Pew economic mobility study

The Pew Charitable Trusts study on the impact of neighborhoods on economic mobility gives some credence to a point I’ve tried to make to local political and education leaders for some time now. Until we fix our neighborhoods, we will not close our achievement, income and health gaps in this country. Instead of blindly pouring more money into schools and prisons, we have to fix our neighborhoods. Children growing up in poor neighborhoods are difficult to educate, even with the best teachers. The stress of poverty on their families can be daunting. The debilitating effects apparently linger into adulthood.

America needs loans on Main Street, not Wall Street

One of the most effective means of dealing with the current downturn and frequent economic gaps would be for those billionaires investing in Wall Street to start making more investments on Main Street. Many could be pulled from the ranks of the unemployed, underemployed and working poor if they had access to small loans to make needed repairs on a home, finance an appliance purchase or more importantly, start a small business. Such a business could be as simple as a cleaning service, a nail salon or a convenience store. The same financing schemes which led to the mortgage debacle could be used to finance small scale entrepreneurship. Doing so will provide the hope required to overcome the inertia of despair, complacency’s calm, or alienation’s silent rage.

Obstructionists would kill the Golden Goose Charlotte

The Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners cannot allow the forces that would destroy the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system to succeed in their strategy of “death by a thousand cuts.”

Those forces don’t include those suburban parents who rightfully desire adequate space and facilities at the now crowded schools attended by their children.

But it does include the movement, with lingering ties to the pro-segregation era of our region’s history, which believes public schools are no longer desirable or indeed necessary.

Whether opposing equitable school spending or complaining about the school system’s diversity, their ultimate underlying solution is an end to public schools and imposition of education vouchers.

Why else would a county commissioner propose ignoring the facilities needs of inner city children, while catering to the new children whose parents were drawn here, ironically in part, because of our diversity. Those opposing the $618 million bond issue do so for the express purpose of ensuring the break-up of CMS. They would oppose any equitable bond package. Remember, these are the same forces which opposed the last bond and it was even less than any of the proposals on the table today.

If we allow CMS’s destruction, if their mission is accomplished, such a victory would slit the throat of the Golden Goose Charlotte.

It was community diversity and a demonstration that Charlotte represents the South’s future that helped create this city’s many economic successes. Those successes have drawn so many new families to us. New schools are needed in the suburbs because their employers put down roots here.

We are home to two of the largest banks in the nation and world. There’s more money deposited in this town than in any other in the nation, save New York City.

IBM, Transamerica, Microsoft, TIAA-CREF…. There’s an endless list of Fortune 500, national and international corporations with headquarters or major facilities here.

Charlotte is home to NFL and NBA franchises, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, Discovery Place, Imaginon…

This is a place to raise a family, build a future.

Newcomers flock to our community. CMS is enrolling more than 4000 new students a year. This despite the “flight” everyone talks about these days.

This board must not allow opponents of an equitable bond package to kill the Golden Goose by neglecting the diverse communities for which Charlotte is known and respected.

 

Question of the Day

Can we close the educational achievement gap between black and white students and between poor and middle class students? Or, perhaps the better question, can we do so without fixing the troubled communities most of our failing students call home?

Question of the Day

Why are people poor?
Weigh in with your comments.

Technology can help solve youth crime problems

Someday in Mecklenburg County:
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Charlotte Police Officer Jones picked 12-year-old James up outside a local mall about 11:30 a.m., a curfew violation. James is 50032-321 in the “database.” The 321 meant James’s mother abused drugs and was unmarried.
Officer Jones logged the contact with 50032-321, noting that a sister, age 16, opened the door when he took James home around midnight. She said his mother was working.
School counselor Smith got the “alert” on 50032.321 on her computer at 7 a.m. She pulled Officer Jones’ full report. She had had recent contact with James, who was among a group verbally abusing a new student in the cafeteria.
The counselor forwarded the “alert” to the assistant principal in charge of discipline and to James’ homeroom teacher. Later, about 9 a.m., the teacher e-mailed her that James was not at school yet.
The counselor e-mailed the police department’s Youth Task Force that James was not in school, referencing Officer Jones’ report and her own.
The task force assigned an officer to do a ‘ride-by’ of James’ address to see if he was home and if he was okay. If possible, the task force wanted to make face-to-face contact with James’ mother.
She was still in her work uniform when she answered the door to the officers, recognizing one from the ‘old days.’ They found James asleep in his closet. His mother dragged him out by his collar and gave him five minutes to be ready so she could take him to school. The officers said they would take him.
She thanked the officers and offered to bake them apple pies if they’d help her keep an eye on James. No pie was necessary, they told her, they would keep an eye on him.
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I don’t know how many troubled and endangered youngsters there are in Mecklenburg County, but I’m sure it’s a finite number, perhaps 10,000 or as many as 50,000. No one seems to know for sure. Computerized database servers can manage that number of individuals easily. We do it all the time to keep track of employees and customers. That’s why we all use Harris Teeter’s VIC and Food Lion’s MVP cards?
We can and should do the same with our children. Perhaps we could prevent the kinds of family and community breakdowns that spill so much violence and despair onto our streets.
We must realize – again – that children, even the violent ones, are more likely victims and should be treated as such. And, since we know that many of life’s early events influence behavior years later, we must do a better job of preventing juvenile delinquency by being pro-active in those early years.
Our children are not born as gun-toting miscreants. They sink to that level based on how they are treated by the adults in their lives. To save them we must find a way to keep better track of them.
Here’s how the system could work. Let’s call it something like “Comprehensive Youth Services Delivery System.”
First, the community determines that it has a duty to keep track of all children who become victims of abuse, neglect, lead paint, etc. As such, any time a police officer finds a child at the scene of a violent assault or homicide, or a social worker is called to deal with a case of abuse or a child is sexually or otherwise assaulted, that child goes into the “database.”
That information would be available, with appropriate security protections, to police officers, school counselors, social workers, and the health care system. Everyone would have information about troubled and endangered children. And, where appropriate, information could be added. In fact, the database could issue routine alerts, say annually or bi-annually, for social workers to check up on children in the system. Serious cases may require more frequent checks. In other cases, check ups could be less often.
Liberals and conservatives might oppose such a tracking system. Conservatives would simply rather cry “parental responsibility” than provide the initial funding required to set up the system. Liberals will probably oppose tracking children and cite the warehousing of information as a violation of their civil rights.
However, youth crime, poor school performance, teen pregnancies, and other negative youth behaviors are persistent problems with long-term detrimental effect on our community. What we do now is expensive. A pro-active plan could reduce costs and save lives and families.
Once we can count the number of troubled and endangered children, we can set reasonable goals for monitoring and treating them.