During the 2016-17 school year, over 111,500 students in New York City experienced homelessness at some point. For the past decade, S.I.M.B.A — which stands for “Safe in my Brothers Arms” — has been helping that same population overcome their struggles with homelessness.
Operated by NYC’s Department of Education, S.I.M.B.A. offers academic resources, extracurricular activities and college- and career-readiness training to a current class of 50 young men. In 2008, it launched a sister organization, A.S.E.T. — or “All Sisters Evolving Together” — to serve female high school students. This year, A.S.E.T serves a cohort of 38 young women.
“High school students, above all other homeless cohorts, were dropping out at an exponentially higher rate,” says program director Wayne Harris. “So when I took this position, I said, ‘If that’s what the data says, that’s the population that I want to work with.’”
Since its inception, S.I.M.B.A. and A.S.E.T together have served over 1,000 high school students. Last year, it celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its most recent class of seniors all graduated high school with multiple offers to attend college.
Watch the video above to learn more about S.I.M.B.A. and A.S.E.T.’s work.
Tag: education
Want to Reduce Bullying in Schools? Bring in Babies
Emotional development in schools is integral to the way that students develop academically, and it also sets them up to be responsible, caring citizens once they reach adulthood. Not only that, but having the ability to empathize with others has been shown to reduce aggression in problem children and reduce incidences of bullying in school.
It’s a notion that educator and author Mary Gordon is intimately familiar with. As the founder and executive director of Roots of Empathy, she’s devoted the past two decades to teaching children empathy — specifically by exposing them to babies.
And she’s been wildly successful.
Since its founding in Canada in 1996, the nonprofit has expanded to serve K-8 students in 11 countries, including the U.S., where it’s been established in five states and the District of Columbia. On its surface, the program is simple: It comprises 27 lessons, based around the monthly visits of a volunteer parent, his or her infant, and a Roots of Empathy-trained instructor. With the babies as their “teachers,” the children observe how the parent and the baby interact, and how Mom or Dad responds to the baby’s emotions and needs.
Students learn to identify with the baby’s perspective and how to recognize and label the tiny tot’s feelings. They then become increasingly able to apply that learning to themselves, leading to a better understanding of their own feelings as well as the feelings of their peers.
“What we do know and what the teachers know is that the children really do learn to understand the alphabet of their emotions. And even better, they are able to talk about how they feel,” Gordon tells NationSwell.
And that can translate into a 50 percent reduction in the number of children who pick fights in the classroom.
Other research has confirmed those findings. A study in Northern Ireland showed that kids in a Roots of Empathy program saw improved social behaviors, such as positive communication with other students, and a reduction in “difficult” behavior. Likewise, in a 2005 study by the University of Missouri, researchers found a link between Roots of Empathy’s program and “particularly strong evidence for its potential to reduce aggression and violence.”
The point of the program isn’t to single out specific problem kids prone to bullying, but instead approach the classroom as a whole.
“It’s not medicine; it’s vitamins, and we all need vitamins,” Gordon says. “If you offer a universal program, you head off a lot of trouble, and it’s a benefit that we head off aggression and bullying.”
In their work, the Harvard researchers Jennifer Kahn and Richard Weissbourd have similarly found that the best way to reduce bullying is not by attempting to correct the behavior of one individual, but rather to foster an inclusive, caring school environment. Blogging for HuffPost, Kahn and Weissbourd wrote of their research that “in schools where students reported having more empathy, students also reported fewer experiences of bullying and were more likely to try to stop bullying. Students who reported more empathy also reported fewer experiences of discrimination, threats to physical safety, teasing, and bullying at school.”
Despite the promising research, the U.S. has been slow to implement empathy-based programming and instead leans on punishing alleged bullies — as was the case in Florida earlier this year when two 12-year-old middle school students were charged with cyberstalking after the suicide of one of their classmates.
Gordon says that’s the wrong approach, and the solution lies in building strong connections between students and their peers.
While Roots of Empathy continues to rapidly expand — its program has been implemented in countries as diverse as New Zealand, Germany and Costa Rica — growing it in the U.S. has been more difficult, where a premium is put on standardized tests and grades.
“Here’s the biggest issue in the U.S., is people say to me, ‘I don’t want the program unless it can raise academic scores this year.’ And they say, ‘I’m sorry, it sounds wonderful, but I’ve got to deliver,’” Gordon says. “Obviously we want all children to get an education and a job, but at what cost?”
Seattle was the first U.S. city to adopt the Roots of Empathy model during the 2007-08 school year; today, more than 15,000 children there have gone through the program. Though specific research has yet to measure the efficacy of Seattle’s program, educators have said it’s made a dramatic difference.
“Roots of Empathy provides a unique way to bring out compassion and tenderness in students,” one teacher wrote to Seattle’s Child in 2015. “For kids, Roots of Empathy is a respite from the day-to-day realities of school, and helps them deal with the difficulties and challenges in their home lives, as well. The visits are a breath of fresh air, giving kids a break from the work of academic learning and interactions with peers.”
Melissa Soltani, program manager for Roots of Empathy in Seattle, says that she knew the program was effective after a student confided in her that he had been harboring suicidal thoughts.
“He said he was trying to strangle himself with his belt in the bathroom,” Soltani says. “It was at that moment when I realized that we were creating space to be comfortable and share that with someone.”
And that’s exactly what Gordon is working to implement in more cities and states, if not the entire world.
“This is our solution to building a caring, peaceful and civil society: through children,” she says.
Want Your Kid to Pursue Science? Have Them Dress the Part
In order to encourage more of the nation’s young people to pursue careers in science, it pays to help them dress the part.
That is the key finding of a study we conducted recently to determine what kind of effect a simple article of clothing – in this case white lab coats – have on students’ confidence in their ability to do science. We also wanted to know if lab coats help students see themselves as scientists and aspire to science careers.
We are science education researchers interested in understanding how the symbols and tools of science can promote students’ interest in studying science.
This is an important topic because jobs in science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM jobs — are not only important for the economy, but are also growing faster and pay more than many other fields.
Although the number of jobs in STEM fields are increasing, the number of people choosing to major in those fields remains below what is needed to fill the positions.
THE POWER OF CLOTHING
In order to encourage more young people to choose to major in STEM fields and pursue STEM careers, we believe it is important to help them see themselves as someone who can be successful in those fields. One item often associated with scientists is the white lab coat.
Clothing can be a powerful tool for changing one’s self-image, as seen in previous studies of the effects of suits and lab coats on adults.
In an effort to help students see themselves as scientists and as individuals who can be successful in science, we conducted a study that put students in lab coats for science instruction. Our team worked with five fifth-grade teachers from four rural schools who taught at least two science classes.
SAME LESSONS, DIFFERENT ATTIRE
For each teacher, students in one of the classes wore lab coats for at least 10 class periods over the course of two months. The other class did not wear lab coats. The teachers taught the same lessons to each class to minimize the differences between teachers. The participants were interviewed before and after the 10 lessons and also took a pre- and post-survey that explored many factors, such as their sense of self as a scientist, their confidence in their skills related to science, and whether they had career goals related to STEM fields.
For the 110 youth in the group who didn’t wear lab coats, there were no statistically significant changes in their responses from the pretest to post-test for any question on the written survey. However, for the students who wore the lab coats, there was a significant increase in their perceptions of whether others see them as scientists.
More specifically, of the 72 students who wore lab coats, 47 percent changed their responses on the post-survey to indicate they feel like others see them as someone who likes science.
Also, of the 42 lab coat–wearing students who had low levels of confidence in their science skills, 45 percent changed their responses on the post-test to positive responses. Another 36 percent of the students in lab coats with low levels of self-confidence did not change their response from the pre- to post-test but this included the students who already felt they had high levels of recognition.
POSITIVE EFFECTS
To test for performance and competence in science, students were asked questions such as “I think I am good at science” and “I am good at using science tools like thermometers, rulers or magnifying glasses.” The youth who wore lab coats but had low levels of self-confidence had a significant increase in their responses to these questions. More specifically, 60 percent of the students changed their answer from disagree to agree.
To test for career aspirations, the students were asked questions such as “I would like to have a job that uses science.” For the students wearing the lab coats who had low confidence in their science skills, 50 percent changed their answers from disagree to agree.
A WORTHY INVESTMENT
The bottom line: is that for youth who initially had low levels of confidence in their science skills, the lab coats had a significant improvement in their beliefs in their abilities, their levels of recognition and their science career aspirations.
Of course, lab coats cannot supplant a solid science education. At the same time, these simple articles of clothing may represent an inexpensive way to help more young people get interested in science and see themselves as future scientists.
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Megan Ennes is a graduate research assistant and M. Gail Jones is a professor of STEM education, both at North Carolina State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Fixing America’s Schools
Ted Dintersmith isn’t your typical philanthropist. The straight-talking venture capitalist and former Obama appointee to the 2012 U.N. General Assembly is also one of the nation’s foremost voices on education reform. Dintersmith has no problem calling out other education reformers, such as tech billionaire Bill Gates or Success Academy Charter Schools founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz, on what they’re doing wrong with their approach to improving public education.
“Eva Moskowitz gets called a hero by some, but would any of those people [who are] cutting big checks to her send their kids to those schools? Hell no!” says Dintersmith, adding that schools need to change their focus from test scores to more meaningful measurements of success. “So much of education’s decline is based on these eight words: ‘But we have to be able to measure.’ That’s false. We have to be able to assess.”
In his new book, What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America, Dintersmith visits schools in all 50 states and discovers teachers doing extraordinary things with limited resources. Instead of reminding us that our public school system is broken, his message is one of hope. NationSwell sat down with Dintersmith to discuss his top four education innovations and solutions that he encountered while venturing across the country.
SOLUTION 1: REIMAGINE THE HIGH SCHOOL TRANSCRIPT
In 2009, New Hampshire — along with a handful of cities across the nation — adopted a competency-based approach to grading students, as opposed to the typical A-to-F letter grades.
Students tend to forget information after they take a test, especially if they cram for it. But with a competency-based approach, high school transcripts look more like scorecards, reflecting student comprehension of classroom topics rather than just a GPA based on letter grades.
“If we are going to hold kids and teachers accountable [for what they learn in school], we should look to New Hampshire, with kids demonstrating real competency of standards that are driven by design and based on real performance,” Dintersmith says. “And I think it is really encouraging because it shows what can be done at scale.” After a pilot program in 27 New Hampshire schools, the competency-based approach was introduced as a statewide initiative.
“Legislatures, school boards, commissioners — all trusted teachers to lead the way in how they could reinvent the high school transcript,” Dintersmith says. “They turned it into [something] confidence-based and performance-based, with kids demonstrating important accomplishments and skills instead of [focusing on] getting a 70 or higher on multiple-choice tests.”
SOLUTION 2: BE IN THE STUDENTS’ CHAIRS
In another competency-based curriculum, teachers in Iowa thought the best way to get students interested in learning was to have them tackle real-world business and community projects. The program came about after an educator-led experiment asked about 60 local business and community leaders to put themselves in the shoes of students for a day.
“They got movers and shakers from all over Cedar Rapids to come in for a full school day, to see what life is like as a student,” Dintersmith says. “And then at the end, the teachers asked [them], ‘Do you think we should just try to keep doing what we’ve always done, or should we be thinking big?’”
The resulting program, named Iowa BIG, pairs schools in Cedar Rapids with nonprofit, business and government agencies. Students solve for community needs, such as creating public data portals for local sports results that reporters can use and building robotic kayaks that use spectrometers to beam back data on water quality.
Dintersmith says he was blown away by the program. “Kids do just as well on standardized tests because they are really energized, and [teachers] tell me 98 percent get into first-choice colleges,” he says. “Kids are getting great summer jobs too.”
SOLUTION 3: CONNECT KIDS TO THE WORLD
Every spring, Coachella Valley, California, experiences a massive boom in population when it hosts its annual music-and-arts festivals. But whereas millions of dollars pour in over the course of just a month, Coachella Valley’s schools are some of the poorest in the nation.
“There are a lot of homeless kids, a lot of kids living in trailer parks — which is luxury housing for these families,” says Dintersmith, who visited the city during his tour. “These are kids desperately trying to escape poverty, but they’re under-resourced, which is the story of education in America.”
Coachella Valley’s school superintendent, Darryl Adams, recognized that one of the biggest challenges for students was access to technology. So Adams, a former musician-turned-music teacher, got a $45 million bond voted on by residents to focus schools on reducing the so-called digital divide, where poor students have less internet access than their wealthier counterparts. The money paid for an iPad for every one of the 18,000 students in the district. The grant also provided for WiFi on eight school buses that then parked outside of the city’s trailer parks, providing internet access for everyone in the neighborhood.
“Adams focused the schools on teaching students to create and invent [things like websites and robotics], and to use technology to show that you can make things that will impress other people, will be valued by other people, will make your world better, and will help you escape poverty,” Dintersmith says. “So really hard-hit kids suddenly have a reason to come to school and are getting good at something that will give them multiple career options going forward.”
SOLUTION 4: TRY OUT TRADE SKILLS
In Waipahu, a suburb of Honolulu, the poverty rate is 2 percent higher than the state average and disability rates are almost double. That translates into little funding for local schools — especially for the expensive hardware that much of technology requires.
“We all think of Hawaii being luxury hotels, but Hawaii has these acute pockets of poverty, especially in Waipahu, one of the poorest areas outside of Honolulu,” says Dintersmith, who was intrigued by one school’s approach to integrate design thinking into their curriculum.
The school asked technology companies to partner with its students. The idea was to mix applied learning with classroom instruction. Students learned how to create products and build out technology-driven solutions to help other members of the community.
“These kids were so impressive,” Dintersmith says. “They’re mixing the applied with the academic, and they’re getting these great career paths, but they take such pride in their school and their community. Again, it’s that really clear understanding that the applied is a great way to develop academic perspective.”
Dintersmith also found out about another school not far from Waipahu that was using a similar applied-learning approach, but with marketing and journalism instead of tech.
“If you simply relegate these kids to an academic-only environment, many kids find it’s not interesting, and when you get them in high school, you only have one option, which is college,” Dintersmith says. “As they come through school, we owe it to these kids to give them as many possible career options outside of a more formal education. Because, at the end, all they’ll do is keep their fingers crossed and hope they can find a career.”
The Other Dreamers
February 15 was a heavy day for students at the New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies. The previous day, 17 people were killed at a Florida high school, and the tragedy left them with just one thing on their minds: What can they do to enact change?
It’s a familiar, if new, refrain for many teenagers across the country as they look to make their schools safer. And as demonstrated at the recent March for Our Lives, which occurred simultaneously in 800-plus cities around the globe, these students are seeing firsthand how voicing their concerns can lead to a powerful movement.
But for the kids at the Lab School, having a voice isn’t something new. In fact, treating students as customers — where they, not the faculty, are always right — has become something of a mantra at the school, thanks to an ongoing program housed there called The Future Project.
The initiative, which focuses on giving students a say in how they want their schools run, is a response to their complaints that schools don’t give them enough agency. At a time when student engagement is problematic across the nation, The Future Project reignites interest in school by allowing students an undeniable voice in shaping their community.
“Schools were designed for one purpose — teaching the basics of math or English — and they’re not catching up with the needs and wants of young people,” says GLG Social Impact Fellow Kanya Balakrishna, co-founder of The Future Project. “You often imagine that students are dropping out of school because of performance, but what we’re seeing is those students just aren’t making the connection between the life they’re living now and what they’re seeing in school.”
Inspired by her mother, a former educator, Balakrishna worked with high school students while studying anthropology at Yale. She found that despite teachers’ best efforts, students often reported feeling bored at school and disconnected from the issues they really cared about.
“It makes such a powerful difference when someone believes in students unconditionally,” she says.
So Balakrishna took an anthropological approach to solving student disengagement: observe, analyze, then take action. She also received executive guidance through her participation in the GLG Social Impact Fellowship. Through GLG, Balakrishna and her team have explored a range of topics, from how to be better managers and build a sales team to engaging with students’ parents and driving cultural change within schools.
Unlike afterschool programs that enlist adults as mentors, The Future Project embeds a full-time employee, known as a dream director, in a school to conduct interviews and perform annual assessments to uncover the issues and obstacles facing students — all from the perspective of the kids themselves. From there, dream directors utilize a strategy called “practice of possibilities” in which students develop projects that motivate their fellow teens to get involved and become more active at school.
The program is purposefully vague on appropriate actions to take because each student population requires a unique approach.
“There are 30,000 high schools in the country, and we can’t design different services for each one. So we created a model that was focused around listening and learning and could be customized to each school,” Balakrishna explains.
The Future Project operates in 50 schools nationwide and has helped approximately 30,000 students. Of those schools, four out of five report better relationships between students and teachers.
“There is rigorous science that backs up everything we’ve been doing, even the little details like the random icebreakers that dream directors do with a student,” Balakrishna says.
At the Lab School in New York, students told resident dream director Scotty Crowe that despite a student population of just 500 there was a looming sense of detachment.
“Students were saying they didn’t know what sports teams won; they didn’t know any accomplishments of other students. We want to make people feel connected because they have common interests,” says Crowe, adding that all of the initiatives The Future Project helped create — including a school newspaper and assembly days focused around diversity — were targeted toward building a stronger community.
“Our modern school system was created over 100 years ago, and yet we’re still using it despite cultures, technologies and courses changing since then,” says Eleanor Jewel, chief dream director for New York City and New Jersey schools. “We’re still asking, ‘Why are students checked out of school at 15 or 16 years old?’ That’s what we’re trying to solve here.”
Faculty members attest to The Future Project’s effectiveness. Kay Rothman, a college advisor and psychology teacher at the Lab School, says that the program “gives real credence to what students are saying when they talk about what they need in school.”
One alumna of the program, Justice Hatterson, has leveraged the skills she learned from a photography project six years ago and turned them into a career as a model manager for her own company, Daring Imagery Model Management.
“I took what I learned in that project and started a photography business. I became an event photographer doing baby showers and weddings, and then started taking photos of people. I’ve used what I learned about marketing, leadership, supervision and coaching, and pushed those things in my business,” Hatterson, now 23, says. “I get to coach people every day and build them up. It’s kinda like I’m their dream director, and they’re my dreamers.”
Hattersonis far from alone in being inspired by her experience with The Future Project, Balakrishna says. Ninety percent of participants told the organization that they feel more connected after working with a dream director.
“As a society, we often look at school as the problem,” Balakrishna says. “But we believe school can be the solution for young people to get an experience and learn or discover their strengths, passions and purpose.”
A previous version of this story misspelled Justice Hatterson’s last name and mischaracterized Balakrishna’s work with students while at Yale University.
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GLG Social Impact is an initiative of GLG to advance learning and decision-making among distinguished nonprofit and social enterprise leaders. The GLG Social Impact Fellowship provides learning resources to a select group of nonprofits and social enterprises, at no cost.
From Combat to Classroom
Since the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions in 2003, more than 500,000 service members have entered into post-secondary education. While the military offers financial support to veterans transitioning from combat to classroom, it doesn’t address one recurring issue that student vets face: Self-esteem while in the classroom.
“I did feel a bit nervous competing with people not my age,” says Samantha Demezieux, a 28-year-old former Marine who attends Columbia University in New York City for Middle Eastern studies.
A 2016 study found that nearly half of veterans felt unprepared for civilian life — especially those who were in combat and suffer from medical issues — and even less prepared to deal with the anxieties of being on a college campus.
“When you enter the military, it’s so easy to go from a civilian and turn into a soldier, but not the other way around,” says Michael P. Abrams, executive director for the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration at Columbia University. “We need to be better at engaging veterans and letting them know that they have opportunities. It’s definitely an area for improvement.”
There’s a measurable benefit in having vets on campuses, says Abrams. He says it’s the mixture of street smarts and book smarts that make for better diversity in classrooms.
“Diversity is something everyone’s talking about, that should also include experience and age and what you’ve done with this life,” he says. “When you’re discussing Middle Eastern politics in an academic setting, it helps to have a vet who has been in Iraq in 2012 with the elections. It brings such tangible learning experiences to a classroom you wouldn’t otherwise get.”
Demezieux says her — and other student vets’ — perspectives have been widely welcomed, which has remedied some of her initial anxieties.
“I’ve sat in a couple classes where the professor or teacher’s assistant was privy to me being a vet, and they ask for context,” she says.
In addition to political perspectives, vets enter the classroom with a variety of soft skills taught in the military that education programs — not just universities — have been able to capitalize on, such as on-the-fly learning and leadership qualities.
At NPower, a nonprofit that specializes in training veterans for tech jobs, the organization capitalizes on those soft skills to help place their students in jobs.
Graduates of its 26-week coding bootcamps have seen tremendous success, with some veterans securing jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families — even without advanced coding skills that stem from a more formal education.
“What we’re seeing is that companies are hiring from us because they are beginning to recognize that veterans have such tremendous life skills they can bring to the table,” says Brittany Worden, program manager for NPower’s veterans courses. “What they’re saying is, ‘Hey, we want personality and willingness to learn over skills.’”
Worden says that Citi, one of the primary businesses that recruits from NPower, has been most receptive in hiring vets, with more than 100 interns and close to 50 full-time staff. “They’ve just taken our students and built on what they learn here within their position.”
One of those students, Nick Carillo, was an NPower intern and now is the program manager for Citi’s Architecture and Technology Engineering Analyst program.
“In the first few months after separating, I applied to at least 80 positions. I felt it was hard to understand corporate structure and life, so it was hard to answer interview questions at first,” he says, but adds that the soft skills he learned in service have helped him in his current career. “Being drilled to aggressively attack goals and to never give up has just been invaluable to me. I feel that’s why people look to hire veterans; they want people that not only have talent but ambition to put that talent to use.”
One of the biggest challenges at NPower is getting veterans up to speed on job skills, including how to manage the process of looking for a job.
“What I’ve learned is that a lot of [veterans] haven’t had to do an interview. It’s just not something you need to do in the military. They don’t know how to ask questions, they don’t know how to answer tough questions, and in return they don’t have lots of confidence,” Worden says.
That lack of confidence is universal, according to Abrams, especially since asking for help is somewhat taboo in the military.
“It’s tough to ask for help in the military. You’re the person that is supposed to help others. That is the culture and the attitude, especially in the Marine Corps,” he says. “It’s very difficult to go to someone and say I need help because it shows vulnerability, when in reality it means you’re very strong.”
Though admittedly hard, according to Demezieux, getting over the fear of needing help can result in being a better student.
This article is paid for and produced in collaboration with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veteran service organizations and leading veteran champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the first installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.
In Atlanta, Affordable Housing Boosts School Performance, Tenant Health
Among the rolling hills and dense pine canopies east of Atlanta’s I-285 bypass, down the street from a halal meat market, two Buddhist temples and Good Times Country Cookin’, sits the Willow Branch Apartment Homes. The complex is tucked behind a flapping “Welcome” flag, which is emblematic of Clarkston, a small but famously global suburb that has been coined “Ellis Island South” and “the most diverse square mile in America.”
Built in 1971, Willow Branch looks like any other aging metro-Atlanta apartment building and dozens around Clarkston, save for its unique mansard roofs. But after school one warm afternoon in February, what used to be the pool house transforms into another thing that sets Willow Branch apart: a banner-bedecked classroom where a circle of refugee children, representing more than 30 ethnicities, sit squirming and giggling. The kids, all of whom are residents, play a clapping game, each contributing another word to a growing sentence they pass around the room like a hot potato: “Valentine’s. Day. Is. About. Moms. And. Dogs.” The last word sparks hysterical laughter.
“A lot of them, their parents don’t speak English and can’t help with their [school] work,” says Allie Reeser, the program director of the nonprofit Star-C, which runs the afterschool program at Willow Branch. “Socially, it’s a great place for kids to go.” Nearby, 8-year-old Elizabeth Mawi, who emigrated with eight siblings from Burma, concurs in a mousey voice: “It’s good, because we can share, and we help people.”
Held for four hours each weekday afternoon, the Star-C afterschool program is one part of a dynamic model — piloted here at the 186-unit Willow Branch, where the residents’ average income of $18,750 is well below the U.S. poverty line — that’s showing how affordable housing can boost performance in local schools, increase resident health and even quell crime.
Alongside its fundraising arm, 3Star Communities, Star-C was founded by Marjy Stagmeier, 55, a successful manager of commercial and residential real estate around Atlanta. Her model, supporters say, is basically a three-way win for residents and investors in blighted apartment complexes in that it boosts social and environmental aspects for tenants and generates greater profits for landlords. Stagmeier’s research has uncovered no other program in the U.S. that combines wraparound services of housing, education, and medical care in the same way, though Yesler Terrace Apartments (operated by the Seattle Housing Authority) and Eden Housing (a California nonprofit housing developer and property manager) have similar components.
“If I had 10 more Marjy-run properties in Clarkston, there’s no doubt that our crime rate would drop even more, test scores would go up even more, and our community health and connections … would increase,” says Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry. “She’s creating a long-term, sustainable paradigm in multifamily housing that will pay dividends to our community for years to come.”
And Willow Branch’s successes, Stagmeier says, could be only the beginning in metro Atlanta — where recent studies show a deficit of more than 80,000 affordable housing units — and beyond.
ENTREPRENEURIAL GENES
Philanthropy wasn’t always in Stagmeier’s heart — entrepreneurship was.
She grew up just two miles from Willow Branch in Stone Mountain, the middle of three daughters whose parents were serial entrepreneurs investing in everything from pig farms to electrical- and mechanical-supply companies (all three girls would eventually own businesses). After studying accounting at Georgia State University and passing the state’s CPA exam, she worked in banking and real estate for a decade, socking away her money and publishing a revered book in 1994, “Real Estate Asset Management: Executive Strategies in Profit Making.” Managing a portfolio of $500 million by the mid-1990s, she teamed with a German investor and started her own company to buy and manage workforce housing, including Willow Branch in 1996.
Complexes with early versions of the afterschool program and stable rents stayed roughly 95 percent occupied, eliminating costly turnover and transiency, which drags down student performance. (What’s more, parents who knew where their children were after the final school bell could work longer hours, earning more rent money). A blighted apartment community in the northwestern suburb of Marietta provided Stagmeier’s “a-ha!” moment, she says, as she began to see how a single complex can drastically impact the schools it feeds.
By 2014, Stagmeier had sold her other properties to focus on honing the Star-C model at Willow Branch. In order for the program to work, she says, the purchasing price of any new complex has to be less than $40,000 per unit, which allows rents to stay affordable and thus turnover low. (At Willow Branch, tenants pay an average of $615 a month.) She channels $3,000 monthly into the Star-C program, which employs three full-time people, with fundraising covering the rest of costs. Word has spread, and volunteers from throughout the region, primarily church groups and students, log nearly 8,000 hours at the complex each year.
Now, Star-C’s academic results are a particular source of pride, for both Stagmeier and the parents of the 300 kids under age 10 who call Willow Branch home.
As recently as 2013, neighboring Indian Creek Elementary School was the second worst-performing school in Georgia. Following a partnership with Star-C, the elementary has been named a “Platinum Performer” — the highest classification awarded by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement — three years running. Nearly 90 percent of students passed the Georgia Milestones assessment test last year and have average GPAs of 3.25.
“That’s impressive,” says Stagmeier, “considering English is new to most of these kids.”
In addition to the free education component, Star-C has partnered with a nearby health clinic to offer residents dentistry, primary care and OB-GYN services at $50 to $70 per visit. If residents are still unable to pay, the nonprofit will cover their visits out of its fundraising proceeds.
Another healthy facet of life at Willow Branch: a community gardening program, which costs residents just $20 a year (this covers the cost of deer-netting). In 40 tidy gardens that consume about an acre, Hispanic tenants grow peppers, Asian residents cultivate roselle hibiscus, and religiously significant marigolds are popular with just about everyone. Along with the recently erected fences that keep out the neighborhood’s gang members, the gardening initiative gives residents reason to be outside and has all but eliminated crime, Stagmeier says.
Statistics that paint an accurate picture of crime in the immediate area are tough to come by, as residents often don’t call police because of language barriers and mistrust. But hundreds of people — including what Stagmeier describes as “harsh gangs,” which twice attacked a security officer, periodically flashed guns on the property, and stole from residents — formerly cut through Willow Branch to access a commercial district. “That’s all gone away since we put up the fence and started the gardens,” says Stagmeier. “Grandma in her garden won’t put up with that type of behavior.”
Savings on food, healthcare and rent have had cumulative, positive effects. Of the 39 families who moved out of Willow Branch last year, 16 were able to buy their first homes.
“That’s going from poverty to mobility,” Stagmeier says. “That’s what we do here.”
FUTURE OUTLOOK
As of this writing, Stagmeier was under contract with her second property for the Star-C model, a 244-unit community called Summerdale Commons just south of downtown Atlanta. It’s among the city’s top 10 worst complexes for crime, and it’s next door to another low-performing elementary school, she says.
Through the course of 170 meetings with everyone from homeless people to Atlanta’s mayor, Stagmeier has grown determined to work within Atlanta city limits, where government is supportive of her efforts and an inclusionary zoning ordinance was adopted in January to boost workforce housing. It’s also where Stagmeier lives in tony Ansley Park with her husband, John.
“We’re buying the roughest properties that have the highest crime that the neighbors are sick of,” she says. “Luckily, we’ve got the city behind us.”
Beyond Summerdale Commons, Stagmeier is eyeing three or four other properties. She’s also starting to recruit younger partners, in hopes of breathing more life into the nonprofits and, eventually, bringing her successes to a national level.
“I think her model will catch on the more that elected officials and compassionate investor groups learn about it,” says Terry, the Clarkston mayor.
Back at Willow Branch, a group of teens from the philanthropy club at Atlanta’s Benjamin Franklin Academy arrives one afternoon. They’ve collected four boxes of books representing a variety of cultures.
The high schoolers are eager to read to the kids. But first, Stagmeier has a question. “Do you know what’s going on here?”
Blank faces.
“Do you want me to tell you what’s going on here?” she asks. “What the goal is?”
Nods.
She launches into a primer, pointing to the community garden and the filled-in pool, which now serves as a mini soccer arena. And she mentions the part about families buying their own homes, essentially graduating toward their American dream.
“That’s incredible,” says sophomore Zach Arais. “I had no idea about the level of this project. I mean, it’s really impressive.”
A previous version of this story incorrectly said Yesler Apartments in Seattle is operated by Catholic Community Services, not the Seattle Housing Authority. We regret the error.
A Dream Curriculum for Immigrant Students
Searching for a better life, Miguel Gonzalez’s family brought him to Dalton, Ga., from Guerrero, Mexico, as a child.
“My whole life in this country has been uncertain as far as my immigration status,” says Gonzalez.
Despite this, Gonzalez thrived. He attended college, landed a job as a teacher, and in 2012, became a “Dreamer” through the Obama administration’s establishment of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Now, Gonzalez tries to help kids from similar circumstances through the Newcomer Academy, an English language program for Spanish-language students grades six and up.
As politicians negotiate the future of DACA, these children need a place to process their feelings about their immigration status. Watch the video above to see how the Newcomer Academy and teachers like Gonzalez go beyond simply acclimating immigrant children to the American school system by creating an environment where they can feel successful and thrive.
It’s About Taking Action, Not Just Cutting a Check
When Kate James joined Pearson in 2014 as its chief of corporate affairs and global marketing, the international education publisher was going through some changes. One such move included a shift from what James calls “arm’s-length philanthropy,” whereby a corporation simply cuts a check to an outside nonprofit, to taking a more active role in developing change-driven solutions.
In the second installment of our series “10 Leaders on Business for Good,” NationSwell founder and CEO Greg Behrman talked with James about how Pearson is altering the landscape of public-private partnerships for the better and what other companies can learn from those efforts.
You’ve worked at both philanthropic foundations and big corporations. What can a socially focused company do to enact change that might be harder for a nonprofit to do?
The journey that Pearson has been on, and continues to be on, is figuring out how to move from most of our social-impact work being done by a foundation at arm’s length to really embracing the opportunity for social innovation. To more bluntly answer your question: the private-sector dollar is super-important, especially given the scale of the challenges that the world is facing. Also, a large company can more easily convene other powerful players behind a cause while harnessing its campaign capabilities. Corporations can put their brand into play and leverage their commercial influence to reach more people in need. Pearson isn’t just coming at a problem with a check; instead we’re saying, ‘Hey, we can bring a lot more to it with our R&D capabilities.’
What projects is Pearson working on currently that you’re particularly excited about?
Right now we’re focused on three big initiatives. One that we are certainly most proud of is Project Literacy, which is no big surprise for an education company. When we conducted our initial research into the issue, we were struck by the fact that there are 757 million people around the world that lack basic literacy skills. And so Pearson seized the opportunity to create a coalition that’s working to close the literacy gap. We’ve attracted more than 100 diverse partners, from Microsoft to USAID, who all realize education is a fundamental part of any solution, from reducing child mortality rates to enabling someone suffering from AIDS to wholly understand their disease.
Pearson has also launched an internal incubator for employees to develop their entrepreneurial skills. They’re given the time to really think about ideas that can reach communities that otherwise Pearson’s products and services wouldn’t be reaching. For example, we’ve seen proposals for really smart ways to utilize the power of virtual reality and another that examines the refugee challenges in Germany and how to meet them.
And then there’s our work in Jordan with Save the Children on a program called Every Child Learning. Our partnership plays to our R&D strengths; we’re piloting a digital learning solution to deliver education to Syrian refugees and host community children in Jordan, with an eye toward adapting and scaling these in other emergency situations. Because these kids are often moving from place to place, we believe a mobile education platform is part of the solution.
How has Pearson’s focus on researching and developing solutions for social good changed the working environment for employees?
By constantly innovating and trying new things, we’re working to align our social-impact work with our own business goals and objectives. When you get that alignment, it’s amazing how much more resolve employees have and how much more engaged they are. When you’re focused on the double bottom line, then the work is sustainable and that means companies will be much more involved in philanthropic efforts and for a longer period of time. That’s what we have at Pearson that was missing before: a deeper level of connection between a foundation’s work and a corporation’s commercial strategy.
What’s the best career advice you’ve been given?
I started my career at GlaxoSmithKline, and the head of corporate affairs then was a wonderful lady. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but she made a lot of effort to talk to the young women graduates who were coming into GSK, and she became a phenomenal role model. She showed us how you could navigate a career path right to the very top. What really stuck with me is the importance of and the responsibility to really spend time with young women often. Some of our sparkiest young employees are women and, from the get-go, they can see that there are no limits to what they can accomplish. As the former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other. I think that’s a pretty important mantra for all women in senior positions to take pretty seriously.
When Graduating High School Late Is a Good Thing
Leslieanne John wanted to avoid the low-performing, often dangerous high schools in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, N.Y., where she lived. But when she didn’t get accepted into any of the other schools she applied to as an eighth-grader in 2011, she decided to take a chance on a new school. Called Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-Tech for short, the school had opened in a nearby neighborhood the year before.
John found the vocational school challenging and her fellow students smart and competitive. Her father encouraged her but warned that as a young black woman hoping to enter the technology world, she had to work four times as hard as anyone else. He’d had to quit college with only a few credits to go when she was born, but he knew his daughter could make it.
John did. Besides receiving her high school diploma, graduating from P-Tech also earned her an associate’s degree in computer systems technology from the New York City College of Technology.
“Seeing my dad’s face when the confetti dropped, that was enough for me,” she says, recalling her graduation last June. Now 20, John works in organizational development at IBM and is studying for her bachelor’s degree part-time. A lot of her middle school friends already have children; a few are incarcerated.
P-Tech’s unique model brings together high schools, community colleges and corporate employers who collaborate on the curriculum. Fusing classroom instruction with workplace experience, the program also offers internships and mentoring. Meant to be completed in six years or less, P-Tech was designed by IBM, where nearly all graduates who do not go on to four-year colleges are first in line for any open jobs. The end goal: to provide kids from low-income communities a direct route to the middle class.
So far, P-Tech in Brooklyn has graduated 81 students; 14 have accepted jobs from IBM, and almost all of them are pursuing their bachelor’s degrees while working. Nationally, those with only a high school education earn an average of $30,500 per year. For P-Tech graduates working at IBM, that number jumps to around $50,000, according to Stan Litow, president emeritus of the IBM Foundation and the founder of the P-Tech model.
IBM built the program to be easily replicated by school districts in other states and around the world. The company offers online support and curriculum guidance for those interested in developing the public-private partnerships necessary to the model’s success. There are now more than 80 P-Tech schools in six states as well as in Australia and Morocco, with corporate partners in fields spanning healthcare, manufacturing and agriculture.
Rashid Ferrod Davis, P-Tech’s founding principal, rushes through the well-maintained hallways in a blue tracksuit, pausing only to pick up dropped paper towels on the floor. He says the hardest part of his job is going home each day, as there are many afterschool activities to attend, not to mention an education model to perfect.
He explains that a longer school day, with some teachers working an early shift and others a late shift, provides more time for freshmen to focus on English, math, and career readiness in longer blocks. It’s a cohesive curriculum — for example, a math class might include elements of writing and teach presentation and business skills.
A recent report by the College Board noted that P-Tech in Brooklyn had a completion rate four times higher than the national average for associate-degree students. More than 80 percent of its alumni are currently working toward their bachelor’s degree, compared to 55 percent of New York City students who graduate from traditional high schools. That’s good news, considering that by 2024 an estimated 16 million new jobs will be created that require at least a two-year degree.
John, who finished the six-year program in just four-and-a-half years, says P-Tech introduced her to a side of herself she didn’t know she had. “The last thing on my mind was how hard I needed to work,” she says now. “But being around peers that were also very competitive and very intelligent sort of pushed me and the rest of us to get everything done as quickly and as best as we could.”