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For Public Comments to the Commission, please click here
183
1 close the gap, is that a topic for discussion?
2 I think -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that's
3 part of what you're asking. I don't mean to put words
4 in your mouth.
5 MS. BOSCH: I'm not sure what I'm asking.
6 I'm just sort of thinking that again as Norma pointed
7 out that is the key focus I think of President Bush's
8 executive order reading, as it is Laura Bush's focus,
9 reading, and I just wondered if we shouldn't be focused
10 there first and everything falls in place under it.
11 MS. SANCHEZ: That's definitely something you
12 could take a vote on. I don't think -- I think what No
13 Child Left Behind says there is not going to be a
14 solution that doesn't have a strong reading component
15 because it's clearly based on research-based evidence
16 always comes back to reading.
17 You know we talked about they're determining
18 the size in prisons based on how children read in third
19 grade. Fundamentally it comes back to reading. That's
20 a decision you may want to make right now and decide --
21 MR. HANNA: I am going to call on Charlie and
22 take a break. Actually maybe we can alter the schedule
23 just a bit.
24 Charlie, why don't you make your comment
25 after the break.
184
1 We'll take a quick break and we'll come in.
2 I think that's a good discussion. If we want to have a
3 little bit more discussion and go to the next working
4 group.
5 (Brief recess taken.)
6 MS. MAZZUCA: I suppose the easy way to, most
7 forward way to articulate our starting point, our belief
8 or thesis is community partnerships are indispensable
9 components to achievement. Personally I prefer to look
10 at it in a way that we look at it in social venture
11 partners, which is a venture, philanthropic
12 organization, which is San Francisco chapter I helped
13 start.
14 The way we talk students and children do
15 better and their families do better, communities do
16 better, when there is a community of engaged
17 stakeholders who are working towards -- or working in
18 concert toward the common goal of providing an
19 environment where children can learn and thrive and it's
20 important to also make from our point of view -- make
21 that distinction very clear.
22 We're talking about stakeholders and
23 stakeholders don't just mean business, just a way
24 perhaps a lot of people who will be inclined to look at
25 community partnerships.
185
1 We are also looking or talking about private
2 foundations, faith-based organizations, community-based
3 organizations, of course, students, teachers, schools,
4 culture organizations, civic leaders, et cetera.
5 So having said that who would be our goal as
6 a group essentially to identifying effective community
7 partnership models that can be replicated across the
8 government to help close the achievement gap as well to
9 recommend ways, for lack of a better term, spreading the
10 word and seeking to implement some of these models more
11 broadly.
12 I think if we parse that statement which is
13 not something that will need work very hard at coming up
14 with, but I think sums up our discussions in any way,
15 parse that statement for framework for defining the
16 scope, our research and what we would like to come away
17 with, we're talking about identifying effective models
18 and that can be replicated and implemented.
19 I think we probably summarize the framework
20 that comes out of three words: accountability,
21 sustainability and scaleability.
22 Accountability first. In keeping with the
23 legislation, is there -- can we identify models that are
24 -- that have a demonstrated commitment to measuring out
25 these. And the only measuring that comes, we're
186
1 measuring relevant outcomes.
2 I think all of us have probably been through
3 the experience certainly in my personal experience with
4 a lot of philanthropic organizations. A lot of the
5 outcomes measured are traffic driven, for example. So
6 how many parents were exposed to a certain program, how
7 many kids flowed through this after school program, as
8 opposed to the more relevant outcomes, like are kids
9 thriving, are kids staying in school. Whatever it is at
10 the end, desired end result is.
11 Second point, sustainability, can we identify
12 models that build measurable lasting impact? Can the
13 models that we identify sustain themselves or engender
14 the conditions in a community that enable the model to
15 be sustained even perhaps after certain individuals or
16 advocates are long gone.
17 Scaleability, can the model be replicated,
18 transported, can we adopt a successful model from one
19 environment into a successful model that meets the
20 requirements of the local community?
21 So with that framework in mind,
22 accountability, sustainability, scaleability, the next
23 stage of our process as a group is investigation or
24 identification, a process of identification and
25 ultimately selection.
187
1 So how do we attack? Our intent would be to
2 look at the landscape from a reach and best practices
3 point of view. What does the research say? What are
4 the best sources both available research, scientific
5 based research on the importance of community
6 partnerships, where their focus should be and what their
7 critical success factors are. What are the best
8 available models out there.
9 A very important point, they don't
10 necessarily be Hispanic focused. There may be
11 applicable models that encompass other populations, but
12 that are -- can be replicated successfully to our ends.
13 Are there gaps in the research? If in
14 identifying the relevant research out there we come up
15 with areas that haven't been researched enough, that
16 would be an area focused for us in perhaps raising a
17 voice and identifying a need to dedicate more resources,
18 either at the local level or at the department of
19 education level to enhance knowledge.
20 Are there gaps in the research in practice?
21 I think we have as a specific group think it might be
22 quite interesting to see -- follow the money so to
23 speak. Where are dollars in the community level being
24 applied to today? Are they being applied primarily to
25 scholarships that empower, you know, a certain portion
188
1 of the population? That might do well anyway. Versus
2 putting in place other programs that might engender
3 certain conditions that would enable a broader set.
4 These are some of the questions we were
5 grappling with and I think we're willing attacking
6 during our research phase so to speak.
7 Sources our people have articulated, there is
8 already useful research in the past commissions. The
9 Department of Education and will depend on the
10 initiative staff to assist us in that endeavor.
11 Credible academic institutions, thing tanks, journals,
12 as well as yourselves.
13 As Charlie well says in his aside, and I
14 agree completely with your two-prong approach what this
15 commission can accomplish. There is a powerful network
16 just in this room alone, as Charlie was saying.
17 As a group we're still working on the
18 timeline and the allocation of responsibilities. But
19 that probably encapsulates the scope of our discussion
20 yesterday.
21 I would like to open it up to working group
22 members if I either misstated or missed some other
23 points we discussed and then after that we can open it
24 up to the rest of the commission. Thank you.
25 MS. GARZA: That was -- you caught it all,
189
1 Fran, let me just add some sublines to those topics.
2 On the area of reliability, what I see would
3 be really useful to encourage community partnerships to
4 do is to tie -- to attach some strings to community
5 partnership accountabilities.
6 For example, there is a lot of money that is
7 given by corporations, nonprofit foundations, et cetera.
8 They give money and they don't expect anything in
9 return. It's like here, take it, whatever. So that
10 together with the measurement piece, is that we
11 encourage them to tie same academic achievement results
12 to that money and maybe we can look for successful
13 models of other entities that have already done that.
14 Also community partnerships, a lot of times
15 when it comes to education, depend upon the community,
16 in large urban areas, education, reform and
17 participation is very common and very well done. In low
18 income, minority communities, business leaders sometimes
19 don't participate. They just kind of sit back, status
20 quo. There it's a lot of apathy.
21 I think these business leaders need to be
22 encouraged to open up some capacity in their workday or
23 in their mission, particularly they have the capacity.
24 CEOs, presidents of entities, that yes, everybody is
25 very busy, nobody has extra time to be working on
190
1 volunteer work or education reform, but we're asking
2 them to take ownership of education reform in
3 communities, because they have some of the highest
4 leverage and the power to enforce and demand that we get
5 a more -- a better skilled work force.
6 MR. HANNA: Just to supplement slightly,
7 going along of these lines of accountability, which
8 Norma brought up in our group and it is a key part of
9 not only the president's legislation, but his whole sort
10 of philosophical outlook is his notion on the ability,
11 the idea on of the things we envisioned, it would be
12 nice if our wonderful group could accomplish within our
13 report, there are actually hundreds of millions --
14 actually billions of dollars spent by community groups,
15 be them foundations, corporations, without an emphasis
16 on accountability and results, and so to the degree that
17 we could serve as an impetus for injecting a different
18 mind-set which as Francis said somebody ought to look at
19 measurements like process, how many people were
20 processed through a program as opposed to actual
21 tangible results. To the degree that we can shift that
22 emphasis among these groups that are already pouring a
23 lot of money and effort into education and focus down on
24 putting it into things that actually work and have
25 demonstrable results and demonstrate accountability,
191
1 that could be -- that would be an wonderful
2 accomplishment, if we could reorient the focus of these
3 groups.
4 MR. VISIEDO: Mr. Chairman, just a point, we
5 need -- I think that's a great suggestion, but we need
6 to be careful because if -- following the thinking here,
7 a lot of these funds from prior foundations are going to
8 a lot of different groups.
9 If we become the in group in this Hispanic
10 group that creates some of these credibility standards,
11 we may actually make ourselves a little bit unattractive
12 as far as getting some of the money. So our twist on
13 this should be maybe our recommendation should be that
14 they are some federal incentives for foundations to have
15 maybe possibly matching funds so that only dollars flow
16 to those organizations that are willing be accountable.
17 We just can't put the accountability label on
18 ourselves because we may become a problem for some
19 people, so we have to turn that around and do it away,
20 they're willing to send the additional dollars, maybe
21 through a matching program.
22 I think we're all in agreement that
23 accountability is good, but we don't want to be the
24 other one out there with that where the other groups may
25 just have the money go somewhere else.
192
1 MS. MAZZUCA: Thank you. Anybody else?
2 Grace.
3 MS. RAMOS: One of our discussions that we
4 had and still concerns me, when you do these
5 partnerships, there's different areas you can go
6 through, partnership, corporate America, CEOs or
7 whoever.
8 One of the things we were talking about in
9 the corporate world, it tends to have a narrow focus in
10 there. Do a scholarship and that's it and that becomes
11 their confusion to his contribution.
12 What you're looking at in corporate America
13 is the future labor work force. That is very important
14 to them and maybe we need to encourage in our
15 recommendations that corporate America do a different
16 type of support of Hispanic education, not just
17 scholarships. I'm going to lump this much into the
18 Hispanic, and that's it, because I am there really is
19 more at stake. So I would say that could be a
20 consideration, that we become more creative in how
21 corporate America supports the effort to educate our
22 Hispanic youth.
23 The other one on CEOs I think that's very
24 important, because the best -- we all know that, you
25 know, the best way to communicate is by word of mouth.
193
1 There is nothing better than that.
2 And CVO, they can communicate in the language
3 and the culture, whatever is indigenous to that
4 particular area. I think to spread the word, there is
5 no better way to go than to your local based
6 organizations.
7 I don't know how you work that in, but those
8 are two of the suggestions that I think I would.
9 MS. MAZZUCA: Thank you, Grace. We'll hear
10 from Jose.
11 MR. CANCHOLA: If I can tie into what you
12 said, there is a way of doing this and many companies,
13 what we do as an example we have a set aside on 30
14 million dollars. We have a program called ASID and
15 another basically we ask our coop to raise and we match
16 funds.
17 But the key thing what you're talking about
18 in addition to making the commitment to give some young
19 person $2500 a year for the next three years or four
20 years, they go to the University of Arizona or some
21 other university, is you also asked him to make a
22 commitment to do an internship where these young people
23 in fact though they're seniors in high school and once
24 you make a commitment, usually leave in the junior year,
25 that you're going to go to university, now you provide
194
1 an internship for at least a year and they're likely to
2 keep the kids going at least for two years, where they
3 get the word from different departments in the company
4 because the incentive there if the kid likes working for
5 Xerox or Miller Brewery or Budweiser or whatever, when
6 they get through with the university, you know, there's
7 a commitment, okay, I sent you to St. Louis University
8 or I sent you to some other school, but in return you're
9 going to work for my company for a couple of years, but
10 they don't want you paying the scale, 45, $50,000, and I
11 think just to lay money on the table I got my social
12 thing, go away.
13 But if you can get different companies and
14 there are companies that do these internships where in
15 fact none only is a commitment there for the money, but
16 also for the internships and either summer, summer jobs.
17 In some cities, if they're close to their
18 homes they can come in maybe two days a week to work
19 with people and they work in the Treasury Department or
20 they work in a bank, not cleaning the place up or
21 something like that, I mean actually where they could
22 work with middle or top management, and I think that's a
23 lot more effective, and that opening a lot of kid's
24 eyes.
25 MS. RAMOS: Because that provides mentorship.
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