 | Essays
on Civic Renewal
National
Commission on Civic Renewal Second Plenary Session, continued
Panel Three: Youth
Contents
Panel
One: Faith & Character
Panel
Two: Community Service & Community Action
Panel Three: Youth
Panel Four: Politics & Civil Society
Panel
Three: Youth
Witnesses:
Philip Coltoff
Executive Director, Children's Aid Society
Virgil Lewis,
II
Chairman, Youth Soccer Association
Thomas Ahn
Co-Director, Youth in Action, San Francisco Conservation Corps
WILLIAM
GALSTON:
We're now going to convene our third panel of the day . . . Without
further ado, Phil Coltoff, who is the executive director of the
Children's Aid Society.
PHILIP
COLTOFF:
Thank you. The Children's Aid Society is in New York City, and
we have been in New York City for a few years—about 147,
something like that. And people actually often in the literature
attribute the beginnings of social welfare, child welfare especially,
to the Children's Aid Society. (I guess one would have to say:
many of the good things, and several of the other things.)
But just
to give you a sense of what Children's Aid was. At the beginning,
some of you might be aware of it as the whole Orphan Train movement,
which took about 130,000 children off the streets of New York
in the 1800s. That was something that Children's Aid Society developed.
And so on. The point, though, that I think is most relevant to
us, and why I guess I was invited today, was this.
About eight
years ago, we at Children's Aid, and of course many others as
well, were very, very disturbed about the failing public school
system—in New York City especially, but I think we all know
the failing public school system everywhere, with obvious notable
exceptions with some specialized schools. We thought that some
of the things that we should do . . . We have various kinds of
services for young people and their families throughout the city
of New York. And most of our facilities were freestanding facilities,
as is the case with most settlement houses and Y's and Boys and
Girls Clubs and so on. And obviously they do, and have done over
a period of years, good work.
But we thought
that as we looked at one of the communities in New York City,
which was Upper Manhattan . . . In other words, it's the community
just north of Harlem which is referred to as Washington Heights
and Inwood. It's a community that goes from about 155th Street
all the way up to the end of Manhattan. In other words—to
just give you kind of a geographic picture—past Columbia
University's Baker Field, where they try to play football. The
area is river to river, and the population in this one community
is 300,000 people.
Up until
about 12 or 15 years ago, the community was largely an Irish,
German, and Jewish community. In 12 years, this community has
been so rapidly transformed demographically that it is now a community
almost entirely of Latinos, largely Dominicans. So the community
has the densest population of any community in New York City presently.
It has over 30,000 children enrolled in its public schools. Five
thousand of them had to be bused out because there just was no
desk space. It's a community that has the highest homicide rate
in the city of New York; the second highest suicide rate; the
highest school dropout rate; and, as many of you know, has, I
think been unfairly called, but nevertheless it's been termed,
the murder capital of the world. And the highest use of drug distribution
and drug use in the city of New York.
We thought
that after a community needs inventory, it would be a good idea
for Children's Aid to locate some of its services in that neighborhood,
that community. But not freestanding. So we approached the central
Board of Education and basically said to them what they had never
heard before—and that was, "We really want to run some public
schools with you, in partnership." Now I think most of you here
know that working in public schools is not something new to social
agencies. Health and welfare agencies have been doing work in
public schools, whether it's mentoring or mental health work or
sometimes after-school work, for a long time. We were doing some
of that as well in many public schools. But what we proposed to
the Central Board of Education was that we really want to be in
partnership with them in the management of the schools. We didn't
want it to be an alternative school; we didn't want it to be a
small school. We didn't want it to be what is now called, in some
places, Annenberg schools. We didn't want it to be specialized.
We wanted it to be a zoned public school, that where these schools
were failing badly.
And the
Board of Ed first looked at us as if we had four or five ears,
because this was never really approached to them before. And I
don't think, unless they and many other boards of education around
the country were under siege with respect to what they were delivering,
I'm not quite sure that they would have responded as affirmatively
to us as they did. Partly also, we reached the Board of Ed in
between chancellors, which is something that happens quite frequently
in New York. So we were able to reach a level of bureaucrat that
was a bit more responsive.
In any event,
the Board of Education approved by legal resolution our coming
in and not only partnering with them, but because they were building
new schools in this community—because they had to, with the
student population that was to be served—they actually allowed
our architects to work with their architects in designing these
schools. So that the schools, by architectural design, have health
clinics and dental clinics and mental health clinics and family
resource rooms and expanded arts rooms as part of the school.
As a matter of fact, some of the funny stories with respect to
the architecture was that when we suggested to the Board of Ed
architects that lighting be put up outdoors where the playgrounds
were attached to the school, the play areas, they said, "No, you
don't need lighting because even in the winter months it's still
light enough for kids when school ends." And we said, "That's
the point—the schools that we're contemplating are not going
to finish until 10:00 at night." When we said that we wanted bleachers
designed outside in the playground so that people can sit down
and parents can watch activities, one of the architects said,
"You know, when you build seating, it's not only going to be a
waste of about $150,000, but people are going to come and sit
down there." This was part of the education, obviously, that was
needed.
In any event,
the first school opened six years ago. It was a middle school.
The school was built for 1,200 children; there were 1,600 children
in the school. The second school was an elementary school. Then
we opened another middle school and another elementary school.
So in this district, there are four schools in partnership with
us. We are involved in the management of the schools with the
Board of Ed, with the principals, with the administration, with
the local district, with the parents, in the full day. So that
school opens at 7:00 in the morning, goes to 3:00. The same faculty
who work between 9:00 and 3:00 work with us between 3:00 and 9:00.
The school is open on Saturdays; during the summer months, Sundays
as well. There are summer camps that are part of the school. And
in addition to the 1,600 children in the first school that I mentioned,
which is I.S. 218, there are 1,100 parents who are students in
the school—some of the classes together with their children,
and some of the classes separately. And there's a full school-to-work
program for both the children and the adults, so that 60 businesses
are in league with us in developing this school. And there's a
full new management team, which is referred to as school-based
management, in all four of these schools, where the parents have
an active role in it.
The end
results: In all four schools, reading scores have improved by
60 percent, math scores by 45 percent. The school dropout rate
is the lowest in the city. There are virtually no security issues—no
metal detectors, no security guards that search children when
they come in. Parents are involved in the school all the time:
there are about 75 parents daily as volunteers. They also work
the dental clinics; they escort the children down from the classrooms
for medical exams and dental work. Thirty children a day in the
first school that opened used to leave school every day for, generally,
asthma attacks and had to be taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital,
which is the local hospital, and the average cost was $300 a visit.
The cost now to us with a medical unit in the school is $30 a
visit, and the children stay in school.
All four
schools in these zoned districts—not specialized schools,
as I mentioned to you before—have the highest attendance
rates in the district, two of them in the city. But the interesting
fact, too, is that in all four schools, the teacher attendance
is the highest in the city. Teachers feel safe. They feel that
they want to teach; they have backup from health professionals
and social workers. It's wonderful for social agencies because—and
Elaine [Chao], in your past life, you would be interested in this—most
social agencies in this country now only spend 67 cents on every
dollar they raise on services; the rest goes to administration,
insurances, upkeep of buildings, and so on. In these schools,
92 cents goes directly to services, because you don't have to
duplicate the costs that the public is already paying for through
its tax dollars for these schools. People who have . . . Okay,
I'm done. I'll wait for the questions.
GALSTON:
You get one more sentence.
COLTOFF:
Okay. People in New York, for example, and around the country
who are so enamored with either public schools that have been
privatized or public schools that look like they're being privatized—like
small, 200- and 300-child schools, and schools that are getting
$50,000 Annenberg money, and schools that are all over the country
that are called Schools of the Future or New Beginning schools
or Comer schools or Sizer schools—none of them really have
the integrated approach of taking social agencies, health agencies,
and matching them organically, seamlessly, with educational institutions.
To look in New York at all of the schools, all of the schools
that have these small private arrangements, and alternative schools
that the taxpayer pays for, it's only 45,000 students. There are
1,100,000 students from the public school system in New York.
So if we don't address the large public schools that are there
to educate the large numbers of largely poor children, then, in
fact, we're doing very, very little. We're fooling ourselves by
thinking we're doing great things with these small schools while
we're consigning another million children to very little.
GALSTON:
Thanks, Phil. Our second witness in this panel is Virgil Lewis,
who is the chairman of the United States Youth Soccer Association.
I'm not a soccer dad, but I am a Little League dad. And I personally
think it's extremely important for this Commission to think about
the role that organized athletics can play not only in the lives
of young people but also in the communities that surround these
young people. So Virgil, we're delighted you're here with us today.
VIRGIL
LEWIS:
Thank you. Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen. It's
my honor to have the opportunity to share with you my thoughts
on Youth Soccer and how this relates to civic renewal. I would
like to discuss volunteerism as it relates to Youth Soccer.
The United
States Youth Soccer Association has a mission of fostering the
physical, mental, and emotional growth and development of America's
youth through the sport of soccer. We started in 1974 with 100,000
members. This year we will have more than 2 1/2 million members.
Those players will range between the ages of 6 and 19 years. More
than 500,000 volunteers support these players, including 250,000
coaches. The vast majority of all of these volunteers are parents,
like myself, who have gotten involved in the sport for the love
of their children. We've remained involved in the sport for the
love of the game.
I've also
been authorized by the chairman of the American Youth Soccer Organization
to speak on their behalf today as well. They have an additional
600,000 players and similar numbers of volunteers.
We believe
that volunteerism is a program. As national organizations, we
could never afford to hire the staff necessary to support over
3 million players. A large part of our efforts are directed at
our volunteer base for training and support. So why have we been
so successful, and can our model be used in other efforts at generating
civic involvement?
Soccer provides
many things. It provides health, it provides fitness, but most
important, soccer is fun. Younger children are called on to do
what they've been doing since they started walking—that is,
to use the large muscles of the legs to simply run and jump and
have fun. The game is relatively safe, there are no significant
equipment requirements, and the cost is low. A small, mostly flat
area, a ball, and two or more children can result in a successful
soccer game.
Soccer is
a game of values. Sportsmanship is a key element of soccer. The
game is played within the laws of the game, which consist of 17
rules. I'd like to point out that that's fewer rules than there
are in the game of horseshoes. A single referee on the field is
the final decision maker in a game which continues almost non-stop.
Coaches and referees are taught the need for sportsmanship in
every clinic that they attend. They are encouraged to pass this
concept to parents through team management training. We want our
players to play hard, but we want them to play fair. Our tournaments
are encouraged to have Fair Play Awards at every level of competition.
Soccer also
teaches teamwork. In many sports, the coach becomes the central
figure, as time-outs are called to set up plays for particular
situations. It doesn't happen that way in life. You don't get
a time-out necessarily. In soccer, there are no time-outs and
the players must quickly learn to work with each other to sort
out problems and deal with them. The players themselves need to
identify the problem on the field and find the solution. This
encourages a greater sense of interdependence among the players,
as Stephen Covey might phrase it. But in soccer, we simply call
it teamwork. As players learn to work together, they learn to
be honest with themselves as well as their teammates. Each knows
the effort that they are exerting; and having worked closely with
their teammates, they know the effort that their teammates are
exerting. In a game that flows continuously, there are no positions
on the field in which a player can hide. Everyone must contribute,
and everyone else knows if that effort is missing.
Soccer is
also a game of patience. As the players work the ball toward the
opponent's net, they must learn the value of patience, always
evaluating whether the time is right to press forward, or to delay
until the opportunity is better. These are values that are readily
apparent to the parents who register their children in this sport.
So we have a value-based sport for the parents and a fun, relatively
safe game for children. But it's also important for us to get
a buy-in from the parents and from the extended family of those
children. The buy-in can be quite minimal. Simply attending the
games and rotating through the various tasks, such as bringing
the half-time water and the after-game snacks, is often enough.
But out of every team, we also get new coaches, administrators,
and referees. Remember that these now-active volunteers were first
attracted to the game because of the values. These parents were
concerned about their children, and many sought out a value-based
sport for these children. These parents are also concerned about
other aspects of life, and the political pundits quickly became
aware that soccer moms voted.
In reviewing
the transcript of the first plenary session, I noted the comment
that confidence in the political system had declined. I would
argue that the pundits were right. And soccer moms and dads do,
in fact, vote. They do so in confidence that the political system
can still be effective, provided we all do our part. The transcript
also pointed out that community and neighborhood organizations
appear to be weaker. Folks, soccer is a grassroots movement. I
can honestly say that if I and my board of directors disappeared,
it would be quite a while before anyone would notice. As for the
players on the field, they only know that they play for the Albuquerque
Legend, the Milwaukee Kickers, the Houston Texans. They play with
their friends and their classmates, and they represent their communities,
and they're proud of it. The neighborhood teams and clubs provide
an opportunity for social interaction as well. And this isn't
new. Throughout Europe and in our early ethnic leagues in this
country, social clubs developed around the local soccer teams.
Many continued to exist and flourish in this country. I was talking
to someone earlier, and it's important to point out: In this country,
we attended the first World Cup, we were semi-finalists in the
first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930. We've been around for a while.
One panelist
at the first plenary session stated that "We pine for some grand
national gesture of civic renewal." This was used to emphasize
a need not to overlook what is happening at the local level. U.S.
Youth Soccer is an organization that happens at the local level.
It happens one player, one family, one team, and one community
at a time. It's happening in inner cities, it's happening in rural
areas, and it's happening in the suburbs. It's being played by
athletes who are already representing their country on national
teams. It's also being played by players who are physically and
mentally challenged. The game spans all socioeconomic ranges,
and is nearly gender equal at this point. Many of our volunteers
are youngsters themselves. Teenaged referees are officiating games
played by 6 year olds. More of our former players are now entering
the administrative and coaching ranks of our volunteers.
In preparation
for this opportunity, I reviewed the Carnegie Report on the role
of sports and youth development, written by Alex Poinset, from
a meeting convened by the Carnegie Corporation in New York on
March 18, 1996. David Hamburg reported that two crucial periods
exist in a child's life: the first three years of life, and that
period covering ages 10 to 14. The values and role models we provide
our children in that second critical period will determine whether
we have a civic renewal, because any such renewal will come from
our children.
I would
ask that this Commission, through its report, to the fullest extent
possible, assist our organization and other organizations whose
purpose is youth development in reaching those children at risk.
We must be able to provide those, as the Carnegie Report states,
"experiences involving personal discipline and the ability to
persevere that success in life demands. Athletics can be a useful
vehicle for teaching life's rules."
Our own
biggest need is fields. If you travel in Maryland or Virginia
through this weekend, any time, anywhere across the country, on
Saturdays the fields are packed with soccer players. Every field
is full. The only obstacle we have to continued growth in our
sport is field space. Whether this is within your power to influence,
I have no idea. I'll ask anyway. Any help is welcome.
Finally,
if America has lost its civic conscience, we in US Youth Soccer
intend to reestablish it. We will work to concentrate our efforts
in providing these soccer values to our children. They are our
future and our answer. Thank you.
GALSTON:
Thank you very much, Virgil. The final witness in this first afternoon
panel is Thomas Ahn, who is the co-director of the San Francisco
Conservation Corps. I guess you get the prize for the number of
miles traveled to testify. Glad you're with us.
THOMAS
AHN:
Thank you. In the summer of 1995, Willie Brown met Linda Blake.
Willie Brown is now the mayor of San Francisco. Linda Blake, at
the time, was a 13-year-old middle-school student in our program.
As part of the campaign, Mayor Brown stopped by our program during
the summer, and he attended our community meeting and participated
in some team-building activities. Then he sat down for a question-and-answer
period. During the question-and-answer period, Linda Blake raised
her hand and she asked the mayor, "What are you going to do to
solve the homeless problem in San Francisco?" To which the mayor
replied, "I think it's important that we consider that very serious
question and work in partnership with all citizens of San Francisco
for a solution." A few minutes went by, and Linda raised her hand
again and she asked, "What specifically are you going to do to
solve the homeless problem in San Francisco?" And Mayor Brown
essentially gave the same answer again.
Now a few
weeks later, there was a candidates' forum for all the mayoral
candidates of San Francisco, and we sent Linda to cover that event
for our youth newspaper. And she again raised her hand, and before
she could get her question out, Mayor Brown recognized her and
he said, "You must be a terrorist." Now Linda Blake is a part
of our program as a faculty member. She's 15 now, and she teaches
other young people, other young middle-school students, to be
terrorists, I guess.
For the
last 14 years, the San Francisco Conservation Corps has been providing
job training, education, and community service opportunities for
young people in San Francisco between the ages of 12 and 24. Now,
I'm going to talk specifically about our middle-school program
called Youth in Action.
Youth in
Action is really about young people teaching other young people.
It's founded on the belief that community service and civic engagement
must be an essential part of the development of youth. Towards
that end, we provide the training and skills for young people
to utilize resources to become participating members of their
community. Now during the school year, we provide tutoring, academic
enrichment, as well as community service opportunities for middle-school
students. That means that they come to our center to study, to
do their homework, and they also take an environmental education
class. And then, on Saturdays they go out in groups and provide
services for the city of San Francisco.
Now those
services include working at the food bank, serving food to the
homeless, making documentary videos about pertinent issues, putting
together a newspaper, cleaning up parks and beaches, and painting
out graffiti. During the summer session, we have our students
coming in five days a week, and they take three academic courses
as well as conducting a community service project each day. The
projects are the same; it happens more frequently. And the classes
occur every day, and it's designed to be good academic preparation
for their following school year.
Now that
doesn't sound very different from many other programs that are
going on. But I think one of the things that makes our program
unique is that we have 15-year-olds teaching physics classes,
giving out homework, thinking about how their students learn,
thinking about what they need to know to step into the classroom,
about deadlines for turning in lesson plans. We also have a special
program for rising ninth graders in which students not only take
the classes, but they also take a leadership class where they
learn how to facilitate meetings, conduct needs assessment of
communities. They learn about setting career goals, strategic
planning, about funding sources and funding restrictions. And
then, using those skills, they go out to design community service
projects for themselves.
Last summer,
one group of students decided that San Francisco as a city needed
more trees. So they went about seeking donations for trees. They
called up hundreds of places looking for trees to plant, and towards
the end of the summer, they had about 15 trees donated. And they
were very excited, and they were about to go out and plant them.
And their supervisor sort of stopped them and said, "Have you
talked to anyone about letting you plant trees?" "Oh." So the
process took a little bit longer. They took another week and called
up the Parks and Rec Department in the neighborhoods that they
knew they wanted to plant the trees in, and got the permission
and were able to plant the trees.
Getting
back to Willie Brown and Linda Blake: When the soon-to-be-mayor
called her a terrorist, she replied, "No, sir, I'm not a terrorist.
I'm a citizen." And I think that is, essentially, what we, as
a program, try to do: to provide young people with the skills,
resources, and the opportunities to become engaged citizens. Thank
you.
GALSTON:
We'll now proceed to questions for the witnesses, starting with
the two co-chairs.
NUNN:
Philip, could you tell me a little bit about the additional cost
of running these kind of schools, number one—particularly
the after hours and who funds that, where the money comes from,
whether the teachers play a role in that. And also, the natural
question is, if this is such a model, why isn't it being done
all over in New York? Or will it be?
COLTOFF:
Senator, on the funding, the Board of Ed in New York spends on
average about $7,000 a student for its 9-to-3 day, which we all
know to be . . . it's not a terribly cost-effective investment.
We're adding, for all the things that I mentioned and for many
others that I didn't get to, about $850 additional per student—for
the school to be open 330 days a year instead of 180 days a year,
with these additional activities. And I'm factoring in all of
the things that go on with parents. Now of that $850, about $450
of it now comes from existing programs that we can capitalize
on because we're in a school, that we otherwise couldn't. We're
able to draw down Safe and Drug-Free School money; Title I (now
Chapter I) money; we're able to draw down funds for school-based
help; we're able to draw down some of the funds that HHS provided
on waivers for children who are Medicaid-eligible. The other $400
is raised privately. And while funds are always difficult to raise
anywhere—private dollars—funds for these school programs
are the easiest funds that Children's Aid Society has to raise.
And we raise privately 18 million bucks a year. So that this is
something . . . Because people want schools to work. They want
public schools to work, whether it's family, whether individual
donors or family funds or corporations or what have you.
We did a
breakout for the Domestic Policy Council a year ago, because they
wanted to know . . . similar question to yours, Senator. And we
pointed out that some arrangements, some schools around the country,
may not need a medical clinic and a dental clinic and so on. They
may have a great relationship with the program that's across the
street, with a hospital or what have you. Or they may not need
a summer camp, because one already exists. We estimate that if
you take away the health services, you're down to about $400 a
child. And if you take away some of the parent activities—which
we believe in very strongly, because that in fact becomes ownership
and governance—but you could do it for $250 a child per year.
Which is interesting, because the Boys and Girls Clubs of America
indicate that in their programs it runs about $600 a child for
a youngster to be in a program averaging only 3 days a week. We've
proposed to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, because we have
a relationship with them, that two of our schools be used as training
sites for their regional and national staffs. And they're very
interested in this. So that, in fact, Boys and Girls Clubs around
the country can partner with their local public schools to do
the kinds of things that I was describing.
To me, it
is ridiculous, in this day and age—whether it's Y's or settlement
houses or Boys and Girls Clubs or Camp Fire Girls and Boys or
whatever—it is ridiculous to be spending precious capital
dollars building your own facilities and worrying about your own
autonomy when you could do it together with schools that the taxpayers
are already paying for, and where the overhead is already covered,
and where you can work out the questions of independence and autonomy
and, in fact, influence systems that are largely dysfunctional.
The Carnegie
Corporation and DeWitt Wallace/Reader's Digest has given us substantial
amounts of money—in total, about $800,000—to set up
technical assistance centers for CBOs and for local school boards
around the country, to do the kind of model that I was suggesting.
And so far, there have been about 2,000 visitors that have come.
Model programs are now being set up in Boston, St. Paul, Long
Beach, California, Houston, and St. Louis, using the models that
I described.
BENNETT:
I guess this is mainly for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Ahn. We thank all
three of you. First of all, Mr. Lewis, you need another category:
the quasi-volunteer coach. I attended my first soccer game as
a coach. My wife signed me up, to coach 6-year-olds.
LEWIS:
That's how it happens.
BENNETT:
And I asked some experienced dads at the time, "How many rules?"
And they said, "For 6-year-olds, it's not 17, it's just one: That
way!" And then I saw that. And I love this—don't know who
told me, but they said, "It's ants on a sugar cube." I'll never
forget that: 6-year-old soccer, before they learned their positions.
They were just all . . . anyway.
Civic renewal,
and civic renewal vis-à-vis the young. I visited a school
about two months ago that I visited when I was secretary of education;
I went back to see the teachers and others. And I talked to a
group of juniors and seniors, middle-class kids, black and white
for the most part, about 50-50. And I asked them what their biggest
problem was. After about 45 minutes of discussion, the biggest
problem came up to be boredom. Boredom. This is not an answer
that would have been allowed in a lot of households years ago,
and maybe even some today. I think it's a pretty modern answer—I
don't think you'd get this answer 30 years ago, or 50 years ago.
Boredom. It obviously makes some people's skin crawl to even hear
the answer. What do you say to that? What do you do?
You guys
are obviously involved in the other side of this. Is that a problem?
Is that part of the problem with America's young people? How did
this happen? What do we do? You've told us what you do specifically
to address it. How do we break through this?
LEWIS:
If I might. You've had some very impressive witnesses in the first
session and also today, and I'll defer to their expertise in some
of these, in the studies that have been written. I know a lot
more about how to bend a soccer ball than how to do some of these.
But boredom has to be a very big issue, because in that period
of time in which someone has nothing to do, bad things can happen.
We know that. And what we provide in an activity, a team activity,
is something to do in that time frame—something that we feel
is very constructive and value-based oriented, to allow them a
good alternative for that time period.
BENNETT:
Let me say another word, and then any of the three of you. It
seems to me, at least . . . my notion (other members of the Commission
may share it or not) as we're starting to think about what we're
going to say in this report. . . You said a lot of what's wrong
isn't hostility to the civic process—that people hate the
civic process, or hate politicians (I suppose there's more of
that than we'd like)—but rather kind of an indifference,
a kind of passivity, a kind of indifference. Some of us have some
suspicions here about television, about other things. But those
aside, I think it's especially galling to us to see it among young
people. Now you deal directly with young people, and they're engaged.
And—to use your words from before, Anna, if I may—what's
the tipping point? Are you already preaching to the choir? Are
these kids who would be engaged, if they weren't with you, Mr.
Ahn? Would they be playing soccer? Would they be engaged with
you, Mr. Coltoff? Or is there some way to draw these kids out
of boredom and into activity, whether it's citizenship building
or not?
AHN:
To be in our program, the young people must go through an interview
process and an application process. So I've had a chance to interview
hundreds of kids, hundreds of students, about why they want to
join our program. And the two most common answers I get are that,
"If I don't do this, I'd be hanging out on the street," and "I
want to do something to help my community." And these are not
just the 4.0, straight-A students. Some of these kids can barely
spell their name right. But the desire to be involved is there.
I think, from my experience, it's knowing how to figure it all
out, knowing how to become involved in a real way.
COLTOFF:
If I can, Mr. Bennett. I think, first, with many young people
of the age that we're talking about—the middle-school age,
teenage years . . . I think, first, we have not sufficiently—we,
the adult world—allowed these kids to express what is very
often natural altruism of that age. When we took kids whose families
are on welfare—and who have a very negative image of welfare,
and also a very limited understanding of it, of where that welfare
check comes from every month in their letter box—but when
we gave them a chance to explore it by going into the local welfare
office, and, with the consent of the people who run it, setting
up a kind of very informal day care program so that the mothers
who bring their little kids and have to hang around and wait on
long lines . . . These teenagers were able to use their sense
of altruism to help younger kids and set up a mini-day care center
right in the welfare office. So many wanted to join in, we couldn't
keep them away. Same thing with painting. And on this one, we
did not get the consent of the authorities. But the local subway
station was so filthy that virtually, even with good lighting,
the walls didn't reflect it. The kids went in and washed the walls
and painted part of the station. This was the station that they
used, and that their moms and dads used. Two, three hundred of
them—I mean, we didn't have enough brushes and paint for
these kids. They want to do things, if we give them an opportunity.
Secondly,
to the soccer world. (I also should say that I was a coach once,
and we had an unblemished record: we didn't win a single game.
We tied one, though.) We don't really have a value . . . We don't
understand the value of fun for youngsters. So many young people
in poor neighborhoods don't have a chance to really have fun.
They worry about being safe, they worry about where to go, they
worry about the cops pushing them around, they worry about schoolteachers
that they have to deal with, and parents have to come in. And
fun becomes very important. Now soccer, in most urban areas—it's
growing, I know—is not the biggest thing. But whether it's
soccer or whether it's intramural basketball leagues or whether
it's outdoor hiking . . . For example, who would have ever thought
that Outward Bound would be such a huge success in urban areas?
And it's becoming that because kids are looking for things to
do.
Thirdly,
I think it's a sense of purpose. When you give young people a
feeling that they're doing something for their block, for their
neighborhood, for their neighbors, whether it's painting a fence
or whether it's putting rat poison in the playgrounds in that
area, these are things that kids want to do. So I think we have
to constantly look at things, for things, that give young people
this sense of purpose and this sense that they're accomplishing
something.
WOODSON:
Just to add a point of validation to that. The kids that we deal
with are probably those most at risk, and what they tell us is
that people seldom come to them with the expectation that they
are to produce. Also, people don't come to them with the opportunity
for them to be stakeholders. When we approached these young men,
I guess what amazed us is how willing they were to put down the
guns and the knives and stop killing each other. And we asked
them why were they so willing, and they said, "No one ever came
to us to ask us to stop."
And then,
lastly, the alliance who was instrumental in keeping these kids
from killing themselves said, "We would not have made as much
progress if we had not listened to the children." When I say children,
these are 19 and 26 year olds, but many of them function . . .
But they said, "We listened to them. We were bringing them over
with separate vans, they had to be searched first, and then after
the peace was established, the kids said, `Why don't we come together
in one bus instead of two?' We were responsive to when they were
ready. We didn't have a preset, prescribed way of saying, `After
two weeks of negotiations, we ride in a single van.' No; we listened
to them."
And now
they are not only removing the graffiti, but they have their own
design for what the rec center ought to look like, where basketball
is going to be. And so the architects are now sitting down with
the kids and listening to their ideas about the design. And that's
really taking them seriously. But it also requires a belief that
they have the capacity, and the belief that they've got the right
to participate. And that's the problem I had with volunteers who
come in and want to paint the graffiti or tutor them—act
as if they are always to be acted upon, but never the object of
action.
HENRY
FERNANDEZ:
Youth Soccer. Probably if I had to name five things that took
me out of the kind of environment (and, I guess, to the extent
that I'm no longer at risk), it was certainly Youth Soccer. And
there was one thing that you just momentarily touched on—or
maybe, I think, it was actually touched on at a different point—that
was very true of being a participant, in what I guess was a US
Youth Soccer league. Where I grew up, it was a very, very diverse
immigrant community. And I think, on my high school team in the
end—which was the same team, of course, we'd played with
all of our lives—there were . . . of 17 guys on the team,
only 5 were American-born, and I was one of those that was American-born.
So I think there's another benefit that's there.
And Philip,
you mentioned it not being in urban communities. I don't think
it's necessarily in Washington Heights, because there's a large
Dominican community, and baseball is big there. But certainly
it has a real effect as well in bridging some of the concerns
that I think we've talked about in the past across communities.
And I think that that's very valuable. If you have any experience
with that that you might contribute here, it would be worthwhile.
And I'll
ask the second question to Philip, and you guys just take them
as you will. I'm sorry I missed your presentation, but one thing
I've always been concerned about in looking at your projects is
the role of leadership. And so much, in looking at a school like
P.S. 5, seems to be attributable to the incredible leadership
that you have there. I don't necessarily mean parent leadership
(and I think you have all those things), or community leadership.
But you have an exceptionally strong principal there, and I'd
be interested in what you think the role of leadership is in a
community-building enterprise like the project that you're doing
with the Children's Aid Society in PS 5. Either order.
LEWIS:
Mr. Fernandez, thank you for the opportunity, because it also
ties into a question that Ms. Faith Jones had in this morning's
session, and I was hoping that I'd get a chance to maybe address
that. We do have a very concerted effort in what we call an inner-city
program, and we call it Soccer Start. We have, in the city of
Houston, 15,000 inner-city players. That was our first effort.
We now have inner-city programs in San Antonio and in Dallas.
We started last year, the first year, here in Washington, D.C.
Our state president here is Jim Ferguson; he's done a bang-up
job getting a program started in DC We have 2,500 youth playing
in the inner city, in Washington, DC We also have programs in
Indianapolis, Minneapolis. We're looking to start a program now
in Chicago. And we will continue to do that as we go across the
country with this inner-city program. The reason we're not doing
it in all 50 states where we have associations already is because
it's a very important process, and it's a process in which we
have to identify volunteers within that community for that program
to be a success. We can't go in from an outside area, from a suburb,
and start a program in the inner city. We have to first identify
those key volunteers in the inner city and allow them to run that
program. What we will do is provide the support in a national
fashion. And as you said, soccer is a game that we like to say
needs no explanation of what you do, and it needs no language.
There are no language barriers in the game of soccer. What you
do is, you have two people, you put a ball between them, and they
know what to do. And the game is played. In nearly every country
in the world, people are playing the game. It's much larger around
the world than it is in the United States, obviously. But it's
a game that is easy to integrate, and it's easy because it goes
back to what Mr. Woodson said, and what Phil said: It's fun, and
people enjoy playing. I still play. And Mr. Land, it's way over
40 now, but it's a great game and it continues. I play with a
Latin team in Albuquerque on Sundays when I'm there. So I agree
with you, and it does take people out of harm's way. I've heard
that many times, and I've witnessed it many times with my own
teams and players that have been able to stay out of trouble.
COLTOFF:
Thank you. Henry, I know you visited PS 5 with a group just a
few weeks ago, so you got a feel, that's one of the four schools.
I want to respond directly to your question. I have to also say,
on soccer and fun and the difference in communities, when the
middle schools first opened in Washington Heights—and it's
a Dominican community, and we all know about Dominican baseball
players; as a matter of fact, the major leagues' leading place
for recruiting shortstops is San Pedro de Macares, which is in
the Dominican Republic—in any event, the youngsters decided
that they wanted to be part of the Children's Aid Society basketball
league which plays other CAS centers. And basketball actually
is becoming . . . kids are becoming better and better at it. But
when they entered the league, they really weren't too competitive.
And I remember happening to be at their first game, where they
lost 90-8. The coaches were wonderful; they said and did all the
right things. The second game they did better: they lost 80-14.
Many of them, after the game, when the kids all get together—they're
from different neighborhoods, and have some pizza and the things
that we all would do in this kind of situations—some of the
Dominican kids went to the kids in Harlem and said, "How would
you like to play baseball?"
Henry, leadership
is so crucial, and I appreciate what you said about the leadership
in the school that you visited. My answer to that, about the strong
principal (and she is wonderful) . . . But it goes back to, I
believe, what I said in my introductory remarks. We're part of
the management team. We're not coming in and living with the principal
and the APs and whomever else is part of the administration. In
other words, we're not having to accommodate ourselves to an institutional
system that preexists. We help to choose the principal, and the
parents help to choose the principal. The principal had to make
her case, not to some bureaucracy and not because she came up
on a certain exam or a waiting list; but she had to want to be
in that community, and she had to want to at least stay till 5
or 6:00. We don't ask her to stay till 9-10 every night. But she
had to see herself not only as a principal but as a community
leader, as a community organizer, and, in part, as a social worker
without the degree. And that's the tone, that's the culture of
the school.
When people
(you know, Henry) speak—and I say this to the Secretary,
too, because I know how involved you were in education—when
people speak today about school reform and see public school reform
as only standards and only improving literacy—and, without
in any way wanting to criticize the president, saying that all
children must read by third grade and must log into the Internet
by eighth, without understanding where these children are, where
they come from, what their lives are like, and what you have to
do to first keep them in school and, secondly, create a learning
environment—they're missing the point. Standards by itself
is not the answer to public schools, particularly in urban areas.
You do need standards, you do need these goals. But it has to
be done in a way which combines the internal crisis of education,
having to do with curriculum and standards and teacher training,
with the external, having to do with what these children come
to school with. You can't wish that away. We don't do it with
cancer; we don't do it with other physical ailments. We can't
do it with social ailments either.
LLOYD
HACKLEY:
First, I agree with the concept that athletics can develop very
decent people. Having been raised and reared by a 4 four-sport
letter person who also was the coach, we had that drummed into
us all the time about being decent and good sportsmanship. And
of course, we know that's fallen on some hard times recently by
the behavior of some of our most prominent athletic stars. And
so I am glad that . . . I think I heard you say that decency and
character are an active part of developing those skills or an
active part of your program. And the reason I'm saying I'm glad
I hear it, I've seen some data which indicate to me not much difference
between similar kids in a program and out of a program, if the
kids are similar in background. For example, we had some data
provided by the Josephson Institute which showed that kids who
profess religious convictions, as compared to those who did not
profess those, weren't very different in what they did. They both
cheated on exams, almost to the same degree; and that was sort
of scary.
And so my
conclusion was that you can't teach these skills—decency,
character—by osmosis. And that you can have an excellent
third baseman, but if you don't spend as much time teaching him
what decency is and how to practice it, then you may only have
a good third baseman and a very indecent character. And so I guess
there's a question in there. How actively do we infuse lessons
in decency and behavior in our programs, and how much do we depend
on it by our good intentions?
LEWIS:
Well, it's obviously a very large part in the United States Youth
Soccer Association. It is taught in every clinic that's given
to referees and coaches. Those volunteers, those administrators
go back to the players, and hopefully that is infused. We do things
a little differently in soccer. We talked about that at lunch.
We have a thing called a red card, and when you get a red card
on the field for illegal activity, cheating, whatever, that player
is sent off. Maybe we should have had that in basketball a long
time ago. And maybe it's being done in basketball now; after this
past week, we saw some of that occur. But what that means, then,
is that that player—who is an integral part of a team, of
a team process where that whole team relies on every other member
of the team to achieve a common goal . . . now is deprived of
a player. Because when a red card is used in soccer, that player
is sent off, and no replacement can come on the field, so now
the team has to play with fewer players. So it doesn't just punish
the one player; it punishes the entire unit. And the entire unit
understands that we must play within the rules to be allowed to
play. And I think that that's a lesson.
And I hope
this isn't too Polyannaish, but I think that that's a lesson that
we need to take into life. We must play within the rules. We can
play hard, and we can push it, but we must stay within the rules.
And that's what we, as coaches, administrators, and referees,
want to give our players in those critical developing stages of
their lives. And that, I believe, is what we're doing.
HACKLEY:
Do you train the parents as well?
LEWIS:
Yes. That's the tough one—that's the tough one. But how we
do that is, in our courses dealing with our coaches and our referees,
we encourage that the coaches have team meetings in the fall—and
Coach Bennett, I hope that you'll do that with your parents, with
those under-6s—and what you do with the parents is, you explain
to them what the philosophy is, and just a very brief history
lesson.
When soccer
originally started to be played with rules, there were no referees
on the field. In fact, there were no referees. It was a game that
was played with sportsmanship—I like to call it soccership.
But it was a game that was played in a fashion that if you fouled
someone, you immediately helped them up, you gave them the ball
and let them proceed. Now, it didn't last very long: it only lasted
about 20 years in that fashion. And then they decided they probably
better have a referee. And so they came up with a referee, but
the referee wasn't allowed on the field. And what would happen
is, the two teams would play, and if they felt like there was
a disagreement, if they couldn't work it out between the two of
them, then they went over to the side and they asked the referee
for a decision. And of course, historically, it evolved that they
didn't like just one referee's decision, so they added two more.
So then there were three standing over on the field; and eventually,
they let one get on the field. And it's gone downhill since then.
GALSTON:
There being no more questions, we will adjourn this third panel.
Back to Panel Two
Forward to Panel Four
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