'The Kalamazoo Promise' - Why These Kids Get A Free Ride To College
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According to census data, 39 percent of Kalamazoo’s students are white, and 44 percent are African-American. One of every three students in the Kalamazoo district falls below the national poverty level. One in 12 is homeless. Many of them are the first in their families to finish high school; many come from single-parent homes. Some are young parents themselves: Kalamazoo has one of the highest pregnancy rates among black teenagers in the state.
And yet, for the vast majority of the 500-plus students who graduate each year in Kalamazoo, a better future really does await after they collect their diplomas. The high-school degrees come with the biggest present most of them will ever receive: free college.
Back in November 2005, when this year’s graduates were in sixth grade, the superintendent of Kalamazoo’s public schools, Janice M. Brown, shocked the community by announcing that unnamed donors were pledging to pay the tuition at Michigan’s public colleges, universities and community colleges for every student who graduated from the district’s high schools. All of a sudden, students who had little hope of higher education saw college in their future. Called the Kalamazoo Promise, the program — blind to family income levels, to pupils’ grades and even to disciplinary and criminal records — would be the most inclusive, most generous scholarship program in America.
It would also mark the start of an important social experiment. From the very beginning, Brown, the only person in town who communicates directly with the Promise donors, has suggested that the program is supposed to do more than just pay college bills. It’s primarily meant to boost Kalamazoo’s economy. The few restrictions — among them, children must reside in the Kalamazoo public-school district and graduate from one of its high schools — seem designed to encourage families to stay and work in the region for a long time. The program tests how place-based development might work when education is the first investment.
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more: (read the comments from students and others affected)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/kalamazoo-mich-the-city-that-pays-for-college.html?_r=1
I have told people for years that if you have limited education dollars the two places to focus on are the early years and the education promise.
If you grab kids early enough to start them with a good foundation, they have a much better chance of success. Even if they have rough times, they have basic skills to rely on. You have to start as early as possible before they are behind in many areas.
The later years aren't ignored, but the emphasis should be on strengthening the basic skills. Yes I believe other areas are important, but if you are intervening to try to start changing a failing educational culture, you have to prove success that is tangible.
The kids should also be given some form of the Kalamazoo Promise. If kids have no end game when they graduate that gives them some hope, why bother? The promise can provide incentive for everybody through a system. Hope is like a light that people can follow through the darkest times.
Many will hang on through thick and thin following that light. As it is, too many school districts are devoid of real hope for those that need it most.
You will either build working schools or you will build prisons. We have already built far too many of the latter.
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