo Ralph Lauren, to motivate businesses in their own communities to duplicate these ideas in support of local charities. Buy G.I.V.E Jeans this fall and you'll send a convincing message to other companies that marketing volunteerism is good for the community, and good for the company.
In a few days I'll add links at www.tutormentorexchange.net to the various companies who received awards this week so that these can be used as models in local corporate involvement campaigns. If you know of other companies that are as innovative as Polo, send details and a web site to me or tell me by posting a comment on this blog.
I'll be back in Chicago late tomorrow where I'll also be trying to use these good ideas to create greater support for tutor/mentor programs and other volunteer-based charities in Illinois.
My first session was a briefing on goals by David Eisner, CEO for the Corporation for National Service (CNS) and Bob Goodwin, CEO and President, Points of Light Foundation.
Eisner talked about a new 5 year strategic plan for CNS and Goodwin outlined the key focus areas of Points of Light. These were a) build public awareness of the benefits of service; b) help build infrastructure through which service is delivered; c) collect and share knowledge about what works. These points resonated with me. Maybe its because they are the same goals we have for strengthening volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs.
This was a pretty open session and many participants were able to make comments or ask questions. When it came my turn, I asked when they would host versions of this type of CEO interaction on the Internet where more people could ask questions and interaction one on one with the leader of the organization, or with each other.
It's not in the pipeline yet, but my question prompted one of the other participants to say "lets talk". This turned out to be Billy Bicket from www.techsoup.org. We spent more than an hour exchanging ideas, with lots of scribbled designs on paper and a commitment to look for ways where our organizations might collaborate.
That was my goal in coming to DC in the first place. Meet people, get good ideas, build collaboration.
Today's lunch was a general session dedicated to recognizing corporations for the good work they do to support volunteerism and service. The featured speaker was David Lauren, Sr. Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications for Polo Ralph Lauren. While we expected another corporate self promotion, this was the real deal. I urge you all to visit www.polojeans.com and learn about The G.I.V.E. Jean. Yesterday Jon Bon Jovi said he wanted to make volunteerism hip. Polo Ralph Lauren is putting this vision into action.
I networked with a variety of other corporate and volunteerism leaders this afternoon, but the focus of all of my efforts were to show people how they could use the good ideas they learned from the companies like Polo Ralph Lauren, to motivate businesses in their own communities to duplicate these ideas in support of local charities. Buy G.I.V.E Jeans this fall and you'll send a convincing message to other companies that marketing volunteerism is good for the community, and good for the company.
In a few days I'll add links at www.tutormentorexchange.net to the various companies who received awards this week so that these can be used as models in local corporate involvement campaigns. If you know of other companies that are as innovative as Polo, send details and a web site to me or tell me by posting a comment on this blog.
I'll be back in Chicago late tomorrow where I'll also be trying to use these good ideas to create greater support for tutor/mentor programs and other volunteer-based charities in Illinois.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"If you keep doing what you do, you keep getting what you got." Robert Woodson, Sr.
Today was the official opening of the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service and the kick off featured a string of high profile people, including the rock star, Jon Bon Jovi. To me the highlight was the speech by Robert Woodson, Sr, who is founder and president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (NCNE) https://nationalcne.org/
Woodson's speech was introduced by a young man who had his life turn around thanks to Bob Woodson. The young man said "He was sent to me from Heaven. What I owe him is for me to stay on the straight and narrow path."
Mr. Woodson's speech lived up to this introduction and if any reader ever gets a chance to hear him, take the opportunity. Woodson started off saying, "Those of us in the trenches fighting forces of evil have made a public commitment. We do not serve youth out of compassion, but of Godly obligation." That's a powerful statement.
He went on to say "Give me strength to tell and pursue the truth, even when it is inconvenient to me." Then he said, "Self examination and self-criticism is the highest form of maturity."
All of this was meant to challenge us to search our soul for why we do what we do, and to not be settled for the easy solution. I find that the biggest obstacle I face in approaching businesses, universities and foundations is that they are so invested in what they are already doing that they are not sitting back to see if that is enough, or if that is all they could be doing.
Mr. Woodson's speech was preceded by comments by Anthony Williams, Mayor of Washington, DC, Marsha Bullard, CEO of USA Weekend Magazine and Cokie Roberts of ABC NEWS and NPR. Ms. Roberts said "business is making volunteerism a "core business function". While that may be true, I'm not sure if business is maximizing the impact of volunteers. One of the later workshops talked about "talent recruitment", which meant searching beyond one-on-one volunteers for talented people in a company who can perform many important roles in a volunteer organization.
The final remarks were from Jon Bon Jovi, who seeks to "give back to people who have given so much to him". Bon Jovi wants to make volunteerism 'hip'. He said "I want volunteerism to be the new 'black'"
Later in the day I attended two workshops. One focused on recruiting volunteers for more roles than direct service with kids. This was a valuable workshop because it highlighted an important marketing issue. Most ad campaigns like national mentoring month, or the America's Promise campaigns focus on the act of mentoring a kid. I've felt for a long time that this gave the volunteer an 'all or nothing' proposition. For those who could not mentor, there were no other options. This workshop confirmed that and said that companies and non profits should target talented volunteers who can serve other roles. Imagine if in stead of "Who mentored You" the slogan for the 2006 National Mentoring Month Campaign was "who built your web site?"
I ended the day by visiting the trade fair. I ran into four people who I'd gotten to know over the internet and met for the first time today. Two were with Business Strengthening America, one was Adam Aberman of www.icouldbe.org, and one was Kristi Zappie-Ferradino of the National Mentoring Partnership. It was electric when I introduced myself to each of these people and they recognized me as someone they had come to know via internet conversations.
Hopefully some of the people I met will continue to connect with me and others in internet forums that bring us back together in the next few weeks and months. If that happens we'll be more likely to put the commitment of a Robert Woodson to work in more places.
See you tomorrow.
Woodson's speech was introduced by a young man who had his life turn around thanks to Bob Woodson. The young man said "He was sent to me from Heaven. What I owe him is for me to stay on the straight and narrow path."
Mr. Woodson's speech lived up to this introduction and if any reader ever gets a chance to hear him, take the opportunity. Woodson started off saying, "Those of us in the trenches fighting forces of evil have made a public commitment. We do not serve youth out of compassion, but of Godly obligation." That's a powerful statement.
He went on to say "Give me strength to tell and pursue the truth, even when it is inconvenient to me." Then he said, "Self examination and self-criticism is the highest form of maturity."
All of this was meant to challenge us to search our soul for why we do what we do, and to not be settled for the easy solution. I find that the biggest obstacle I face in approaching businesses, universities and foundations is that they are so invested in what they are already doing that they are not sitting back to see if that is enough, or if that is all they could be doing.
Mr. Woodson's speech was preceded by comments by Anthony Williams, Mayor of Washington, DC, Marsha Bullard, CEO of USA Weekend Magazine and Cokie Roberts of ABC NEWS and NPR. Ms. Roberts said "business is making volunteerism a "core business function". While that may be true, I'm not sure if business is maximizing the impact of volunteers. One of the later workshops talked about "talent recruitment", which meant searching beyond one-on-one volunteers for talented people in a company who can perform many important roles in a volunteer organization.
The final remarks were from Jon Bon Jovi, who seeks to "give back to people who have given so much to him". Bon Jovi wants to make volunteerism 'hip'. He said "I want volunteerism to be the new 'black'"
Later in the day I attended two workshops. One focused on recruiting volunteers for more roles than direct service with kids. This was a valuable workshop because it highlighted an important marketing issue. Most ad campaigns like national mentoring month, or the America's Promise campaigns focus on the act of mentoring a kid. I've felt for a long time that this gave the volunteer an 'all or nothing' proposition. For those who could not mentor, there were no other options. This workshop confirmed that and said that companies and non profits should target talented volunteers who can serve other roles. Imagine if in stead of "Who mentored You" the slogan for the 2006 National Mentoring Month Campaign was "who built your web site?"
I ended the day by visiting the trade fair. I ran into four people who I'd gotten to know over the internet and met for the first time today. Two were with Business Strengthening America, one was Adam Aberman of www.icouldbe.org, and one was Kristi Zappie-Ferradino of the National Mentoring Partnership. It was electric when I introduced myself to each of these people and they recognized me as someone they had come to know via internet conversations.
Hopefully some of the people I met will continue to connect with me and others in internet forums that bring us back together in the next few weeks and months. If that happens we'll be more likely to put the commitment of a Robert Woodson to work in more places.
See you tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Tribute to Harris Wofford; First Day of National Conference on Volunteerism
I'm posting this message from Washington, DC where the National Conference on Volunteerism and Community Service is being held. I'm a Commissioner for the Illinois Commission and was able to get a scholarship to attend.
Tonight was a dinner sponsored by the America's Service Commissions. I sat at a table with representatives from Ford Motor Co., America's Promise, and leaders of the Ohio, Michigan and California Commissions. I think a leader from Campfire Girls and City Year was also at our table.
The event honored the lifetime leadership of Harris Wofford. There were too many good things said about his lifetime of service and commitment to volunteerism, but here were a few:
David Eisner, CEO for Corporation for Volunteerism and Community Service, reads some quotes that originated with Senator Wofford.
- What mattered most were his actions. The way he turned words into deeds."
- We can solve our most serious problems by working together"
- Someone called Harris "GUMP" because he was in the middle of so many important things
Rober Goodwin, CEO Points of Light said of Harris, "he's always drinking in knowledge and always sharing what he knows"
Melinda Hudson of America's Promise read a list of five challenges attributed to Harris' vision about a person's potential to change his/her community
- be about something bigger than yourself
- never stop asking questions; be creative and curious
- collaborate, synthesize; never go alone (down with turf, up with e pluribus unium)
- never give up on the dream
- it is up to us
Harris Wofford spoke after all of these tributes and started his comments with
"this reminds me of the story about Mrs. Astor on the Titanic. Her last words as an iceberg crusher her cabin were, "I asked for ice water, but this is ridiculous."
He finished with this thought: "When I wake up every morning I have to decide if this is a day I want to save the world, or a day I want to enjoy it."
That's a good thought to go to bed on. Tomorrow will be a full day of networking with volunteers from throughout the country.
Tonight was a dinner sponsored by the America's Service Commissions. I sat at a table with representatives from Ford Motor Co., America's Promise, and leaders of the Ohio, Michigan and California Commissions. I think a leader from Campfire Girls and City Year was also at our table.
The event honored the lifetime leadership of Harris Wofford. There were too many good things said about his lifetime of service and commitment to volunteerism, but here were a few:
David Eisner, CEO for Corporation for Volunteerism and Community Service, reads some quotes that originated with Senator Wofford.
- What mattered most were his actions. The way he turned words into deeds."
- We can solve our most serious problems by working together"
- Someone called Harris "GUMP" because he was in the middle of so many important things
Rober Goodwin, CEO Points of Light said of Harris, "he's always drinking in knowledge and always sharing what he knows"
Melinda Hudson of America's Promise read a list of five challenges attributed to Harris' vision about a person's potential to change his/her community
- be about something bigger than yourself
- never stop asking questions; be creative and curious
- collaborate, synthesize; never go alone (down with turf, up with e pluribus unium)
- never give up on the dream
- it is up to us
Harris Wofford spoke after all of these tributes and started his comments with
"this reminds me of the story about Mrs. Astor on the Titanic. Her last words as an iceberg crusher her cabin were, "I asked for ice water, but this is ridiculous."
He finished with this thought: "When I wake up every morning I have to decide if this is a day I want to save the world, or a day I want to enjoy it."
That's a good thought to go to bed on. Tomorrow will be a full day of networking with volunteers from throughout the country.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
A tutor/mentor program is a place where idealism meets reality. Day 2 at o-net.
I was only able to attend the O-net conference for half a day Saturday. However, I read through all of the summary reports and blogs this morning. I hosted a conversation on Saturday, focused on creating a group of active o-net members who work to draw people from universities into o-net conversations, with the goal of recruiting resources to support o-net projects.
As I said after Friday's day-long session, I'm really impressed with the talent of the people who are participating in the conference, and who have posted introductions at www.omidyar.net. One person I talked to yesterday was a PhD student at Purdue, who is organizing information intended to be used to help connect people doing good work with resource providers. Another person was a technologist who had great ideas of creating alternative currencies that would encourage people to share talent with each other. A third was a women with an idea of creating visual databases to map assets.
I was really inspired by the Peace Tiles project. I hope we can duplicate this in Chicago tutor/mentor programs and connect our kids with kids in African and on other continents.
When I read one of the blogs, one person was questioning whether or not O-net was just a lot of talk, or if it was stimulating action (providing resources for O-net members to do their various projects). I'm hoping that my participation accelerates the rate at which people help each other, or draw new resources into o-net that end up helping members of the community do their work.
However, until this happens it is idealism within a world where the daily papers remind us of reality. A few weeks ago I did a Mind Map of the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Today I did another. I found a really great story written by Mary Schmich, one of my favorite writers, telling how people had responded to an earlier story about a computer center in Cabrini-Green being flooded, with all computers destroyed. Because of her first story, people provided new computers, and everything else needed to get this site up and running again. That demonstrates the power of the media.
However, in the same section of the Tribune Metro section was a story about a boy being fatally shot at a playground on the far South side of Chicago. There was another story on the same page about a Muslim teen center re opening, after being closed since 2003. These neighborhoods don't have a feature writer of the Chicago Tribune, or SunTimes, writing regular stories about life in these neighborhoods. Most of the times they get in the news is when something bad happens.
My mind map linked these stories. Every time I read a story about Cabrini-Green, written by Mary Schmich, I just wish she'd end with "and this is just one neighborhood of Chicago where kids live in poverty and need extra help with volunteers, donors, technologist, etc." (and provide a link to web sites that people could use to learn about other places where volunteers, donors and technology are needed).
If she and other reporters were doing this regularly, maybe people would have been helping the Muslim teen center get computers, and maybe the boy shot on a playground (or the shooter) would have been inside sitting at a computer rather than out on the street where something terrible happened.
When I sit with my friends at O-net and talk about ideas, it is with an urgency of putting these ideas to work to help more kids in cities like Chicago have safe places where they can gather to learn, be mentored, have access to computers and the world around them. The reality is that while we talk of great ideas, we are losing kids to the streets and to poverty.
Maybe I cannot convince the media to consistently tell the rest of the story when they write their stories about individual tragedies or triumphs, but maybe I can enlist a few technologist at O-Net to help me create a map gallery that would show where negative news happens and where volunteers and donors are needed. If hundreds of friends at communities like o-net were to take on the same goal, we might create a much larger public involvement and flow of resources to every place in the world where good people are trying to do good work to help people who need extra help.
What about you? Can you help?
As I said after Friday's day-long session, I'm really impressed with the talent of the people who are participating in the conference, and who have posted introductions at www.omidyar.net. One person I talked to yesterday was a PhD student at Purdue, who is organizing information intended to be used to help connect people doing good work with resource providers. Another person was a technologist who had great ideas of creating alternative currencies that would encourage people to share talent with each other. A third was a women with an idea of creating visual databases to map assets.
I was really inspired by the Peace Tiles project. I hope we can duplicate this in Chicago tutor/mentor programs and connect our kids with kids in African and on other continents.
When I read one of the blogs, one person was questioning whether or not O-net was just a lot of talk, or if it was stimulating action (providing resources for O-net members to do their various projects). I'm hoping that my participation accelerates the rate at which people help each other, or draw new resources into o-net that end up helping members of the community do their work.
However, until this happens it is idealism within a world where the daily papers remind us of reality. A few weeks ago I did a Mind Map of the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Today I did another. I found a really great story written by Mary Schmich, one of my favorite writers, telling how people had responded to an earlier story about a computer center in Cabrini-Green being flooded, with all computers destroyed. Because of her first story, people provided new computers, and everything else needed to get this site up and running again. That demonstrates the power of the media.
However, in the same section of the Tribune Metro section was a story about a boy being fatally shot at a playground on the far South side of Chicago. There was another story on the same page about a Muslim teen center re opening, after being closed since 2003. These neighborhoods don't have a feature writer of the Chicago Tribune, or SunTimes, writing regular stories about life in these neighborhoods. Most of the times they get in the news is when something bad happens.
My mind map linked these stories. Every time I read a story about Cabrini-Green, written by Mary Schmich, I just wish she'd end with "and this is just one neighborhood of Chicago where kids live in poverty and need extra help with volunteers, donors, technologist, etc." (and provide a link to web sites that people could use to learn about other places where volunteers, donors and technology are needed).
If she and other reporters were doing this regularly, maybe people would have been helping the Muslim teen center get computers, and maybe the boy shot on a playground (or the shooter) would have been inside sitting at a computer rather than out on the street where something terrible happened.
When I sit with my friends at O-net and talk about ideas, it is with an urgency of putting these ideas to work to help more kids in cities like Chicago have safe places where they can gather to learn, be mentored, have access to computers and the world around them. The reality is that while we talk of great ideas, we are losing kids to the streets and to poverty.
Maybe I cannot convince the media to consistently tell the rest of the story when they write their stories about individual tragedies or triumphs, but maybe I can enlist a few technologist at O-Net to help me create a map gallery that would show where negative news happens and where volunteers and donors are needed. If hundreds of friends at communities like o-net were to take on the same goal, we might create a much larger public involvement and flow of resources to every place in the world where good people are trying to do good work to help people who need extra help.
What about you? Can you help?
Friday, July 29, 2005
O-Net Conference in Chicago, day 1
I attended the O-Net conference in Chicago (Oak Park) today. More than 20 people from different parts of the world gathered to brainstorm ideas on how we might work together to make this a better world.
The wonderful thing about this is that up till today, most of the people had never met face to face. They had met in the www.omidyar.net portal. The conference was the result of the efforts of just a few people who said, "let's get together" and who then used the o-net space to plan the entire event, even raising nearly $4,000 to provide scholarships so that seven people could attend, from as far away as Germany!
I met many people who shared exciting ideas and who may someday be partners with the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I even met one person who had come to a Tutor/Mentor Conference many years before. The conference will continue tomorrow, and hopefully on the Internet after that.
I hope that tutor/mentor stakeholders participate, and that some begin to use the new www.tutormentorconnection.org portal as a meeting space where some of them can launch actions that lead to more people coming together to help each other do good.
Thanks gang.
The wonderful thing about this is that up till today, most of the people had never met face to face. They had met in the www.omidyar.net portal. The conference was the result of the efforts of just a few people who said, "let's get together" and who then used the o-net space to plan the entire event, even raising nearly $4,000 to provide scholarships so that seven people could attend, from as far away as Germany!
I met many people who shared exciting ideas and who may someday be partners with the Tutor/Mentor Connection. I even met one person who had come to a Tutor/Mentor Conference many years before. The conference will continue tomorrow, and hopefully on the Internet after that.
I hope that tutor/mentor stakeholders participate, and that some begin to use the new www.tutormentorconnection.org portal as a meeting space where some of them can launch actions that lead to more people coming together to help each other do good.
Thanks gang.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Making connections
Today was a busy day. I hosted a visitor from a mentor program in the UK, who was in Chicago on a Winston Churchill Fellowship. I attended the MY HERO AWARD lunch hosted by the Abraham Lincoln Marovitz Lend-A-Hand Program of the Chicago Bar Association. This recognizes lawyers, judges and law firms for their involvement in tutor/mentor programs. It as are love-fest for Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, the inspiration behind the Lend A Hand, and for mentoring as an activities that enriches all who participate.
Then I met with a guest from Northwestern University who was learning more about volunteer based tutoring. On the Internet if responded to people from Seattle and Kentucky who had contacted me after I was quoted in a news article about youth using the Internet.
These are all connections intended to increase the number of comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.
Tomorrow I'll be attending the Omidyar.net conference in Chicago and next Thursday and Friday I'll attend the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service in Washington, DC.
My goal from all of these is to find people who'll work together to increase the flow of volunteers and flexible operating dollars to all of the tutor/mentor programs that are now operating in different parts of Chicago, and to groupw who want to start new programs to fill voids where there are no programs.
The Lend A Hand Lunch is an example of how an industry can begin to draw the attention of its members to tutoring/mentoring. The Lend A Hand not only raises visibility. It raises dollars. If such programs duplicate in every industry, and in every major cities, it can lead to a distribution of volunteers from different backgrounds into tutor/mentor programs in every poverty neighborhood, and a flow of resources so that experienced staff is in place to mentor students and volunteers to build long-term, life changing relationships.
I'll post my results, and my observations over the next few days.
Then I met with a guest from Northwestern University who was learning more about volunteer based tutoring. On the Internet if responded to people from Seattle and Kentucky who had contacted me after I was quoted in a news article about youth using the Internet.
These are all connections intended to increase the number of comprehensive volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities.
Tomorrow I'll be attending the Omidyar.net conference in Chicago and next Thursday and Friday I'll attend the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service in Washington, DC.
My goal from all of these is to find people who'll work together to increase the flow of volunteers and flexible operating dollars to all of the tutor/mentor programs that are now operating in different parts of Chicago, and to groupw who want to start new programs to fill voids where there are no programs.
The Lend A Hand Lunch is an example of how an industry can begin to draw the attention of its members to tutoring/mentoring. The Lend A Hand not only raises visibility. It raises dollars. If such programs duplicate in every industry, and in every major cities, it can lead to a distribution of volunteers from different backgrounds into tutor/mentor programs in every poverty neighborhood, and a flow of resources so that experienced staff is in place to mentor students and volunteers to build long-term, life changing relationships.
I'll post my results, and my observations over the next few days.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
No Child Left Behind, what's missing?
It's not too early for American's to be thinking of the 2005-06 school year and efforts that need to be taken to help more kids get the help they need to succeed in school and move on to the next level.
The big attention-getter in inner-city education is the No Child Left Behind law. It's causing schools to set aside money for private tutoring services to provide extra tutoring to kids attending poorly performing schools.
On the surface, this sounds great. But something's missing.
What's missing is a strategy to engage adults beyond the poverty belt in the work of raising kids and preparing them for careers.
There are more than 135,000 school age kids in Chicago who qualify for supplemental tutoring. I'm sure that other big cities have similar numbers. While the number of children receiving these services is growing, it's still far short of where it needs to be, and the quality of the tutoring is suspect in many cases.
However, I'm not here to debate the quality or usefulness of the Supplemental Tutoring Services. My point is that this is not enough.
Supplemental tutoring only focuses on academics. It does not focus on social, emotional, civic engagement, or aspirations or enrichment. It's not a vocational education program aimed to keep teens in school and headed to jobs.
Kids living in areas of high poverty come to school with far fewer learning experiences than do other kids because their families and neighborhoods don't have a wide range of people working in different jobs and careers. Instead, they have a greater number of adults who model illegal work, are ex-convicts, or on welfare. Instead of a network of adults helping kids move to legal careers, just the opposite exists in too many poverty neighborhoods.
Supplemental tutoring does not increase the diversity of adults, or of experiences, available to inner city kids. Thus, volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs that connect youth with volunteers from many work backgrounds, and/or connect kids with arts, technology, literacy, college & career readiness, travel, etc., all offer additional supports that cannot be provided by the neighborhood or the family. In many of these programs kids and adults stay connected for many years. This seldom happens with Supplemental Services or paid tutoring services.
If we accept the value of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, then the next concern should be the availability of such programs for kids of every age group, in every poverty neighborhood. At www.tutormentorexchange.net is a Program Locator that you can search by zip code and age group to determine if tutor/mentor programs are available in a neighborhood of Chicago. In too many cases there are few programs, or the programs that exist only serve small numbers, or are limited in scope.
There's not enough programs.
So, let's go back to the No Child Left Behind law. By only engaging a para-professional tutor to be an additional adult in the life of a child, the system is not strategically trying to expand the resources available by attracting and educating adults from beyond the poverty belt who could be a growing army of tutors/mentors, leaders and advocates. It is not creating a bridge between the workforce and diversity needs of American industry and the kids who need consistent, on-going, long-term help to get to careers.
On July 28th the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association (http://www.lend-a-hand.net) will host a MY HERO Awards event to recognize lawyers, judges and law firms who have become involved in tutor/mentor programs. This is an example of a capacity-expanding event. As lawyers get involved with tutor/mentor programs they are beginning to work collectively to raise new, private-sector money, that can sustain existing programs and help fund new programs.
This is what's missing in the No Child Left Behind Strategy. Their is no attempt to build a bridge between non-poverty and poverty. Their is no recognition that we need to be tutoring and mentoring adults, so they do more of what they need to be doing to make sure every child born in poverty is starting a job/career by age 25. Unless we expand capacity, we don't expand or sustain services.
It's not to late to take action to change this. Anyone can become a foot-soldier to help mobilize more people to be part of tutor/mentor programs as school starts in six to eight weeks. If you'd like help, visit http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and join in the on-line discussion forums.
What's missing does not need to stay missing. It's up to us.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
The big attention-getter in inner-city education is the No Child Left Behind law. It's causing schools to set aside money for private tutoring services to provide extra tutoring to kids attending poorly performing schools.
On the surface, this sounds great. But something's missing.
What's missing is a strategy to engage adults beyond the poverty belt in the work of raising kids and preparing them for careers.
There are more than 135,000 school age kids in Chicago who qualify for supplemental tutoring. I'm sure that other big cities have similar numbers. While the number of children receiving these services is growing, it's still far short of where it needs to be, and the quality of the tutoring is suspect in many cases.
However, I'm not here to debate the quality or usefulness of the Supplemental Tutoring Services. My point is that this is not enough.
Supplemental tutoring only focuses on academics. It does not focus on social, emotional, civic engagement, or aspirations or enrichment. It's not a vocational education program aimed to keep teens in school and headed to jobs.
Kids living in areas of high poverty come to school with far fewer learning experiences than do other kids because their families and neighborhoods don't have a wide range of people working in different jobs and careers. Instead, they have a greater number of adults who model illegal work, are ex-convicts, or on welfare. Instead of a network of adults helping kids move to legal careers, just the opposite exists in too many poverty neighborhoods.
Supplemental tutoring does not increase the diversity of adults, or of experiences, available to inner city kids. Thus, volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring programs that connect youth with volunteers from many work backgrounds, and/or connect kids with arts, technology, literacy, college & career readiness, travel, etc., all offer additional supports that cannot be provided by the neighborhood or the family. In many of these programs kids and adults stay connected for many years. This seldom happens with Supplemental Services or paid tutoring services.
If we accept the value of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs, then the next concern should be the availability of such programs for kids of every age group, in every poverty neighborhood. At www.tutormentorexchange.net is a Program Locator that you can search by zip code and age group to determine if tutor/mentor programs are available in a neighborhood of Chicago. In too many cases there are few programs, or the programs that exist only serve small numbers, or are limited in scope.
There's not enough programs.
So, let's go back to the No Child Left Behind law. By only engaging a para-professional tutor to be an additional adult in the life of a child, the system is not strategically trying to expand the resources available by attracting and educating adults from beyond the poverty belt who could be a growing army of tutors/mentors, leaders and advocates. It is not creating a bridge between the workforce and diversity needs of American industry and the kids who need consistent, on-going, long-term help to get to careers.
On July 28th the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association (http://www.lend-a-hand.net) will host a MY HERO Awards event to recognize lawyers, judges and law firms who have become involved in tutor/mentor programs. This is an example of a capacity-expanding event. As lawyers get involved with tutor/mentor programs they are beginning to work collectively to raise new, private-sector money, that can sustain existing programs and help fund new programs.
This is what's missing in the No Child Left Behind Strategy. Their is no attempt to build a bridge between non-poverty and poverty. Their is no recognition that we need to be tutoring and mentoring adults, so they do more of what they need to be doing to make sure every child born in poverty is starting a job/career by age 25. Unless we expand capacity, we don't expand or sustain services.
It's not to late to take action to change this. Anyone can become a foot-soldier to help mobilize more people to be part of tutor/mentor programs as school starts in six to eight weeks. If you'd like help, visit http://www.tutormentorconnection.org and join in the on-line discussion forums.
What's missing does not need to stay missing. It's up to us.
Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Imagine the benefit if business was competing to see who could do the most good for inner city kids and familes.
Yesterday morning (July 5th) I opened a letter from the leader of a program in Lawndale, titled Young Men's Educational Network. His first paragraph said, "It is getting HOT here in Lawndale. And not just the temperature!Yesterday, one young many was killed, and another boy was critically shot. It seems that the heat of summer is often accompanied with increased violence. He went on to say, "I must admit, I don't look forward to summers here in Chicago! Many of the young men in YMEN share my feeling. They don't mind the time off of school, but they understand how easy it is to get into trouble when you have so much empty time on your hands."
Shortly after reading this a teen in the Cabrini Connections program came to the T/MC center and told us that a student who had been part of Cabrini Connections during the 2002 and 2003 school years had been shot in Cabrini-Green.
Thus, I share the feelings of my friend who leads the program in Lawndale. He could have been speaking about any inner-city neighborhood, in Chicago, or New York, Detroit, Dallas, LA. The details would be different. The problem would be the same.
However, this is a year-round problem, not just a summer problem. Tribune articles this past week have reinforced the link between poverty and poorly performing schools. They say that low income kids who are part of schools where most kids are not living in poverty get better grades than the same kids attending high poverty schools. While it would be ideal to think that all 200,000 school age kids in Chicago who live in concentrated poverty could be bussed to some suburban school with open space, it's not realistic. Let's instead talk of ways to make schools in high poverty neighborhoods better. Let's talk about providing alternatives to gangs and street violence.
The Cabrini Connections teen who was shot in Cabrini-Green was Devon Otis. He was with us during his 7th and 8th grade years. We don't know why he stopped coming. He was here more than 83% of the time during his second year. I do wonder if we could have done more to keep him involved with Cabrini Connections. It frustrates me not to havethe resources to do more of the things I know need to be part of the services we offer.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I looked in the news and metro and obituary sections of the two major Chicago papers (Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes) for information about Devon's shooting. Sometimes the papers turn stories like this into headlines, and follow with editorials that shout "Do Something!" Most times a shooting in Chicago gets a small paragraph in the Metro section. For the past two days I found no mention of this shooting.
Maybe the local news media think their readers would rather read about American's being killed in Iraq instead of in American cities. Maybe they don't want to scare the people buying high priced condos near Cabrini Green. Maybe there's just too much of this to report every death with a profile like the ones of soldiers killed in action. If not enough people care about what's going on in our cities, maybe some day they will be breeding grounds for future terrorist. Instead of killing each other.... I hope not. That's why we work so hard to make volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available in inner city neighborhoods.
Programs like Cabrini Connections can expand the network of mentors and learning experiences available to inner-city youth during the non-school hours. But they cannot do this with the type of inconsistent support thatmost of them receive from various funding sources.
This is why I'm proud to have been a partner in the growth of the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association since 1994. The CBA is raising visibility and recruiting volunteers and donors to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region. They don't pick just one program, like some business and professional associations do. They use the T/MC database and maps as a guide for providing support into all neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed.
If we can encourage accountants, engineers, alumni, civic and social groupsto take on the same mission, we can dramatically increase funding for tutor/mentor programs and that will improve the consistency and quality of staffing and services.
The only way this vision will be a reality is that volunteers who are connected with inner city kids, and who are accountants, engineers, lawyers, and members of alumni associations from various colleges, go back to their networks and say "We've got to do something more than what we're already doing."
The purpose of this Blog is to reach out to people who are tutors, mentors, board members in tutor/mentor programs all over the country. We're using our web sites as a meeting place where you can talk about your involvement in a tutor/mentor program, and you can brainstorm ways to make tutor/mentor programs more effective, and more available.
Where can you find more information? Where can you talk about this with peers from Chicago or from other cities? Visit the new T/MC web site, that has been created for us by IUPUI. By mid August this will replace the content at the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site.
Anyone who reads this blog can forward it to people they know who are already involved with tutoring and/or mentoring programs. The links have examples of what some business and professional groups are doing. If more people use the web site, we'll gather additional examples. Then as we point business and professional people to web sites that show what competitors are doing, maybe we'll spark a competitive interest that will encourage others to duplicate the best work being done by others. Imagine the benefit if business was competing to see who could do the most good for inner city kids and families.
When I come to work each morning, I have an "If it is to be, it is up to me" attitude.
I invite you all to take that same ownership approach to making comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs more available to more kids in Chicago and in other major cities.
Daniel F. Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Shortly after reading this a teen in the Cabrini Connections program came to the T/MC center and told us that a student who had been part of Cabrini Connections during the 2002 and 2003 school years had been shot in Cabrini-Green.
Thus, I share the feelings of my friend who leads the program in Lawndale. He could have been speaking about any inner-city neighborhood, in Chicago, or New York, Detroit, Dallas, LA. The details would be different. The problem would be the same.
However, this is a year-round problem, not just a summer problem. Tribune articles this past week have reinforced the link between poverty and poorly performing schools. They say that low income kids who are part of schools where most kids are not living in poverty get better grades than the same kids attending high poverty schools. While it would be ideal to think that all 200,000 school age kids in Chicago who live in concentrated poverty could be bussed to some suburban school with open space, it's not realistic. Let's instead talk of ways to make schools in high poverty neighborhoods better. Let's talk about providing alternatives to gangs and street violence.
The Cabrini Connections teen who was shot in Cabrini-Green was Devon Otis. He was with us during his 7th and 8th grade years. We don't know why he stopped coming. He was here more than 83% of the time during his second year. I do wonder if we could have done more to keep him involved with Cabrini Connections. It frustrates me not to havethe resources to do more of the things I know need to be part of the services we offer.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I looked in the news and metro and obituary sections of the two major Chicago papers (Chicago Tribune and Chicago SunTimes) for information about Devon's shooting. Sometimes the papers turn stories like this into headlines, and follow with editorials that shout "Do Something!" Most times a shooting in Chicago gets a small paragraph in the Metro section. For the past two days I found no mention of this shooting.
Maybe the local news media think their readers would rather read about American's being killed in Iraq instead of in American cities. Maybe they don't want to scare the people buying high priced condos near Cabrini Green. Maybe there's just too much of this to report every death with a profile like the ones of soldiers killed in action. If not enough people care about what's going on in our cities, maybe some day they will be breeding grounds for future terrorist. Instead of killing each other.... I hope not. That's why we work so hard to make volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs available in inner city neighborhoods.
Programs like Cabrini Connections can expand the network of mentors and learning experiences available to inner-city youth during the non-school hours. But they cannot do this with the type of inconsistent support thatmost of them receive from various funding sources.
This is why I'm proud to have been a partner in the growth of the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association since 1994. The CBA is raising visibility and recruiting volunteers and donors to support volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs throughout the Chicago region. They don't pick just one program, like some business and professional associations do. They use the T/MC database and maps as a guide for providing support into all neighborhoods where tutor/mentor programs are needed.
If we can encourage accountants, engineers, alumni, civic and social groupsto take on the same mission, we can dramatically increase funding for tutor/mentor programs and that will improve the consistency and quality of staffing and services.
The only way this vision will be a reality is that volunteers who are connected with inner city kids, and who are accountants, engineers, lawyers, and members of alumni associations from various colleges, go back to their networks and say "We've got to do something more than what we're already doing."
The purpose of this Blog is to reach out to people who are tutors, mentors, board members in tutor/mentor programs all over the country. We're using our web sites as a meeting place where you can talk about your involvement in a tutor/mentor program, and you can brainstorm ways to make tutor/mentor programs more effective, and more available.
Where can you find more information? Where can you talk about this with peers from Chicago or from other cities? Visit the new T/MC web site, that has been created for us by IUPUI. By mid August this will replace the content at the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org site.
Anyone who reads this blog can forward it to people they know who are already involved with tutoring and/or mentoring programs. The links have examples of what some business and professional groups are doing. If more people use the web site, we'll gather additional examples. Then as we point business and professional people to web sites that show what competitors are doing, maybe we'll spark a competitive interest that will encourage others to duplicate the best work being done by others. Imagine the benefit if business was competing to see who could do the most good for inner city kids and families.
When I come to work each morning, I have an "If it is to be, it is up to me" attitude.
I invite you all to take that same ownership approach to making comprehensive, volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs more available to more kids in Chicago and in other major cities.
Daniel F. Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Friday, July 01, 2005
An Urgent Call to Action
As we celebrate freedom this weekend and honor the men and women fighting overseas, I hope we'll also honor those who are fighting poverty and terror in America's inner-city neighborhoods.
Below I've posted the first two paragraphs from a call to action article on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site. They state this call to action better than I can.
I hope that after you read this you'll use the links at the left as a path to your own growing involvement in this war on terrorism.
----------------------------------------------------------
This Nation must take immediate and decisive action to intervene in the problem of juvenile violence that threatens the safety and security of communities -- and the future of our children -- across the country. Demographic experts predict that juvenile arrests for violent crimes will more than double by the year 2010,1 given population growth projections and trends in juvenile arrests over the past several decades.
There is, however, reason for hope. Juvenile violent crime arrests are increasing, but only a fraction of youth (one-half of 1 percent) is arrested for violent crimes each year. We can interrupt this escalation of violence based on identified positive and negative characteristics -- protective and risk factors -- that are present or lacking in communities, families, schools, peer groups, and individuals. These factors either equip a child with the capacity to become a healthy, productive individual or expose that child to potential involvement in crime and violence. Of equal importance, communities are learning that they can make dramatic changes in delinquency levels by taking steps that successfully reduce the risk factors and strengthen the protective factors in children's lives.
Read the rest of this appeal at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/action/urgent.htm
Below I've posted the first two paragraphs from a call to action article on the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site. They state this call to action better than I can.
I hope that after you read this you'll use the links at the left as a path to your own growing involvement in this war on terrorism.
----------------------------------------------------------
This Nation must take immediate and decisive action to intervene in the problem of juvenile violence that threatens the safety and security of communities -- and the future of our children -- across the country. Demographic experts predict that juvenile arrests for violent crimes will more than double by the year 2010,1 given population growth projections and trends in juvenile arrests over the past several decades.
There is, however, reason for hope. Juvenile violent crime arrests are increasing, but only a fraction of youth (one-half of 1 percent) is arrested for violent crimes each year. We can interrupt this escalation of violence based on identified positive and negative characteristics -- protective and risk factors -- that are present or lacking in communities, families, schools, peer groups, and individuals. These factors either equip a child with the capacity to become a healthy, productive individual or expose that child to potential involvement in crime and violence. Of equal importance, communities are learning that they can make dramatic changes in delinquency levels by taking steps that successfully reduce the risk factors and strengthen the protective factors in children's lives.
Read the rest of this appeal at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/action/urgent.htm
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