Education for Homeless Children

“A homeless count last week in Los Angeles likely missed many children under five who are often hidden from view and yet are among the most impacted by their homelessness.” -KPCC

One night while online, I read this intro to an article on the KPCC website. My entire world immediately stopped. 

When we think of a homeless person, we often think of a middle-aged or old man, unshowered, often with a mental illness such as schizophrenia and a drug addition. We don’t think about a 4-year-old child or even a high school student applying to college.

That’s why I chose to delve into this issue and do my own reporting on it.

I met a girl at UCLA named Angela who was once homeless. Her mother struggled with mental illness. Her father had to take time off work to take care of her mother and her as a child. When he went back to work, the his particular job of designing with a pencil, the field had moved to a computer and unfortunately he didn’t know how to learn that skill. Her parents divorced when she was 11 and when the recession hit in 2007, they lost their home. They motel hopped until her dad’s credit ran out. By her 17^th birthday, in her junior year of high school, they were moving from shelter to shelter.

As previously mentioned, children are often overlooked when it comes to the topic of homelessness, but they are among the most impacted. They are in the most critical time for building the most important foundation of success for the rest of their lives: education. 

The Homeless Education Consultant from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Melissa Schoonmaker, says that there are 67,000 children in Los Angeles County in the same situation that Angela was, homeless. That’s 22% of the entire population of homeless children in the US. Out of 50 states, that's an extremely high percentage for just one city.

LA County is comprised of 80 school districts, each one with a certain number of homeless children and each one trying to help that child stay in school and get a quality education.

The initial biggest issue for school districts is identifying which children are homeless. The state definition is broad. Under the McKinney-VentoAct, a child is homeless if they are sleeping in a place that is not meant to be slept in, such as an office or garage, and if they are living doubled or tripled up with relatives or other family members. However, under the Urban Housing and Development laws, a child is homeless if they are on the streets or in a shelter. Therefore, it is difficult to help families and children with federal assistance. 

The next biggest issue is reaching the children and their families. In Angela’s case, she didn’t tell any of her faculty or teachers. She didn’t want anyone to know because she says school was her escape. School was where she got to be the smart one and looked up to. Pride and social stigmas play a large role in hindering families from accepting help. Angela didn't have wifi or even a printer at the shelters, but she never wanted special treatment from her teachers. She would try to get all of her homework done whenever she had internet access and she would get to school early to print. When it came to applying for college and scholarships, she would call her friends and dictate her essays to them over the phone.

The biggest and most prominent issue for school districts is funding. As I mentioned, LA County holds 22% of the homeless children population, but it is very far from 22% of the nation's funding. School districts are funded by the government. The state of California gets very little money from the US government and that money is then distributed amongst school districts in various counties. The question is, how do they choose which districts get money? It’s not based on the number of homeless they have in their schools or the average income of the residents—it’s based off of who writes the best applications for grants. Schoonmaker says it depends on what they say they will use the money for, how they’ve used money before and how past use of funds has worked for them/improved the education of homeless children.

The bottom line here: Out of 80 school districts in Los Angeles County, the state of California only gave out grants to SIX SCHOOLS— and that’s 6 schools not districts.

Schools districts rely on any help they can get to keep homeless children in school and give them a fair chance at a good education and really, just making it to high school graduation. Schoonmaker says that statistics show a homeless student may start high school, but the numbers drop as they get into 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grade. She says when school is too hard for a child and education is their last priority-- compared to priorities like worrying about their next meal and where they’re going to sleep that night, they end up dropping out of school.

Lisa Nunes, a middle school principal in Torrance, says that kids who don’t have a permanent home and have been moved around either in foster care or shelters, often have major gaps in their education. When kids show up at a certain school, the school places them in a grade level based on their age—not where they stand academically. This has a significant affect on their entire education. Nunes says many times it's difficult to figure out what the child learned at previous schools and has to place them in classes, hoping that teachers will work together to help that child. This reminds me of the movie The Blind Side, where Michael Oher was placed in high school, but was functioning at an elementary level of academia.

Nunes says her school’s approach to this issue is putting the children in a class similar to study hall where a teacher can help students in that same grade level one on one. She also says that when teachers collaborate and work with a student to help them excel, they do better. As EduNation Revolution has touched on, teachers should have heart. Nunes originally became a teacher because she wanted to make school a safe place for children. Just by talking to her, you can really tell that she has a passion for the kids' education and personal development-- and she really has dedicated her career to helping children succeed.

While schools do their best to provide an equal education to all students and prepare them for success in life, the system just doesn’t make it easy.

The homeless liaison for the ABC School District, Tim Catlin, says that he and many other districts pull on all the resources they can get.

This past Friday, Feed The Children donated boxes of goods to the county to be distributed between districts and given out to the homeless children at the schools. The boxes contained things like backpacks, school supplies, snacks, and Disney books. Donations like these are what help children have the chance at fitting in with their peers and staying current with the curriculum.

Angela says she wouldn’t have even made it UCLA if it weren’t for a nonprofit tutor that she had at her homeless shelter. He was from School On Wheels, which sends tutors to help homeless children who can’t stay after school to get the help they need because they have to be at the shelter by check-in time to secure their bed space. Angela's tutor got her through calculus AP and even took her to his college, where she saw a college campus for the first time. She says he inspired her dreams of going to UCLA and made her believe she could do it.

There are many other nonprofits that donate goods to schools, give grants, and provide a safe get-away for homeless children. However, not every child ends up at UCLA like Angela. I think the system could use so much more help and innovation--from the government to the districts, even to the people who have money and are willing to help, but don’t know how. If this issue became as prominent in the media as ALS has, maybe more children could have a chance at graduating and pursing careers to break the cycle of homelessness.

A Monday for Inspiration

Growing up, Sundays were always my least favorite days—waking up early for church, doing a weekends worth of homework and of course, going to bed early for the start of the long week. I always loved the holidays off from school. They meant an extra long weekend, a fun Sunday to hang out with friends late and then a short 4-day week.

It wasn’t until I got older that I began to question what Mondays off from school really meant. In modern time, it’s nearly impossible to get kids to slow down and look outside of themselves. Younger generations tend to be so caught up, they take for granted those that set the foundations for nearly everything we walk on, every chair we sit on, every freedom of expression we have walking down the street. While we may not be the faultlessly free nation that we could be and we may not have reached absolute equality as a people, we have a come a long way from where we used to be.

As we take this Monday off from work and class, in a rather warm West Coast February, I encourage you to take a moment to think about those that gave us this much needed holiday.

This particular holiday is in place for all the "great" Presidents America has had. Presidents' Day. And I say "great" because we all know, there's been great presidents and not so great presidents. 

I'd like to take this holiday to look at one president in particular and to remember the great influence he's had on the country we live in today. His birthday was just a 4 days ago on February 12 -- and conveniently during Black History Month. Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln was a president who took a stand for a population that was disowned by the very nation he lead, a population treated as less than since the very birth of the country. It took a movement similar to a forcefield and many lives sacrificed to get to the point of celebrating Black History. And to take a moment, let alone an entire day, out of this month, to think about the man who fearlessly lead our country closer to equality is motivation for us all to keep pushing through and striving to be greater and do greater.

John Wooden, arguably the greatest basketball coach UCLA ever saw, wrote books of his life insight and inspirational advice. In his book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, he highlighted an important philosophy of his: persistence is stronger than failure  and his example was Abraham Lincoln.

   A brief summary of Lincoln's career:

 Failed in business                                                                    1831 

 Defeated in legislature                                                                   1832

 Failed in business again                                                          1833
                                                                                                              
 Elected to legislature                                                               1834
                              
 Sweetheart died                                                                       1835
                                  
 Had nervous breakdown                                                          1836
                           
 Defeated for speaker                                                               1838
                                                              
 Defeated for congressional nomination                                   1843
                                 
 Elected to Congress                                                                1846
                    
 Defeated for Congress                                                            1848
                     
 Defeated for Senate                                                                1855
                                             
 Defeated for Vice President                                                    1856
                                
 Defeated for Senate                                                                1859
                                           
 Elected President of the United States                                    1860

The model Mr. Lincoln gave us with his persistence is one we can remember in the face of our own setbacks. And what is most wondrous of all is that persistence is a quality that we ourselves control. You, and only you, can decide whether you will stay the course.

  -Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations andReflections On and Off the Court

Wooden speaks of President Lincoln as a man who saw more personal, professional, and political defeat than many people ever will. He persisted through inexorable adversity and eventually became one of the greatest, if not the greatest, presidents America has ever had. If he can endure all of that defeat and still become the President of the United States of America and ultimately a huge catalyst in the emancipation of slaves, then what, in this entire world, can you and I not overcome. What can we not accomplish?

However you may spend your lovely Monday off from work or school—laying out on the beach, barbecuing some burgers or even just watching Netflix, take a moment before Tuesday comes to think about the lives of those who made this country what it is today and what we can learn from them and apply to our own lives.

The Public Intellectual: Susan Colantuono

One could say a public intellectual is someone who can speak about what they know because they know it well. The idea of a public intellectual has been in debate for quite some time now and can be defined subjectively. In this post, we will look at Susan Colantuono and while you may not be able to pronounce her last name, it is a name that is very well known; I would argue "well known" for her public intellect.

Susan Colantuono is the CEO and founder of Leading Women, a consulting firm that supports corporate initiatives to advance women and close the gender gap in leadership. She is the author of the book No Ceiling, No Walls: What women haven't been told about leadership. She also founded the Women’s Institute for Leadership at Bryant University.  She speaks around the world for a very high price and has consulted for a broad spectrum of organizations from higher education to manufacturing and even federal government agencies. Providence Business News named her Business Woman Ally/Mentor of the Year in 2008.

I discovered Colantuono online when I saw a link to her TED talk titled “The career advice you probably didn’t get”. In her speech she addresses an issue within gender management that she found over her years of consulting and management research. It’s a term many of us are familiar with, the gender gap. Colantuono says there is a missing 33% that is required to close the gender gap at the top of management. Her statistics say that 50% of women in management positions are stuck in middle management. They’re not at the bottom and they’re not at the top. Colantuono says that these are women who work really hard, are confident, get outstanding evaluations, have great team engagement and yet they are passed over again and again when it comes to higher management positions. She deems these qualities to be extremely important in leadership positions, but not quite enough. They encompass two of three important areas to excel in: using the greatness in you and engaging the greatness in others. What she says is missing here is skill, talent, and ability to further the organization to attain its goals. She says this missing component for women can be summed up in focusing on three criteria: where the organization is going, what its strategy is and what the financial targets are.

She says this is a problem because women are told to get mentors, but their mentors are not advising them in the right way. She references a global company executive that she had consulted.  He had been mentoring a man and a woman and he said that he helped the woman achieve confidence and he helped the man learn the business. She quotes him admitting that he hadn’t “realized he was treating them any differently”. Colantuono claims that women seeking to move up in leadership roles are advised to work on their personal qualities like negotiating, communicating, networking, speaking up and engaging teams. What mentors are not telling women is how to run the business, strategize for its future goals, and further its finances.

As mentioned in Stephan Mack’s essay, "The Supposed Decline of the Public Intellectual": 

Trained to it or not, all participants in self-government are duty-bound to prod, poke, and pester the powerful institutions that would shape their lives. And so if public intellectuals have any role to play in a democracy—and they do—it’s simply to keep the pot boiling.

On that thought, we’ll take a moment here to debrief. Colantuono is definitely keeping the pot boiling. Most of us have been taught about the gender gap and the idea of the “glass ceiling” in the work force that prevents women from reaching high levels of management in business. However, in contemporary education we aren't taught that it's because women are stupid, which honestly sounds like that's what Colantuono is saying. Am I crazy or does it sound like she’s preaching that women are brought up to be friendly, great chatters and even better at arguing? Then predicting that if we were actually taught the knowledge required to run a business, then we would be just as successful as men.

I personally feel that if you are working in a certain field, then you should know a lot about it and even be an expert at your particular job. To me, that includes knowing why you do it—what the organization’s goals are, how to make it even better—strategizing to further the company, and how to stay there--having financial expertise. If you are working in a particular career, give it 110%, know what is going to make the organization successful and, in turn, you successful. But then again, between the two of us, Colantuono is the leadership expert. She is poking and prodding at the structure of institutions that are shaping nations. I know that her intentions are to further women and not to tell us we’re stupid, so I continue to listen to her ideas and she goes on to say:

We often come across women who have excellent business acumen, strategic and financial skills but they're not demonstrating it because they believe that what's important are the people skills.

Now that sounds better, we're not actually being called dumb! Colantuono says the strongest force against this dilemma is language. She advises women who have the ambition to move up the ladder to speak in terms of outcomes instead about their people and teams.

I agree, being a great leader does not mean talking about how well you lead.  It means leading. Speak about outcomes because impact is the mission.

Colantuono says that women should say yes to opportunities that navigate their career closer to the “heart of the business”, even if they don’t necessarily think their skill-set and experience pertain to that assignment.

It may be comical, but I’ve heard this idea recently on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Kim Richards was an actress that admitted to saying she could do anything a casting director ever asked her. For example, one movie required a character to be a great tennis player and Kim had never played tennis before. To get the gig, she said that she knew how to play, got it, and then learned to play tennis. Similarly, this is what Colantuono is talking about. She's not saying lie, but she's saying be confident that you can do it and grow from it. Don’t turn down opportunities because you haven’t done that particular work before, say yes and learn it. This can only further women to knowing the ins and outs of running a business, where it’s going, strategies, and finances.

In her conclusion to the issue of the 33%, she also holds boards of directors, CEOs, Human Resources, and managers (also known as mentors) responsible for closing the gap. Therefore, making it a collective group effort.

As Mack’s essay states, public intellectuals “discuss public philosophies and attitudes.” They “sometimes uncover implicit orientations and worldviews that, in turn, affect public decisions and actions.” Colantuono picks out what is missing in the advancement of many women in management. She points out how people are enforcing the issues and the attitudes of management that reflect the outcome of the 33%.

I read a response to Colantuono’s TED talk that was shared on the Leading Women blog site. It was from a woman who had been experiencing the exact treatment from her mentor that Colantuono spoke about. She said that after hearing the talk, she went to her mentor and asked him to teach her his job. She says that she’s hopeful that learning these areas will help her move up to where she wants to be. She concludes:

I've done a lot of presenting and I know presenters share concepts and ideas and never know if they impact people's lives. I'm hopeful that I will be one of your success stories very soon.

Well there you have it. Colantuono is affecting public decisions and actions. As Mack states, “The measure of public intellectual work is not whether the people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.”

Overall, I think Colantuono has done some profound work here. I do, however, think that it is a little outdated. It may just be because I am in the Marshall School of business, for social entrepreneurship, the number two entrepreneurship school in the nation. I am taught to start everything from the very beginning with knowledge of what I am doing, where I see the organization going, strategies to get there, and an understanding of how to successfully do that financially. I’ll admit, I don’t excel in these areas as much as I do in, say, talking and negotiating, which do highly benefit me in broadcast journalism. However, I don’t think I would plan on leading an organization without a profound sense of these areas of expertise. Therefore, I am being taught not only how to approach a business career, but how to start and lead one.

I stumbled across an article on The Next Web titled "Are entrepreneurs finally closing the gender gap?". It pointed out that in recent generations, more and more males and females are becoming entrepreneurs. The ratio did reveal more men than women, but since 1997, female entrepreneurs have increased by 68%. In my opinion, this trend can be a huge aid in closing the gender gap. It eliminates this entire discussion on the process of filling in the missing 33% of women at the top. For women entrepreneurship is, if you will, a glass elevator straight to the top. 

In conclusion, Susan Colantuono has pointed out missing pieces in the gender gap that is truly still an evident issue. Her insight and advice are well researched and innovative and I believe, as a gender, females are a force and we are surely putting this movement for leadership into serious action.

Life in a 38 second video...

To me, this video sums up life pretty well. People like to quote the cliche saying "You have to go through the rain to get to the rainbow," but I think this is a more accurate interpretation of reality. It's not just going through the run and getting wet. It's hardly knowing how to walk, slipping, falling, trying to get back up, slipping and falling again... and again... and again.

However, when you watch it, you'll probably laugh. Which is also a vital interpretation of what life is really like. When you look back at all the tough times that you never thought you'd get through-- you will most likely laugh. You'll laugh either because you actually did get through it or you'll laugh because it was literally such a circus it's funny.

In addition, this video is a more accurate portrayal of reality because it literally is reality. It wasn't staged or premeditated. There's no script and no baby actors making their parents rich. It is 38 seconds of raw footage of an ordinary child on an ordinary sidewalk, likely on a camera phone... because well, that's life.