Mrs. Alma Powell, Chair, America’s Promise Alliance—“Children in America: Keeping the Promise”—Aspen Ideas Festival
July 8, 2005
I feel greatly privileged to be here with you today. It is exciting to be part of an exchange of ideas that has brought people to this place from all over our country, and from around the world.
We often speak of the power of ideas. But ideas are powerful only insofar as they seize our imaginations and energize us to act. And so what I want to present to you today are not ideas alone but a case for action — and a framework FOR action — on behalf of the national resource that we too often take for granted: our young people.
The Alliance I represent — America’s Promise — was founded around an animating idea that leads us to action: We as a nation have promises to keep to our young people. Ensuring their well-being must be an urgent national priority.
Who wouldn’t agree with that? Your children and grandchildren are likely the lights of your lives. Without question, you’d move heaven and earth and all that is between to ensure they had everything they needed for their futures. Here are the real questions:
Whom should we regard as “our” children?
How would our nation be different if we truly made our children an urgent priority?
And what are YOU going to do to make a difference?
I believe that with our inalienable rights as Americans come great responsibilities. In a real and important way, the American Dream has always rested on a distinctly American sense of obligation… to give back… to ensure that the next generation can enjoy the opportunities we have had.
Alexis de Tocqueville understood it. He wrote: “In America I often admired the infinite art with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal to the efforts of many men and to get them to advance it freely.” That spirit bound us together in our nation’s infancy, and I believe it holds the key to our common future.
In that sense, the promise of America has always been forward-looking. And part of the American Experience has always been about investing our time and energy in the common good of those who come after us.
The preamble to our plan of government declares that part of our national purpose is to secure the blessings of liberty, not just for ourselves but for our POSTERITY. For all of the rugged individualism that we rightly celebrate, we must also remember that a sense of duty to the future helps to define what it means to be American.
So it is altogether appropriate that we look upon our young people — the dreams they share and the realities they encounter — as a barometer of how well we as a nation are achieving the American Dream. The kind of American Experience our young people are having today reveals a lot about how well we have passed on what was given to us.
We tend to assess how young people are doing through external measurements. We gauge academic achievement… rates of juvenile diabetes… teen pregnancies. They are all useful measures. But they’re incomplete. It’s interesting how our children and youth — the very people we’re seeking to help — usually play small roles except as subjects in these assessments.
So our Alliance recently went to the source, the way corporate marketers would. We undertook a detailed, national survey of young people ages 10 through 17… fourth grade through twelfth grade. One of America’s foremost firms in children’s research helped us fill in part of the picture that all too often has been incomplete. In their own words, young people told us where they need help and what they worry about most.
What we found about the state of America’s young people illuminates a path forward for all of us who care about children. There is much that is encouraging. But we also have much work to do. And it will not all get done without YOU.
The good news is that the American Dream is alive and well in our youth. This torch has been passed successfully to a new generation. More than 80% of them say they believe it is possible to be anyone you want to be in this country. Ninety-five percent have already set goals for their lives and are working to achieve them. That’s an astonishing figure. Nine in ten say their success depends on how hard they work.
In spite of the challenges around us that threaten their well-being, this rising generation is approaching adulthood with the same values and uniquely American optimism that informed our FIRST generation after independence.
In spite of the commercialism and cynicism of this age, we have been blessed with young people who express a strong desire to make a difference in the world.
Here’s one indicator of how prevalent this desire is. The Prudential Company sponsors an award for community service and volunteering. Over the past ten years, Prudential and the National Association of Secondary School Principals have honored over 60,000 young people, based solely on their volunteer track record.
I see that spirit among young people everywhere I go. They want to contribute. They want for themselves the things that we want FOR them: to be healthy, productive citizens who give back to society.
But the data also reveal a gap between aspirations and expectation, a gap between hope and reality. Perhaps we should call it “The American Dream Gap.”
While young people believe in the American dream, ¬42% say they doubt they can ever achieve it. Think about that figure. Yes, the glass is more than half full. But when four in 10 young people tell us they fear the American Dream is beyond their reach, we have a real challenge to face up to.
The America’s Promise Alliance grew out of a summit in 1997 of all the living presidents who determined to accept that same challenge. At the summit, community leaders, governors, business people, religious leaders all affirmed something that years of research have shown, and years of experience have proven:
Young people need and deserve five essential resources to become productive citizens who contribute to their communities:
- caring adults who are actively involved in their lives…
- safe places in which to learn and grow…
- a healthy start toward adulthood…
- effective education that builds marketable skills…
- and opportunities to help others.
We have come to call these essentials the “Five Promises.” They are the framework for everything our Alliance partners work toward. We call them promises because, truly, that is what they must be. That is what they always have been for Americans. In 10,000 communities across our country, generation after generation of Americans have made sure their young people received these life-building resources.
Research shows that young people with all five promises are five to ten times more likely to succeed than those without them. And the research also reveals that young people themselves overwhelmingly believe that these Five Promises are vital. Unfortunately, two-thirds of them indicate that AT LEAST one of the Five Promises — and, often, more — are missing from their lives.
Let me tell you a bit more about each of these Promises and where we find the gaps:
Every young person needs and deserves support and guidance from caring adults in their families, schools, and communities — including ongoing, secure relationships with parents and other family adults, as well as multiple and consistent formal and informal positive relationships with teachers, mentors, coaches, youth volunteers, and neighbors. That’s the first Promise.
Caring for young people is what the first promise is all about. Young people themselves told the researchers that having caring adults in their lives was their number one need. Here’s what one teenaged girl said in a focus group: “If you don’t have someone watching your back, you’re going to get in trouble. It’s good to have someone protect you, to tell you the truth. It keeps you in a straight line.”
Since the Summit, our Alliance partners have made tremendous progress. By getting involved personally and engaging their own networks, our children now have 2 million more mentors to ‘watch their backs.’ That’s great… but it’s not enough.
Close to half of our young people said they wish they had more adults they could turn to. And what’s interesting is that the stereotype of rebellious teens who don’t want adults involved is a myth. In fact, older teens were nearly twice as likely as younger ones to say they wish they had more adults looking out for them. So here’s one area where we have a gap to fill before all of our young people can realize the American Dream.
Promise Two: Every young person needs and deserves to be physically and emotionally safe everywhere they are — from the actual places of families, schools, neighborhoods and communities to the virtual places of media — and to have an appropriate balance of structured, supervised activities and unstructured, unscheduled time.
In Harlem, I recently visited a wonderful example of what we mean by a safe place. Geoff Canada and his team at the Harlem Children’s Zone ‘claimed’ 24 square blocks and set about making the neighborhood a great place to grow up. He provides families with wrap-around supports from birth to college. The expectant moms start in Baby College, getting help with health care, child rearing-advice and a supportive community network. The children become Harlem Gems — it’s a Head Start program taught in the three languages of their neighborhood (Spanish, English, and French). Through high school, the students are tutored and mentored by Harlem Peacemakers aged 18-24. And then the scholarships kick in!
Here’s what happens when you create a safe place like this. Geoff’s Baby College has a 95% retention among moms — and has ‘graduated’ 600 families. Ninety percent of his kids got into college — 90%! The national average for the lowest economic quartile, by the way, is 6%.
For 12,000 people, Harlem is becoming a safe place to grow up. But there’s so much more to do.
There aren’t nearly enough safe places. One of every three young people say they don’t feel safe walking alone in their community. Instead of being involved in structured, supervised activities after school, close to 80% say they “just hang out.” Seventy percent say they spend their leisure time cruising the Internet, “looking for something exciting.” Two of every five say they “try new things you can’t do when adults are around.”
There’s a gap here between the Promise and the present. How will you get involved to close it?
Every young person needs and deserves the healthy bodies, healthy minds, and healthful habits and choices that result from regular well-child/youth health care and needed treatment, from good nutrition and exercise, from comprehensive health knowledge and skills, and from role models of physical and psychological health. That’s the third Promise.
The good news is that our young people seem to have their heads on straight. Over 90% said that, even at their young age, paying attention to their health was important. In spite of being bombarded with unhealthy messages about body image, nearly 80% say that feeling healthy is more important than looking good.
But nearly 80% also say they need more health information in at least one key area, such as handling stress, exercise, good nutrition or staying healthy as they grow up.
Help with stress is a particular area where we need to offer more support. Two-thirds of teens (and 80% of those in high school) say they feel a great amount of stress in their lives. They feel it from parents, from teachers and friends, and they feel it about everything from grades and sports to their futures. For them, stress has become part of the American experience — and they are asking for our help.
CVS Pharmacies and Pfizer Health Solutions found one way to help keep the promise of a healthy start. To help stop the alarming rise in Type 2 diabetes in kids, they’re piloting a program called “Stepping up to the Plate” with kids in the DC Public School system. It focuses on African-American kids aged 10-18. Over 50% of them are overweight. That’s twice the national average. Half of THEM are at risk for Type 2 diabetes. CVS and Pfizer are teaching parents, teachers, and community leaders how to increase exercise and eat nutritious meals. They plan to take the program nationwide.
Do you have a CVS in your town? Can you do something similar with your school systems? There is so much more to do. How will you help?
Promise Four: Every young person needs the intellectual development, motivation, and personal, social-emotional, and cultural skills for successful work and lifelong learning in a diverse nation. These result from having quality learning environments, challenging expectations, and consistent formal and informal guidance and mentoring.
One in three young people believe they lack enough marketable skills to be ready for a world that is increasingly connected, increasingly competitive and, as Thomas Friedman has described it, increasingly flat. They know what they’re up against. Seventy percent say they wish they had a chance to see how people work in the real world. For a nation that rightly aspires to leave no child behind, we have work to do and a gap to close. Our children are asking for help.
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores has stepped up here. The industry faces a major shortage of new pharmacists. So they created Pharmacies of Promise. CVS is helping lead the campaign.
CVS works with the faith community, schools, and youth-serving organizations to identify young people who stand out in math and science or just want to learn more about being a pharmacist. CVS offers a six-week paid summer internship that teaches high school students about retail pharmacy and offers work readiness training and college prep. Afterward, the students and healthcare professionals continue to work together to provide ongoing mentoring. It’s a great investment both for the industry’s future and for our children’s future.
But we need a thousand more like it. Remember the famous old Xerox commercial with the monk who has just finished a beautiful page of illuminated manuscript? He’s spent hours or even days working on this single page, and he rushes in eagerly to show it to his superior. The abbot says, “Very nice, Brother Dominic. Now can you bring me… 500 more sets?” That’s what we’re facing. For every young person helped by a program like this one, many more need someone to keep the promise. Can you do something in your industry, like the Chain Drug Stores are doing for theirs, to help kids achieve their dreams?
Finally, every young person needs the chance to make a difference through having models of caring behavior, awareness of the needs of others, a sense of personal responsibility to contribute to larger society, and opportunities for volunteering, leadership and service.
Young people overwhelmingly agree with that. That might be a pleasant surprise to you parents who remember the responses you got when you asked your children to sweep the kitchen. But 80% say it’s more important to help others than to always focus on yourself.
Here’s an example: In Detroit, Ford Motor Company Fund and local high schools are giving student volunteers the chance to do something they love — work on computers — while learning a marketable skill… and helping others. The students rebuild and install software and computers donated for underprivileged youth. They help with fundraising. And then they provide technical assistance to the kids for one year, maintaining relationships with these youth.
That’s wonderful for the kids in that school, in that city, and with that kind of support from business.
But it’s not enough. Close to half of our young people say they lack opportunities to serve. And they say too many of the opportunities they DO have are ‘really boring.’ They tell us they would serve much more if we could make it more fun.
A program close to my heart involves our youth group at St. John’s Episcopal Church in McLean, Virginia. We have wonderful young people eager to get out and make a difference. So they ‘adopted’ a school of their peers in a less fortunate part of town and began a tutoring program. It’s evolved into something much more powerful. Now they teach each other about all sorts of things beyond academics: sports, music, art, culture.
Last month, I happened to be at church when the kids gathered for their weekly session. Each week, they do the ‘school work’ like math and reading, and each week they add a topic of mutual interest. To my surprise, the topic they added was … Needlepoint!
Some of the women of the church are needle pointing kneelers for the pews, and the kids were intrigued. In fact, they loved it — the boys more than the girls — and each had a chance to add some stitches to the kneelers. Believe me, we’re not taking one stitch out … because we all learned something. Listen to the kids, give them a chance, make it fun and they’ll dazzle you.
I want to mention a couple of other interesting things we discovered about the American Dream Gap. We heard from children representing broad swatches from the rich fabric of our nation: rural, urban, suburban, North, South, black, white, brown.
And here’s what was striking. While the views of young people are SHAPED by race, environment and socioeconomic status, those views remained remarkably consistent across all of these lines. Not surprisingly, young people who live in urban cores feel less safe walking in their communities than those who live in affluent suburbs. But a significant number of ALL teens felt unsafe.
Minority children feel less secure about having the marketable skills they need. But a significant percentage of ALL children feel that same insecurity.
The similarities are much more notable than the differences. That tells us that the American Dream gap isn’t just in the inner cities. It isn’t JUST among those young people you usually hear described as “at risk.” The gap is everywhere. It affects all of OUR kids.
During the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt drew a line: It was unacceptable, he said, for one-third of a nation to be out of work. The American Dream could not last if one-third of Americans were without help and losing hope. America had a promise to keep not just to these people but to itself — because so many were at risk that people might stop believing in the promise of America… the energizing idea of America.
Today, for one-third of our nation’s children, some part of the promise is not being kept. One-third of our young people say they don’t have enough marketable skills to succeed in the working world.
One-third of our job applicants fail basic literacy and math tests; that’s one reason why American students rank 24th among industrialized nations in math and science.
One-third don’t feel safe in their own communities.
MORE than one-third say they lack enough caring adults in their lives.
More than one-third doubt they can realize the American Dream for themselves.
For one-third or more of our young people, the American experience will be very different than it will be for those who enjoy all of the Five Promises in their lives.
Some of our children will arrive at kindergarten so far behind, they will never catch up. For one reason or another, they haven’t had enough caring adults in their lives. No one has spent real time reading to them and putting down the foundation for an effective education. Perhaps they haven’t enjoyed the good nutrition that would get them off to a healthy start toward adulthood.
Experienced kindergarten teachers will let you in on one of education’s sobering secrets. With great accuracy, they can predict which 5-year-olds will become high-school dropouts. These children, their teachers say, are bright and eager. But they soon realize how far behind they are. They become discouraged and, eventually, they quit. Half a million do it each year. They did not fail. WE failed THEM.
Even among those who stay in school, the American Dream looks very different if you’re a C student instead of an A student. These young people are living in different worlds. They have dramatically different attitudes about their parents, about school, about their friends, about their self-image and their hopes for the future.
If you’re a C or a D student, you’re less likely to live with your father. You’re only half as likely as an A or B student to say you admire your parents. You’re much less likely to have parents who know where you are and what you’re doing. You’ll have fewer friends and more anxieties about yourself. You’re less likely to seek help from teachers. You’re twice as likely to be depressed… and half as likely to describe yourself as popular.
THAT is an American Dream gap, too.
If you’re a bottom-line kind of person … that gap has a financial side as well. It costs all of us when we don’t keep America’s Promise.
Each year, we spend $20 billion to support families begun by teenagers.
We spend over $14 billion each year on juvenile justice. Children with a parent in prison are seven times more likely than their peers to become involved with the juvenile justice system themselves. And right now, there are 2 million such children who need special support to ensure this cycle does not continue.
The ANNUAL costs associated with high school dropouts is up to $260 BILLION.
Conversely, we know how keeping the Five Promises can change that equation in children’s favor. For example:
- Children who receive the Five Promises are 5 to 10 times more likely to succeed as students, citizens, parents and employees.
- They are more likely to pursue higher education. They are far less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol.
- An investment of time that puts just one at-risk young person on the right path can return $2 million to the community.
The old African proverb is right, as far as it goes. It DOES take a village to raise a child. But it takes even more than that. Along with caring adults from the community, it takes caring businesses that invest in the Five Promises (and in their own business futures). It takes informed policymakers who make young people a priority. It takes not-for-profit organizations. It takes faith-based organizations. It takes individuals from every walk of life.
The America’s Promise Alliance brings all of these diverse groups together. We mobilize people like you from every sector of society to fulfill the Five Promises. Our Alliance partners include service organizations such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, MENTOR, and the United Way. They include organizations like the US Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. They include corporate partners such as Capital One and CVS. Our partners are involved at every level… from implementing programs in their communities to sponsoring initiatives that extend nationwide.
We share best practices, turning proven ideas into broader action.
We coordinate, to ensure that local efforts aren’t needlessly duplicated and finite resources aren’t wasted.
And we engage and inform decision-makers at all levels to promote more effective programs and policies for youth.
We don’t tell partners and communities to follow one particular approach, because one approach does not fit all. Instead, we encourage and empower them to develop particular solutions to particular needs, within the FRAMEWORK of the Five Promises.
In 1966, Robert Kennedy accepted an invitation from student leaders in South Africa to address them on their Day of Affirmation. He challenged them to make a difference. “Every time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope — and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls….”
Our Alliance is about creating ripples from every corner and every community of America.
Let me tell you about what one person can do. Leatrice “Chick” Big Crow is an Oglala Sioux living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In 1992, her 17-year-old SuAnne was killed in a car accident. SuAnne had been a basketball star, a superb student and an inspiration to one of the poorest communities in one of the poorest counties in America.
Instead of letting this loss overwhelm her, Chick honored her daughter’s spirit of service by establishing the first Boys & Girls Club on native lands. The club, named after her daughter, has grown into a facility with a library, computer lab, gym, swimming pool and restaurant that nurtures over 800 children. And, today, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America has 176 Clubs on Native American lands.
Make a ripple, and you can help create a current. But do not be content to sit passively and let others act. There is so much to be done, that it will take ALL of us making ripples to keep America’s Promise.
I want to tell you about two specific things we are doing to make sure that our children’s voices are heard by the whole country.
In May, our Alliance undertook a new annual campaign to identify the 100 Best Communities for Young People. Throughout the summer, communities of all types and sizes from across the nation have been applying for recognition. We want to celebrate the good ideas and the great work on behalf of young people all over our country.
But this campaign is also a challenge. It is a challenge to local leaders to make a stronger commitment to meeting the needs of young people… to strengthen their initiatives and begin new ones… to bring all different sectors of their communities together to focus on their most important resource. We want to challenge every community in America to be a great place to grow up.
Of course, we don’t yet know which communities will be honored. Yet we already know quite a bit about what they will look like. They will look like America: rural communities… urban cores… small towns… big metropolitan areas… suburbs… exurbs. And they will be at all stages of a journey toward keeping America’s Promise to young people. Some will already be wonderful, nurturing places to grow up. Others will be working hard to get there. This campaign is not so much about where communities are in that journey right now. It’s more about where they are going — and where we all are going as a nation.
I hope you will help us spread the word. When you go home from here, make sure your community has applied for recognition. Everything you can do to raise awareness of what your community is doing for young people will help us close the American Dream Gap.
Our Alliance is also compiling the first of what will be an annual “Report to the Nation.” We hope to present it next January. The Report will give us a comprehensive picture, for the first time, of how well America is fulfilling the Five Promises in the lives of our young people.
For policymakers and for our partners in the corporate, nonprofit and faith-based sectors that are involved in youth issues, the report will be a valuable roadmap. It will help us set meaningful, measurable goals. It will establish benchmarks for what every community should be aiming for. And just like any report card that shows good grades and not-so-good ones, it will challenge all of us to work together even harder for the well-being of our children.
That is the challenge I want to leave each of you with … to work together and harder for our children.
• First, consider all kids to be your kids… your business… your responsibility.
• Put them first. For every policy, every investment of your time, money and talent, ask how it affects the kids.
• Leave your brands and your partisan differences behind and pull together for our young people.
• Hold all of us accountable. Do not accept mediocrity when it comes to helping our youth. Be sharp-eyed with our nation’s ‘bottom line.’
• Start with yourself… because you’re the best example.
We live in a world that is increasingly competitive. Succeeding in that world will require greater skills than have perhaps been demanded of any generation. And because this world is also increasingly wired together, the best and brightest from other nations no longer will HAVE to come to America. We won’t be able to rely on imported brainpower and skill. That means America’s position in the world during the decades to come depends directly on the positions we take toward America’s young people today. Not ten years from now. Today.
Now, more than ever, we must make sure that every child receives the essential resources for success.
And now, like no time in the past 40 years, there is a growing consensus that no single entity can deliver those resources. Government cannot do it alone. The private sector cannot do it alone. Nonprofit organizations can’t do it alone.
But all of us can do it together.
It starts with me and you. I learned that from my parents and grandparents. For instance, on Make a Difference Day, a couple of years ago I decided to bring the whole family. We had three generations — Colin and I, Michael and Jane, Jane’s father — all out there working to restore a recreation center. Right alongside us was our little grandson Jeffrey… working with his granddads repairing a park bench. He was dazzled by the tools and the ‘guy project.’ But what he remembers is how we went and did something together for somebody else. And he keeps on volunteering. It’s becoming part of his life.
Is there a Make a Difference Day in your community? Start there. Bring someone along. We have to make this a part of our lives, and part of our children’s lives, too.
We cannot ensure that every child will realize his or her own American Dream. What we CAN do is make sure there is no longer an American Dream GAP…that we will not ACCEPT an American Dream Gap …that through education and the hard work of their own hands, all of our young people can expect to realize the promise of America.
So, please ask yourself: What am I going to do about it?
As some of you may know, in the spring of 2003, I released two children’s books, America’s Promise and My Little Wagon, to help spread the message of the Five Promises to children and their families across the country. One of the great joys associated with the books was traveling to bookstores, community groups and schools to hold readings for young people.
After each reading, I would try to get the youngsters thinking about how the lessons can apply to their own lives. The question I like to end on is an easy one, but important nonetheless: “What can you do to help others around you?”
As you can imagine, the answers vary widely. But one young man I met captured the essence of what helping others is all about. He couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6. I never even learned his name.
Here’s what he said: “You should always love and never not love. It’s all about the love.” He couldn’t be more right. Many times, the wisest people in our midst are the youngest. Adopt this wise young man’s attitude, and you will quickly find answers to the question of what you can do to help.
Do you know what gives me a thrill? When I talk to young people who are in the worst shape, already in the juvenile justice system, or failing in school — guess what? — they’re still going for their American dream.
I recently saw a survey of first-time juvenile offenders. Even though most said they didn’t have a neighbor who knows their name…
Even though most didn’t have anyone they could talk to at school … or places to go after school…
Even though few had ever been asked to volunteer…
When asked where they’d be in 5 years, three-quarters said they’d finish high school… almost half said they’d be in college … and less than one percent said they’d be in jail.
In spite of everything, the Dream is alive and well.
We know WHAT to do — what works — because so many people are already doing it. But we also know that so much more remains to be done. The Dream Gap will not be closed without everyone pulling together.
So the real question — the ACTION question — is this: What will YOU do — your organization, your community, your state, you yourself — to keep the promise of America?