Mrs. Alma Powell, Chair, America’s Promise Alliance-- Remarks for Association Supervision and Curriculum Development Annual Conference
New Orleans, LA - March 15, 2008
“Whole Child, Whole Community: Working Together to Fulfill the Promise of America for All Young People”
It is a privilege and an honor to be here with you.
Speaking as someone who is married to a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it is not often that I have the privilege of sharing a room with so many national security experts.
Yes, you heard that right — and, no, I didn’t somehow wander into the wrong meeting. Let me explain.
In thinking about what I was going to say, I came across something that Henry Adams wrote 100 years ago: “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
If that is true — and I believe it is — then it is my privilege to address you – many of you teachers and all of you educators – as some of the most influential people in America. In fact, let me go one step further, since a number of you here today are here from around the world: You are some of the most influential people ANYWHERE.
Maybe that sounds like a stretch. After all, I imagine that many of you wish you could just have a little more influence over your mayor or school board. Maybe you wish for a voice commensurate with the awesome task you’ve been given.
But think about it. What happens inside your schools will shape our nation’s future course…
our future prosperity…
our future security…
That’s not hype. It is not mere flattery. It is reality.
It is a reality that is pressing on us as a nation more and more with each passing year.
The Flat New World
Wherever you may be from, all of us here have landed in the New World, just as surely as the voyagers of discovery landed in a new world 500 years ago. Their new world was round. Today’s new world is flat.
Old boundaries don’t matter. The new laptop you order today might be custom-built in Malaysia tomorrow and arrive on your doorstep next week. The shoebox full of forms and receipts you take to your tax preparation firm between now and April 15th can be scanned and transmitted digitally to India — where your taxes could be expertly prepared and sent back electronically, without your even realizing it.
We live in a world that is more competitive and better trained than ever before. For America or any other country to prosper in this challenging new world, our young people must be better equipped than ever before — not just with math and science and language but with creative thinking and problem-solving skills.
In his book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman writes about Microsoft’s three research centers around the world. One is in Redmond, Washington. One is in Cambridge, England. And the newest is in Beijing. Bill Gates says the center in China generates by far the most new ideas. It draws the best and brightest from among 1.3 BILLION people. They have a saying there: “Remember, in China when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 people just like you.”
One of the dirty little secrets about the flat new world, Friedman says, is that a lot of the jobs that are going abroad are high-end research jobs — not just because the talent is cheaper but because it is as well or better educated than America’s talent.
This is what we are up against. You can appreciate why it has been estimated that most jobs a decade from now will require at least some college education.
I hope you can also appreciate why I address you as leaders in our national security. In a very real sense, our prosperity and position in the world are at stake.
The Urgent Need
Often, I’m asked to speak to people in the business community — people who aren’t directly involved in education. What I tell them comes as a shock to them. But it will be no surprise to you who are on the front lines every week.
Before each school day is over, 7,000 young people will drop out. And that means they’ll be twice as likely as adults to live in poverty — and 8 times as likely to wind up in prison.
Before today is over, 960 children will become victims of violent crime.
Today, 9 million children lack health insurance. (That’s a crime in itself.) Today, 15 million children need mentors but don’t have them.
These are differing ills. But they have a common root. They reflect a failure of our communities, our citizens, our policies and our priorities.
Our children have not failed us. Our American community has failed them.
Our schools have not failed us. As a community, we have failed to share the burden of caring for the whole child.
Yes, we need better schools. But we are kidding ourselves if we believe that better schools alone will reverse the tide of dashed hopes, diminished expectations and dismal futures.
We have less of a schools problem than a “communities” problem. By that, I mean that we must have a stronger sense of what community means…
how we all share an obligation to help raise our children.
Raising the Whole Child
Maybe one reason our society has failed to keep the promise to millions of our children is that we have lost sight of what children need to be successful.
Maybe we have made our schools almost solely accountable for leaving no child behind because we have forgotten that it takes more than the 3 R’s to put our children ahead. Maybe we will enjoy only half-successes until we focus together on the whole child.
As I began to learn more about your “Whole Child Initiative,” one thing that quickly jumped out at me is how it dovetails with the work of the America’s Promise Alliance.
Our Alliance was born as a direct result of the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future. In 1997, all the living presidents met in Philadelphia. They called on all Americans from all sectors to work together to ensure that ALL of our children receive five Promises in their lives:
• caring adults
• safe places
• a healthy start
• an effective education that builds marketable skills
• opportunities to help others
Over the years, researchers have found different ways to describe these basic resources that children need. But it has never really been a mystery that children succeed when we address these needs holistically.
It’s as close to a universal truth as we have. Countries and cultures are different, but all children, in all the world, share a common need for these Five Promises.
Dr. Angela Diaz tells of a slightly humbling experience that helps us keep our work in perspective. Dr. Diaz is the Director of the Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York. Not long after she joined the board of America’s Promise, she was explaining to her mother how our work revolves around the Five Promises I just named — and how these Promises correlate with success in childhood and adulthood.
Her mother was unimpressed: “You mean you all are just now figuring that out?”
It’s a reminder that research hasn’t so much revealed a startling new truth as it has deepened our understanding of age-old wisdom.
Of COURSE children need caring adults in their lives as family members, teachers, coaches and mentors.
Of COURSE they need safe places to be. Of COURSE they need a healthy start and healthy development.
Of COURSE they need an effective education that equips them for college and the workforce. Of COURSE they need to learn the value of service so they can become engaged citizens.
Children need to experience these Promises across all areas of their lives — at school, at home and in the community. We know from research that, when children experience a critical mass of at least four of these Promises in their lives, their chances of success go way up. They are twice as likely to stay in school and earn mostly A’s. They’re twice as likely to graduate and go to college.
Big Mike’s Story
What kind of difference do the Promises make? Last year I read the story of a young man named Michael Oher.
Big Mike is a young man from Memphis, Tennessee, who stands 6-foot-6-inches tall and weighs about 350 pounds and wears a size 58-long jacket. This spring he will be chosen high in the NFL Draft.
But just four years ago, Big Mike had no future. His father was dead. His mother was addicted to crack cocaine. He was basically homeless and slept on whatever floor he could find for a night. Even though he made D’s and F’s, and couldn’t read above a 3rd-grade level, Big Mike had been promoted all the way to the 11th grade.
Then, by what I could only call providence, someone took a real interest in him — and not just because he had the size to play football. One wintry afternoon, a family with children at the school who knew Big Mike saw him walking home in the snow wearing just shorts, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. They stopped.
Why was he wearing that? It was all he had, he told them.
Where was he going? Didn’t really have a place to go, he said.
So the family made a snap decision. They took Michael into their home. Over the next year, a remarkable transformation took place — the kind of transformation that happens when the Five Promises become a daily part of a child’s life. Now, Michael had caring adults surrounding him. He had safe places to go. For the first time he could remember, he had his own bed. He was getting good nutrition and warm clothes and medical and dental care. His adoptive mom spent hours every day after school working with him and making him study.
One year later, Big Mike did the most important thing for his future any young person can do. He graduated from high school. And he even did something that most do NOT do: He was a regular member of the honor roll.
Caring for the whole child made all the difference.
Promise Poverty in America
Maybe there aren’t many young people in America as Promise-poor as Michael was. But there are millions of children who haven’t received enough.
In 2005, our Alliance commissioned some research that measured for the first time the presence of the Five Promises in the lives of our young people. We found that less than one-third of our children 17 and under are getting enough of these resources to be confident of success.
Over 20% are experiencing only one or zero Promises and are on a collision course with failure.
During the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt drew a line. It was unacceptable, he said, to sit by when one-third of a nation was out of work. The American Dream could not survive when one-third of a nation was losing hope.
Today, one-third of our young people fail to complete high school.
Two-thirds fail to receive the Promises they need to be ready for college and for work.
WE cannot fail to act.
A Nation Still at Risk
It’s fitting that we meet now, 25 years after the publication of that landmark report, A Nation at Risk. And perhaps it’s especially fitting that we meet here in New Orleans — a city that in many ways has come to symbolize how we have invested too little in those MOST at risk.
Our young people today are at a Dunkirk moment. We rightly aspire to leave no child behind. Yet millions are at grave risk of being left behind as we enter the Flat New World.
We face both an economic necessity and a moral imperative. Just as the British mobilized every seaworthy boat to leave no soldier stranded at Dunkirk, so we must mobilize every citizen to keep every Promise to every precious child of God.
Starting with the Big Rocks
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the business professor who walked into class one day with a big, clear plastic jar. He took several large rocks and placed them in the jar until they reached the top. “Is this jar full?” he asked.
“Yes,” several students replied. So the professor produced a bucket of gravel and poured it into the jar, and it filled the spaces between the big rocks until it reached the brim. “Now is it full?” he asked.
“Of course,” said the students. So the professor took a bucket of sand and poured it into the jar, until it filled the spaces between the gravel. “How about now?” he asked.
“No, it’s not full,” said one of the students, guessing that the pattern would continue. “You’re right,” said the professor, and he poured a container of water into the jar until it percolated down between all the tiny spaces between the grains of sand.
“Now,” he said, “the jar is full. So what is the lesson here?”
“That you can always fit more things into your workload?” one student said.
“No,” said the professor. “The answer is that if you don’t focus on the big rocks first, you’ll never get them in.”
Getting more Americans involved must be our “big rock.”
We live in a time when specialized roles have led many Americans to think that the job of raising America’s children is not part of our mutual responsibility. It is time to change this way of thinking. It is time to reawaken Americans to the truth of the old African proverb: It really does take a whole community to raise a whole child.
The job is too big for schools alone. It is too big for government alone. And though it starts with parents, the job is too big for parents alone. But it is not too big for America.
Because we all have a stake in our common future, we all share a responsibility to ensure our young people graduate “college-ready” and “workforce-ready.” That is the message the America’s Promise Alliance is delivering all across this nation.
The Power of an Alliance
And that is a message of hope I want to bring to you today. Americans from all walks of life are recognizing the need and responding to the call.
America’s Promise has grown to become the largest cross-sector Alliance focused on the well-being of children. Today, our Alliance includes more than 170 national partners covering every sector — from the United Way to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the U.S. Conference of Mayors to the National Association of Secondary School Principals to Communities In Schools to State Farm. We’d be honored if, after today, it included all of you and ASCD.
What unites us is the understanding that our children must be an urgent national priority… and that we accomplish far more together than any of us can achieve alone.
Let me give you an example from right here in New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of young people and their families were swept away from their neighborhoods and their support systems. In response, we began an initiative called Katrina’s Kids. We actually launched the program in Houston, because more children displaced by Katrina were there than in any other city. And in the area of Houston with the highest concentration of Katrina’s Kids — and it was a very disadvantaged neighborhood to start with — our national partners like the YMCA, United Way, and CIS teamed up with the mayor’s office, a local school district and many others to ensure that young people received the supports they need.
It was an unprecedented partnership. And it has been such a success that more partners asked to join us. From there, Katrina’s Kids not only has spread here in Louisiana and Mississippi — it has become a model for all communities with disadvantaged young people.
Our Five-Year Goal
Just as we must focus on the whole child, and just as it takes the whole community, we know it takes both good programs and good policies to bring about the change we need. So our efforts combine advocacy and action with raising awareness and creating a stronger Alliance involving more Americans.
We have set a bold and ambitious goal. In the next five years, by working together, we will improve the lives of 15 million disadvantaged young people with more of the Five Promises.
We have made a top priority of raising high school completion rates and ensuring that these graduates are ready for college and the workforce. That’s a huge rock, too. One of the ways we are calling attention to the need and calling all our neighbors into urgent action is by holding 100 dropout summits across this country. We began last month in Mississippi, and we’re going to all 50 states and to 50 cities — especially those with disproportionately large numbers of dropouts. We are sharing what works. And we are beginning to see many communities focus on this issue like never before.
National Action Strategies
So how will we get to our 15 million goal? How will we help more kids graduate and be ready for college and work?
Last year, our Alliance partners came together and agreed on three National Action Strategies. A common denominator you’ll notice is that our work is increasingly partnered with schools. It also focuses on many of the same areas as your Whole Child Initiative.
Our first action strategy is to go Where Kids Are – starting with using schools as hubs for delivering a range of services to disadvantaged young people. As you know better than I do, there are 11 million children enrolled in Title I schools. Another 6.5 million are in after-school programs. Reaching these young people in partnership with their schools makes it much more likely they will receive the support they need from people who already know them by name.
Second, every child needs decent health care. But 9 million today aren’t covered by any kind of health insurance. Of these, about six-and-a-half million are ELIGIBLE for Medicaid or S-CHIP but not enrolled. We will see that these children get the coverage they’re eligible for. Our rallying cry is All Kids Covered. The schools are one of the best places where we can coordinate this effort — just one example of how our strategies work together.
Our third strategy involves service learning and career exploration for over 11 and a half million middle-school aged young people. We know that the middle-school years are a pivotal time. The majority of those who drop out say they began disengaging during this time. If we wait till high school to address the problem, we’re too late. So our strategy is to engage these young people in service learning and opportunities to explore careers, so they are motivated to succeed in school and become Ready for the Real World.
Stopping the Train
The evangelical leader Jim Wallis tells a story about an invitation he received to address a group of people preparing to enter the ministry. What made it unusual was that these ministers-in-training were all inmates of Sing-Sing Prison.
The prison had a program that allowed inmates to study and prepare and then enter the ministry when they were released. Reverend Wallis was intrigued by the invitation, so he called and spoke to the leader of the group and asked if there was a particular date when they’d like him to come.
“Well,” said the inmate, “we’re free most every night!”
So Wallis made the arrangements and went to Sing-Sing, and he spoke to the group. Afterward, one of the men said to him, “What you may not realize is that almost all of us here are from just four or five neighborhoods in New York City… It’s like a big train that comes through your neighborhood. You get on the train when you’re 9 or 10 years old, and it’s hard to get off…”
And then he said, “When I get out of here, I’m going to go back and try to stop that train.”
My friends, together we are going to stop this train.
To us, it is unacceptable to sit by while millions of young people fail to complete high school, or fail to get the healthy start they need, or get into trouble because they don’t have safe places to go. So we will not accept it.
History teaches that social change comes when people become less concerned about what is possible than about what is acceptable. I believe that we are on the cusp of one of those moments of momentous change.
That is an encouraging thought for all of you who have been on the front lines for so long. But I believe it is more than a wishful thought. More organizations than ever before are joining us from every sector because they recognize the urgency of the need and the necessity of action.
Conclusion
The Masai people of Kenya have a greeting that reveals a lot about the priorities of their society: “And how are the children?”
For us, that greeting must also be a challenge. It is time for America to roll up its sleeves and apply the power of the whole community to nurture and educate the whole child.
As we do, we will bring this nation closer to the day when we can answer the question by saying, “The children are well”… and the promise of America is a reality for every child in this land.
Thank you so much.