Washington, D.C. – This week I’m at the national conference of the National Network of Sector Partners. The conference will cover a wide range of topics related to industry driven workforce development initiatives, including sector case studies, policy and systems change, green jobs and other emerging industries, and program sustainability. Dinner Thursday night is being keynoted by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. If you want to help me choose some sessions, take a look at the list of workshops and tell me what you’d find most interesting. (Obviously I have ideas of my own so no promises to take your advice!)

I’m hoping to do some “tape-delayed” blogging (as opposed to live blogging – don’t think I have the attention span to listen and blog at the same time) throughout the conference so be looking forward to that.

To help you get excited, here’s an article on successes among the ultimate low-skilled population – house pets – in attaining college degrees. Online learning is really breaking new ground! Like in the human world, I think the main problem here is insufficient focus on emerging job sectors and attainable career pathways. On the other hand, George the Cat successfully joined the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Wages for that profession sound promising!

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Image used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user inmasera.

I recently learned about a group of amazing kids in Howe, Oklahoma who use technology to harnass their creative talents.  They’re learning by creating content for presentations that they share over the internet.  They’re also taking “virtual fieldtrips,” visiting places around the country and the world that they might never get a chance to see in person.

This kinds of hands-on engagement has taken them well beyond the typical textbook learning.  And it reminded me of what the FabLab concept (which  Diama and Micah have written about ) is all about – give kids a creative outlet, and they’ll take advantage.  It’s inspiring and exciting to see it, and I think as a community we should work towards ensuring ALL kids have access to these creative opportunities.

You can see what the Howe students have created – they’re so good that they won First Place in the Kids Creating Community Content contest in 2008 and Third Place in 2009.

Since I’m stuck at home with H1N1 this week, I thought I’d do a little public service and offer you all some flu-related resources:

1. Flu.gov. First stop is FLU.gov. This is the federal government’s central clearinghouse for flu information. You can find out where to get flu shots, how to prevent and treat the flu, and what your workplace or organization can do about it.
2. Flu Shot Locations. The seasonal flu vaccine is normally available at your county health department, many health clinics and pharmacies, and through schools and workplaces. However, the Tulsa Health Department is currently out of seasonal vaccine.The H1N1 vaccine is available for healthcare workers and for at-risk populations only, including school-aged children in schools with high levels of flu-related absenteeism, children under age 18 with chronic medical conditions, and pregnant women. As supplies become available, the vaccine will be offered to the general population. Check this page from the Oklahoma State Department of Health for the latest information.
3. Flu Self-Evaluation. If you think you might possibly have the flu, seasonal or H1N1, this simple questionnaire will help you determine whether to visit the doctor. It’s the first thing I did when I woke up Tuesday morning feeling feverish, achey, and stuffy.
4. If you have the flu: Stay home!! You should stay home until you have been fever-free (without fever reducers such as acetaminophen) for at least 24 hours. Even when you do return to work or school, be extra vigilant in practicing good hygiene by washing your hands frequently, coughing into a kleenex and then throwing it away, and avoiding close contact with your colleagues whenever possible.

Finally, a couple things I learned from my doctor:

• If you get the flu now, it’s almost certainly H1N1. Seasonal flu isn’t currently affecting the Tulsa area. H1N1 symptoms may be more severe than seasonal flu, and is more likely to include nausea and diarrhea. However, my symptoms have been relatively mild – so there’s hope for you!
• Your doctor can prescribe you the anti-viral Tamiflu, which is shown to reduce the duration of flu (including H1N1) by 1 to 2 days as well as the severity of its symptoms. It’s especially effective as a preventive measure or if begun very soon after contracting the flu. However, the CDC anticipates a Tamiflu shortage this year, so only take it if it’s necessary for your personal situation.

Disclaimer: Obviously I am not a doctor, so go talk to a real one or visit the above links if you have any questions of medical importance.

Conservatives are often big proponents of ending the “marriage penalty” on federal income taxes. Basically, the “penalty” refers to the higher tax rates that married couples face than if they have filed their taxes individually as “heads of household.”

Yesterday, the Innovation Lab team met with our free tax preparation team, who are planning their 2010 tax season. The program’s goal is to make sure every eligible family receives the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is the largest federal anti-poverty program in the U.S. and provides up to $5,600 to working families with children. We’re working together to find ways to reach more of our Head Start and other early childhood program families through the tax program and to make sure they receive the EITC.

In that meeting, I came to learn something I didn’t know. Families with a tax filer who has an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) are not eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit. ITIN’s are provided by the IRS to any tax-payer that does not have a social security number – mainly certain categories of immigrants (and not necessarily undocumented). These tax-paying workers are denied access to a critical family-supporting credit, even if the other parent does have a social security number. That leaves out a potentially huge swathe of working families from the government’s most important family-supporting, work-promoting, anti-poverty program. And it penalizes the children of married parents, and marriage itself, when one parent has an ITIN.

I’d like to see someone get behind ending this marriage penalty.

Loyal readers may be wondering “what’s going on?”  Has Tulsa Initiative stopped innovating?  Have they gone on sabbatical?  (We wish!)  Actually, we’ve been really busy getting a few projects up and running.  Things you’ve been reading about like the CareerAdvance (workforce development project) and FabLab have taken huge steps in recent months.  If I were a better blogger I’d be able to link you back to previous posts on those topics, but you can find them if you search for Jobs/Workforce, Economic Security & Advancement, and Innovation.

Briefly, CareerAdvance enrolled 14 Head Start parents in a Certified Nursing Assistant track at Tulsa Community College.  Classes started Oct. 13.  Some of them are also working towards their GED.  A few are taking English as a Second Language.  They’ve been meeting as a cohort for three weeks and are totally stoked about the classes.  They’ve also heard a lot about the CNA and nursing career, and are ready to face the challenge.

FabLab had a terrific community meeting in Kendall Whittier, as described in a recent post by email.

So both these things have kept Micah & Diama, our two main bloggers, pretty occupied.  That leaves me to brag on their behalf.  Great work!

So, awhile back we posted about our experience at the Boston Fablab and how we might work to bring one to Tulsa. Well, fast forward and Kendall Whittier Inc is seriously pursuing the idea of putting one in the KW neighborhood. There will be a community presentation on Oct 5 at 7pm at Educare at 2511 E. 5th Pl. Please join us if you can make it, Micah and I will be there in a supporting role to share our experiences and help answer any questions about what this could do for the KW community and potentially Tulsa. The Tulsa World did a piece on it in yesterday’s paper. Check it out!

Every year, those of us that track poverty in relation to assets anticipate the release of this scorecard. Our friends at OK Policy Institute and the Oklahoma Asset Building Coalition partnered with CFED to provide findings for Oklahoma.

Oklahoma, this year, scored a C in relation to the other states. Major recommendations include: funding IDA’s to improve low net worth and high rates of income poverty; increase funding to schools to improve below-average educational outcomes; and limit high interest rates.

To read the report, go to http://scorecard.cfed.org/state_data/oklahoma.php. OK Policy also has a link on their blog.

I posted yesterday about the links between single parenthood and poverty and referred at the end to the relatively small portion of people that fall into poverty by becoming single parents. Well the Urban Institute just dropped a great research brief into my inbox summarizing the research on poverty “spells.” Just in the interest of being straight with my readers, I should point this nugget out: “Single-mother households become poor at a rate of 15.7 percent a year, compared with just 2.8 percent for married-parent households (Ribar and Hamrick 2003).”

So, yes, households headed by a single mother are more at risk for poverty. But even so, the overwhelming majority of these households are not in poverty. Poverty and single parenthood should not be conflated.  And, to again reinforce, a solid plurality of poverty spells are caused by job loss not by parenting status: “between 40 and 50 percent of those who become poor live in a household where the head of the household, spouse, or other family member lost his or her job.” The majority of people (the brief says between 50 and 70 percent) who leave poverty do so because they or a household member got a job, not because a single parent found a spouse.

The Tulsa World reports on a state legislative panel’s hearing yesterday on reducing divorce and births to unwed parents. I know the author isn’t responsible for writing the headline, but the headline editor definitely captured the spirit of the article with the headline “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers.”

So that I don’t bury the lede here, let me just state my complaint up front: in Oklahoma (and in most places), among the most effective ways to draw the public’s scorn is to say something “costs taxpayers.” I remember the report on that Defense Department toilet (which turned out to be an astronaut toilet) costing millions of dollars to procure. “Toilets Cost Taxpayers Millions”, or some variation on that theme, the evening newscasters screamed. And sure enough, the public was appropriately scornful of toilets and the Defense Department. So what happens when you label your story “Broken Families Cost Taxpayers”? You draw scorn upon “broken” families.

Moreover, the headline implies that our concern over “broken” families should be rooted in its cost to taxpayers rather than in compassion for the family members themselves. It’s commonplace now to see economic arguments replace what used to be ethical issues (by which I mean a competing conception of the good), ranging from the President’s urge to “bend the cost curve” on healthcare to organizations like the Partnership for America’s Economic Success (which argues for greater early childhood investments), to the House hearing reported on today.

Finally, the reporter writes, “slightly more than 60 percent of all Oklahoma births that year [2008] were funded by Medicaid.” Now that may be technically true, but the wording implies that births are a sort of government program. We could reduce our appropriations to them and then there’d be fewer births. It’s as if there’s something wrong with a government that supports its children at their most vulnerable.

Now, it can’t be denied that single-parent households are at much greater risk for economic insecurity and, thus, more likely to be eligible for government safety net programs. The reason for that is pretty straightforward: assistance programs are determined by one’s income relative to the federal poverty line. Since FPL is a function of one’s household size, a household of 3 with one earner is going to be deeper in poverty than a household of 4 with two earners.

Certain advocates, mainly social conservatives but from both parties, have identified this fact as “the” root cause of poverty. Their solution: promote marriage, prevent divorce, and reduce births to unwed parents. There’s not really anything wrong with promoting two-parent households, but there’s no clear evidence that it’s the solution. If one-parent households are such a strong cause of poverty, as marriage advocates say, then one would think that skyrocketing divorce rates would at least have some impact on the poverty rate, even given all the other conditions that lead to poverty. In 1960, the poverty rate was 22.2% and the divorce rate was 2.25%. In 2006, the poverty rate was 12.3% and the divorce rate was 9.79%. In other words, while the divorce rate increased 335% between 1960 and 2006, the poverty rate fell by 45%. (U.S. Census Bureau, “Families and Living Arrangements” and “Historical Poverty Tables“)

Further, we have actual data on what causes someone’s entry into poverty. A study published as “Slipping into and out of Poverty: The Dynamics of Spells” found that 11% of all falls into poverty were caused by the transition to a female headed family (i.e. loss of a male earner in the household) and only 10% of rises out of poverty were caused by marriage or remarriage. Is marriage good for families? In most cases, yes. Is it a solution to poverty? Probably not.

Yesterday evening, PLANiTulsa officially released a draft of  Tulsa’s vision and planning for the future. As many of you are aware, Tulsans have spent the last year attending planning sessions through PLANiTulsa and helping to guide and provide input towards Tulsa’s future. Micah and I have written past blogs on the subject which I encourage you to read if you click on the Planitulsa tag.

To download the report go to http://www.planitulsa.org/. There will also be a presentation of the plan at an open house. See below. Hope to see you there! You can’t afford not to care.

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
Drop in anytime between 4:30pm and 8:00pm
Presentation on Draft Vision/Small Area Concepts at 5:30pm and 7:00pm
Greenwood Cultural Center
322 N Greenwood Ave
Tulsa, OK 74120

We here in the Innovation Lab recently launched our second “Innovation Challenge” to CAP employees. These challenges are meant to leverage the creativity of all of our staff so that we can identify problems and solutions that would never have occurred to us in the safety of the group cube. Our last challenge sought ideas about building strong connections among the people we serve: What challenges do we face that could be solved by building better connections between the people we serve?

The motivation behind the latest challenge was T.J. Sexton’s research into social networks and “co-production.” “These relationships build connections among families and enlist them as partners to contribute their creativity and ambitions in achieving our shared goals.”

Upon my recommendation, T.J. ordered a book I’d heard about called Unanticipated Gains, which reviews the benefits of social connections at child care centers. Since I suspect he’s taking his time wading through it (T.J. being a very busy innovator), I thought I’d help out and link to a video interview with the book’s author, Mario Small.

Allow Early Ed Watch to provide you the summary:

In the video, Small says that he found that mothers with children in childcare centers were less depressed and exchanged more information about child rearing. They also found out about resources like health clinics and museums that catered to children. Instead of being thought of as simple drop-off spots for babysitting, Small argues, “the centers have quite a few benefits for the social networks and social well-being of the mothers.”

Small talks, too, about how certain characteristics of centers can encourage or discourage parents to get to know each other. For example, he says, child care centers that set specific drop-off and pick-up times are better at enabling parents to meet, talk and compare experiences.

Small mentions that parents with children at child care centers had more friends than other disadvantaged parents. I’m not sure of the extent to which this is really true within our own early childhood program, based on some surveys I’ve conducted, but that’s the point of the innovation challenge: we want to identify problem areas that would benefit from stronger connections between parents. If you work for CAP, read about the challenge on InsideCAP and submit an idea to us. (Soon! The deadline is tomorrow.) If you don’t, you are always welcome to contribute your ideas as comments right here.

I was pleased to see recent news that President Obama used his weekly address to announce new initiatives to promote savings. (White House, New York Times, New America Foundation). Among other ideas, he charged the IRS with implementing a checkbox on tax returns that would allow you to save a portion of your refund in savings bonds. Behavioral economics teaches us that making saving simpler and available at an opportune time will lead to more people saving. CAP worked with D2D Fund in a pilot to offer savings bonds through our free tax preparation program.

Additionally, the president is seeking new rules that would encourage employers to automatically enroll their workers in retirement plans unless employees opt out. As I’ve mentioned before, “opt out” rules increase take-up of positive behaviors dramatically without limiting one’s freedom or constraining their choices.

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Image used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user alancleaver_2000.

Today is Primary Day for Tulsa municipal offices. Many of the races have only challengers in the primary, so Districts 2, 5, and 8 will be decided today in the primary election.

Polls are open until 7pm and you have, by law, the right to take up to 2 hours off work to go cast your ballot (so no excuses!). To vote in a primary, you must be a registered member of the political party in whose primary you wish to vote.

To find out where to vote, visit Tulsa County’s precinct finder.

Last time around, I somehow managed to forget to vote and my city councilor lost a close race. If someone as politically aware as me forgot, I imagine many others did as well. So your vote, collectively, really does count – especially in local elections and even more especially in primaries for them, when turnout is very low.

Read more at the Tulsa World’s election page, the candidate responses to Tulsa Metro Chamber’s questionnaire, or the League of Women Voter’s election guide.

Yesterday the Tulsa World, our local paper, published a front-page story describing the huge increase in the amount of food the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma distributed to local food pantries in recent months.  Food pantries are the entities that get the food into the hands of people – so the article included a more in-depth look at one pantry, called Iron Gate.  Iron Gate is actually both a soup kitchen and food pantry; its staff and volunteers serve hot meals every day of the week and distribute bags of groceries every Friday.  It operates out of Trinity Episcopal Church, whose parishoners are actively involved, in downtown Tulsa.  (Full disclosure: I am Chair of the Board of Directors for Iron Gate.)

The thing is, the paper included a photo of guests receiving grocery bags, and to many Tulsans these folks did not look like hungry people should apparently look .  The paper’s website received so many hostile email comments in response to the article that the paper had to shut the comment section down.

What the commentators failed to consider – and indeed, what most people who don’t experience hunger themselves fail to realize – is that just as hunger is a result of being poor, so, too, can obestiy be a result of being poor.  How?  Consider the cost of a value meal at any fast food restaurant; or think of the restaurants that offer items for $1.  Now think of the cost of a salad or sandwich on whole wheat bread with something other than bologna.  Then maybe take a drive through a low-income neighborhood.  How many grocery stores are there compared to convenience stores?  How many restaurants are there with healthy options? 

The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) put together a fact sheet outlining some of the reasons why low-income families – the kinds of families Iron Gate serves every day – might be at greater risk for obesity.  A fact sheet alone isn’t going to change everyones’ perceptions.  But perhaps if just some people can be persuaded to consider that not everyone lives the same kind of life they do, there will be less hostility out there.

Miller-McCune News reports on a new study that found people think more carefully when they carry heavier objects:

In another test, participants were asked to rate a series of arguments in favor of building a controversial subway system. Once again, those carrying the heavier clipboard seem to have thought through the issue more thoroughly: They were less likely to agree with the weaker arguments and more likely to have a clear opinion on the project.

So why would holding something heavy result in “greater investment of effort” (to use the researchers’ description) in an intellectual exercise? Jostmann and his colleagues point to theories of embodied cognition. “We assume that experiencing weight influences judgments of importance because the concept of importance is linked to experiences of weight,” they write.

“Through repeated experiences with heavy objects since early childhood, people learn that dealing with heavy objects generally requires more effort, in terms of physical strength or cognitive planning, than dealing with light objects. People may thus associate the experience of weight with the increased expenditure of bodily or mental effort.”

Much of the research into behavior change and behavioral economics has focused on how the context of a decision can affect the decision taken. People are more likely to “choose” a default option because they won’t bother to opt out. People will steal a $1 can of coke but not a $1 bill. And so on. But not very much of it focuses on the physical context in which we make decisions, which can be just as important. For instance, drivers are more cautious and deferential to others at an unmarked intersection than they are at one with a stoplight.

Still, I’m not sure what implication this has on early childhood education or workforce programs. It seems impractical to deliberately weigh people down. So I’m curious if you have any ideas. How could you add a little heft to the people you serve? (And I don’t mean through calories!) Any ideas?

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Image courtesy a Creative Commons license from flickr user Big Ben.

The Child Abuse Network, an innovative Tulsa agency that uses an integrated model of child abuse investigation and recovery services, is being featured today on Clear Channel’s local radio stations. All day the stations will feature stories about what CAN does, how its affected the lives of the children it serves, and interviews with the staff that is housed at CAN.

The stations are KMOD-97.5fm, The BEAT-92.1fm, KOOL-106.1fm,The BUZZ-1430am, The BUZZ-1300am, and La Preciosa 101.5fm.

If you’re sitting in your very quiet office today make sure you dial in anytime between 6am and 6pm. To participate and make your own contribution, call 388-KIDS (388-5437) anytime today.

CAN brings together the many pieces that are involved in child abuse investigation and recovery and provides physical space and management support to them. I started to describe what they do, but their website says it best:

The Child Abuse Network (CAN) exists to reduce the trauma that a child abuse investigation can pose for the child. Before our program came into being, children frequently endured stressful examinations and numerous interviews by various agencies, often in cold, sterile facilities.

Today CAN delivers a highly effective alternative, bringing multiple agencies together in a single, safe and comforting environment for children in crisis. CAN enables medical, mental health, investigative and legal professionals to work together under one roof, to provide less traumatic investigation and to determine whether child abuse has occurred.

For an abused child, adjusting to life after abuse is difficult.

CAN helps begin the healing.

The Tulsa Initiative is getting set to launch a new pilot program to help our Head Start and Early Head Start parents advance their careers and secure a better economic future for their families.

The project, called CareerAdvance, is a multi-faceted approach to job training and supportive services. It includes:

• Sector-Driven – Our initiative will be sector-driven, which means training opportunities will be limited to employment sectors that we know are “demand occupations” and where jobs are available that are steady, secure, well-paying, and offer benefits and opportunities for advancement. In the pilot phase, we have chosen to focus exclusively on healthcare careers.
• Occupational Training – Customized occupational training classes that lead to an in-demand credential. This pilot year, we will initially offer training to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), leading then to Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), and finally Registered Nurse (RN). Students moving up this career ladder can expect to achieve true economic security for their families  and work in a stable, “recession-proof” industry.
• Peer Support - Participants will meet weekly to talk about how things are going, offer support and advice to one another, establish and strengthen social networks, and listen to guest speakers on topics related to their training experiences.
• Case Management – A full-time Career Coach will facilitate peer support meetings as well as provide case management support on an individual basis when necessary. The Coach will help participants define their goals, identify potential barriers to success and establish contingency plans, and work with participants to make sure they are progressing steadily in the program.
• School and Work Readiness Skills – Many of the program’s participants may have spent a significant out of school or out of the workforce. We want to equip them with skills they’ll need to succeed in both – study skills, time management, workplace communication, and more.
• Contextual ESL and GED - Students who need help developing their English skills or who lack a high school diploma or GED will be able to participate in customized English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and GED classes. The classes will cover topics related to their occupational field of study so that the material feels relevant and manageable. ESL and GED instructors will work with the occupational instructor to make sure the curricula are well-integrated.
• Employer Relationships – The project will employ an industry intermediary, who will help build relationships with employers to place participants into work experiences,  identify the workforce challenges they face, and find ways to ensure that our program and other training opportunities are truly addressing the workforce shortages in the industry.

The CareerAdvance project is based on an emerging model of successful workforce programs that equip students to prepare for and advance in careers for a lifetime. Participants in similar programs have achieved average earnings gains  of $3,300 and were significantly more likely to work all 12 months in the year.

CareerAdvance is generously supported by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Community Service Block Grants program, and the Inasmuch Foundation. Our partners include Workforce Tulsa, Tulsa Community College, Tulsa Technology Center, Union Public Schools Department of Adult and Community Education, the Tulsa Metro Chamber, and the Ray Marshall Center at the University of Texas.

For some reason every time I hear the term “apprenticeship” I think of feudal workshops of blacksmiths and shoe cobblers. In my role as coordinator of a sector-based career advancement project, I’ve been hearing the term quite a bit more lately but I still haven’t known a lot about them. So here are some things about apprenticeships that I didn’t know, should have, and think you ought to know too:

Largely unnoticed, the U.S. apprenticeship system currently trains over 500,000 workers. Apprentices learn while they earn, working as a regular employee, contributing to companies’ output and mastering skills under the wing of trainers, who themselves learned mainly by doing. Apprentices take formal courses too, sometimes at community colleges or their work site with community college instructors. After two to four years of work, job-based training and classes, apprentices get a well-recognized occupational credential that documents their new expertise.

Research suggests that apprenticing raises a worker’s earnings far more than just taking community college courses does. In Washington State, apprentices’ annual earnings rose by nearly $12,000, more than double the gains for former community college students.

Given their benefits, apprenticeships seem a promising way to give workers access to marketable skills, especially for economically disadvantaged populations. Because apprenticeships are all learning by working, employers bear most of the cost of educating workers while benefiting from their apprentices even while they learn. Training programs are usually far more effective when students participate in them full-time, since it’s easy to get frustrated and distracted by only attending school part-time in order to hold a job. Apprenticeships give students something no other educational experience really can: full-time work and full-time school at the same time.

By the way, apprenticeship programs need not be about high-skilled crafts and trades jobs such as plumbing, electrical work, and carpentry. The U.S. Labor Department has sponsored a nursing apprenticeship program since 2003 with levels at CNA, LPN, and RN.

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Image used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user drakegoodman.

Today, in Tulsa and throughout the nation, we hear lots of talk about education reform.  At Camp Fire, we believe we need a parallel discussion of “informal education” reform.  We’re talking about ensuring that all children have the same opportunities for enriching experiences beyond the classroom.

Three items in the Sunday, August 2, 2009 New York Times relate to our concern that too many underprivileged youngsters fall behind their more affluent peers because they lack access to what most of us take for granted.

The first item, an article titled, “School is out for summer, but education doesn’t end for Obama children,” details all the enriching experiences Sasha and Malia Obama are enjoying during their summer vacation.  A trip with the President and First Lady where the girls not only enjoyed the beach in Ghana, but received a history lesson as they toured a former slave prison.  Visits to Camp David, giving service by helping stuff backpacks for children of service men and women, healthy eating, exercise and plenty of time for good, old-fashioned summer fun – activities similar to those enjoyed by millions of children across the country.

The second item, a Nicholas Kristof editiorial, “How to Lick a Slug,” recounts the writer’s backpacking trip along the Pacific Coast Trail with his 11 year old daughter.  He concludes by lamenting the lack of opportunities for youngsters to experience the out-of-doors and urges readers to “acknowledge that getting kids awed by nature is as important as getting them reading.”

The third item – an ad for Sea Island resort on the coast of Georgia – reads “In a few short weeks your kids will be in school.  How do you want them to remember summer?”  The ad features a happy family having fun at this pricey resort.  When I see this ad, my thoughts go straight to the kids whose families can’t even afford a trip to a nearby state park and their neighborhood park has been closed due to city budget cuts.

Anyway – all three of these items highlight what researchers at the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) and other education reformers call “Complementary Learning” – quality early childhood care, safe and constructive afterschool experiences, summer camp, family vacations, trips to museums, historical sites and libraries (if not libraries, more likely bookstores), performing arts and sporting events, amusement parks, plus homework help and tutoring if needed.  HFRP researchers and other education professionals (Edmund Gordon, James Comer) suggest that poor children’s lack of access to complementary learning opportunities fuels the achievement gap in education between more affluent/white and poor/minority children.  Concerted efforts in communities like Tulsa have the potential to level the playing field by ensuring that we provide a comprehensive system of affordable and accessible out-of-school time activities and opportunities for children from families that struggle to make ends meet.

To read more about complementary learning, go to http://www.hfrp.org/complementary-learning

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Bobbie Henderson is Executive Director of the Green Country Council of Camp Fire USA. Camp Fire is a coeducational youth development program that provides youth of all types opportunities for leadership and self-reliance, environmental education and outdoors activities, and after school and child care programs. Read more about Camp Fire at www.tulsacampfire.org and www.campfireusa.org.

A Sunday Tulsa World Article reported on a new pilot program in Bartlesville called “Run the Streets.” Any youth ages 14 to 18 in Washington County are eligible for this program, however the focus will be youthful offenders whose dispositions will be set aside if they choose to participate. And what does participation entail? Training for a marathon no less! (14 and 15-year old youths will train for a half marathon.) 

Under the guidance of a mentor, youth will train 3 to 4 times a week. According to Probation Officer Bob Williams, “Anyone can run a marathon. It’s the training that is the hard part. This is really a mentoring program in disguise. If you are going to spend 100 hours training for a marathon, that’s going to be a lot of time together.”

The idea for the program is based on Students Run L.A., a program for at-risk students which has shown positive results including more students staying in school, getting better grades, and continuing their education beyond high school. However, Williams is not aware of any running program in the country that targets youthful offenders on probation making this program an innovative solution that:
•  Helps children (access to a mentor, exercise, improved health, goal achievement, sets aside dispositions…).
•  Saves taxpayer dollars (estimated program costs are $500 per participant for several months of training and mentoring versus $100 a day for a stay in juvenile hall).
•  Helps teens make better choices for themselves. (Imagine the sense of accomplishment after completing a marathon!) and
•  Creates new collaborations from the Office of Juvenile Affairs, to the  YMCA of Bartlesville, to Tulsa Fleet Feet Sports, and several others. And yes – the program is looking for mentors – contact Becke at the YMCA at 918-three-three-six-zero-seven-one-three.

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Image used under a Creative Commons license by flickr user Kevin Coles.