Nasturtiums and Herbs on the Garden Wall

Last year I started growing Nasturtiums on the back wall in the garden. I love Nasturtiums because they remind me of San Francisco where we lived when I was little for a few years. They grow wild in Golden Gate Park. My Mom and I took a walk in Golden Gate Park more than a decade ago when I was on a trip out west with my parents before buying my house on Jackson Street in Wilmington. We picked seeds from the flowers. This years the plants have bloomed beautifully on the wall. I've got pots of herbs growing up on top of the wall and the Nasturtiums are dwarfing them! Cleo the affectionate barn kitty) isn't able to knock the pot of catnip off the edge anymore.

Summer Lilly Garden

The Queen of Green Clean!

Few of my friends know of my neurotic passion for green cleaning supplies. It started with my stepdaughter’s allergic reaction to laundry detergent when she was just a wee thing. She had terrible eczema and so we switched to All Free and Clear. When I got pregnant, I couldn’t be around cleaning products because of all of the terrible chemical ingredients. I began looking into green cleaning products that were better for the environment and safer for all of us to be around. I tried several of the brands at Whole Foods (then Fresh Fields), but found them expensive and not all that great. I used Dreft for the baby clothes and that, of course, was also expensive. I tried Shaklee for a while and found that OK, but also wasn’t crazy about how well most of the products cleaned.

Then one day I was setting up my Silpada jewelry at a fall market next to a woman selling Melaleuca. Her name was Marsha Bove (marshabove@verizon.net) and we have since become great friends. She, like me, has the philosophy of let the product sell itself. Both of us were bored out of our skulls at the market, so I started looking at her booth. She had two jars with pieces of fabric in them and what looked like laundry detergent. One looked absolutely disgusting and the other looked brand new. She told me they were both a year old and one was Tide, the other was Melaleuca detergent. It was pretty easy to tell the Tide by the familiar blue color. It was the disgusting one. The fabric was disintegrating.

What interested me most, however, was that Melaleuca products are green. They are based on tea tree oil. The laundry detergent is safe for people with eczema. I decided to give them a try. I have been a loyal customer now for years.

Now with my background story told, let me tell you about my darling little 6-year-old who decided to do her nails in a pair of adorable designer jeans that I was SO proud of having found for a bargain price in a consignment shop. She had worn them exactly three, yes, THREE times. My little love spilled purple and yellow nail polish on said jeans. Oops! Nail polish remover would probably take the color right out of the jeans. She through them in the laundry and Daddy promptly washed and dried them. Permanent stain I thought.

I decided I’d give it a try anyway and tried Melaleuca’s Solumel on the stain plus a shot of Pre-Spot and scrubbed. Wouldn’t you know it, I saved the designer jeans! They look beautiful again. I feel like the Queen of Green Clean again! I am amazed at the stains I have removed -- even permanent marker on occasion.

Yes, I am moved by the little things in life.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Why is it that fifteen minutes into any road trip moms are inevitably interrupted from our mental revelry by that five-word whine “Mommyyyyyy! I have to peeeeeee!” Happens 99.9% of the time. No matter how many times I tell my little sweeties to go before we leave, one of them will have to go when we are on the road with no bathroom in sight.

Today’s trip was to go to Westchester University to pick up my textbooks for half of my grad classes this term. It’s about a half hour drive. Per usual we did the obligatory shoes, teeth, bathroom, car occupying activity checklist and started on our way. Wouldn’t you know it, Miss Elena started the dreaded whine at exactly the 15 minute marker. For some reason Luke told her that seeing yellow things makes you have to go even worse. “Hey look Lena, it’s a yellow car!”

“Mommy, I have to go NOW! It’s the watermelon I ate! And I keep seeing YELLOW things!” Elena whined.

Sadistic 8-year-old that her brother is, he just continued to giggle and point out yellow things to her. I finally got fed up with the noise and whining and said, “That’s it! No more yellow things! Look for red things!”

Luke promptly shouts out, “Look Lena! It’s a red Porta Potty!”

I turn my head to the right to see a rainbow sea of Porta Potties sitting in a lot. I never knew Porta Potties came in so many colors. God certainly has a sense of humor.

I Want to Suck Your Bloooood!

Something about vampires has always fascinated folks. The allure of the forbidden neck bite…mysterious and yet hinting at that sexual desire within us. The creatures of the night who are dangerous and yet promise everlasting life. They are beautiful and timeless creatures. Bram Stoker’s famous Dracula is dark and delicious, my generation grew up with Anne Rice’s vampires who had human emotions and led a flood of devotees to my father’s hometown of New Orleans. A new generation of young adult literature has exploded with variations of vampires with human emotions and connections. They are filled with romance and adventure and are terrific fun.

Teens have been flocking to the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers that has already spurred a matching movie version starring the delicious Robert Pattinson as Edward and beautiful Kristen Stewart as Bella. The second film in the series, New Moon, should be out soon. A more challenging adult read, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, weaves in history of the Dracula legend as it spins its tale. Lovers of historical fiction will thoroughly enjoy Kostova’s book. M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty is a hysterical and very different vampire book written from the viewpoint of a teenage boy changing into a vampire. Anderson captures the language and angst of a teen in flux perfectly.

Mother and daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast teamed up to write a fun series of their own called the House of Night series. It starts with the book Marked and it currently up to book 5, Hunted. The main character is a strong female character named Zoey Redbird at a Vampyre Academy called the House of Night who has been gifted by the goddess Nix. I am always a fan of books with extremely strong female characters and this one fits the bill.

One not suitable for under-16’s due the amount of sexual content but definitely fun is the Sookie Stackhouse series! It has spurred the HBO series True Blood – also rated R. I just love Charlaine Harris’s books! They are an easy read, but so much fun. I am not typically a fan of the “trashy beach read”, however Harris has constructed such fun characters and hilarious dark humor in her series that I am completely hooked. She has written 10 books in the series and my stepdaughter and I are in debate as to whether there will be a continuation. Like many of my other favorite books, Sookie is also an incredibly strong female character. In fact, this year I plan on dressing up as Sookie for Halloween – already have the costume!

Finally, I discovered one more gem in the vampire genre recently. I picked it up because I was reading the back cover at my local library. The main character’s name is Elena – that is my daughter’s name so of course it caught my eye. When I flipped the book over I saw that it was a young adult book about vampires. A young adult book about vampires with a main character named Elena? How could I pass it up?! The series is called The Vampire Diaries. I ended up reading the entire series and am anxiously awaiting the sixth book due out in October. It is a fabulous series with yet another strong female lead. In addition to the books, a TV series is being piloted on the CW September 10th. The online preview shows that it will deviate somewhat from the book series by taking out a few characters and introducing a few new ones. It looks as though they will keep the main premise, however and the actors in the main roles fit my images of the characters for the most part -- although they have changed Elena from a blond to a brunette. They have Marcos Siega from Dexter, another of my all-time favorite series, directing the plot. (No, I don't have a morbid fascination with blood!)

I have a few more books on vampires in my collection yet to read – Evernight by Claudia Gray and Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz. A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb, Peeps by Scott Westerfield, The Silver Kiss and Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klaus have also received great reviews although they still sit on my Amazon list waiting for me to get around to reading them. Eventually I’ll get to them too – I’m a confirmed vampire addict!

The Soloist by Steve Lopez

I just finished a beautiful non-fiction book by Steve Lopez called The Soloist. It has recently been made into a movie, but I can't imagine that the movie is as good as the book. The book captures mental illness, homelessness, and poverty in America in a well-written tale. Lopez has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Los Angeles Times as well as other noted publications. He has also authored several books.

Why Do We Go To School?

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to learn our ABC’s and 123’s.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school because Mom and Dad tell us we have to get up out of bed
and get on the school bus or we are going to be in BIG trouble.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school because it’s a lot of fun to play with our friends at recess
and the other stuff is pretty fun too.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to learn to respect each other and to treat others like we
would like to be treated.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to become literate: to learn how to read and write and to
learn how to use technology.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to become problem solvers, able to come up with solutions.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to learn how to become good citizens by saying the pledge,
voting in mock elections, learning history, and learning about current
events.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to learn how to take care of our earth by learning how to
recycle and learning about science.

Why do we go to school?

We go to school to learn how to learn.




What is the purpose of our schools? I believe that the core purpose of our schools is to produce well-rounded literate citizens who are able to function as independent, responsible, contributing and caring members of our communities and of our nation as a whole. Recently, I feel our schools have been drifting away from that ideal. We have been focusing more and more on producing workers for business while neglecting important social aspects of schooling and the arts as part of educating the whole child. If I were to change the current public education system to fit my personal philosophy, there are a few key areas that I would address.

The first area that I would address is that I would make the U.S. system a national education system rather than a state-based education system. While I know this would be a major undertaking and would meet with major resistance, I think it would be in the best interests of American children. It would bring equity to funding of schools, equity to curriculum, and equity to teacher pay scales, all which could be adjusted according to cost of living allowances. There are so many advantages to creating a national system not only in terms of educating children, but also in educating and certifying teachers. Teacher certification could then become nationally standardized as well with reciprocity across the country making it easy for teachers to move and transfer. This change would be especially beneficial for younger teachers who are often willing to move wherever there are jobs available.

By creating a national system, funding would be based on income tax, not property tax. The current system based on funding via local property taxes has created insanity in real estate prices in some areas and a huge discrepancy between wealthy districts and poor districts in many states. By shifting to an income tax based funding system and putting school funding into the national budget it would enforce a more equitable per student spending base. We would be able to look at what the real cost of education should be and be able to build a truly outstanding public education system which ensures that all of our schools have proper resources.

In addition, we need to look at how to heal those areas of our current education system where there are severely disadvantaged populations living in poverty. Most of these schools are in rural or urban areas and they have been suffering for generations. In looking at all of the solutions tried so far, they have all failed to solve the problems of these populations. The most promising model is the community school. It provides full services from health care to social services as well as before and after school care for children. These schools provide adult education and daycare. They serve the community 24/7 year round. The funding is obtained via a combination of public and private grants to provide the extra services and extended hours. Creating a large-scale model that can be adapted to fit all of our disadvantaged schools nationally is in the best interests of our nation’s children so that we can begin to put an end to our huge percentage of people in poverty nationally.

I would ensure that every school had an art and music program at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Art and music are important in development of the whole child and I believe we need to keep them in our schools. In addition to teaching classes these teachers can help collaborate with other teachers in our schools to help them bring art and music into other areas of the curriculum and make their teaching more creative and interesting. I am a firm believer in multiple intelligences and any way that we can adapt our lessons to introduce new ways of presenting material is good for our children. Art and music teachers offer us expertise in the arts right in our very own schools and are a valuable resource.

I would ensure that every school had a physical education and a health and nutrition program. All children from K-12 need to learn how to take care of their bodies inside and out. Learning to take care of ourselves is an invaluable life skill. In recent years there has been focus on healthy eating in our schools and I think it is a good trend. I believe we should continue to emphasize nutrition and the skills needed for a healthy lifestyle in our schools and add support where we can. In my children’s elementary school they are only allowed to bring healthy snacks and I feel they are learning to eat better food as a result. Physical education teachers are also able to address areas of multiple intelligence and can help brainstorm for ways to add to the curriculum through kinesthetic awareness. This is an area in which physical education teachers have been traditionally under utilized.

I would ensure that every school had at least one trained and accredited librarian on staff with a fully functional library and media center. In this day and age we need to ensure that our children are trained in information literacy and that they have the resources they need available to them. All K-12 schools need to have libraries with media centers and librarians who are trained teachers available to help them or they are at a disadvantage. Librarians are now trained in advanced technology skills in addition to traditional literacy skills. They are trained to collaborate with staff on projects as well as teach students how to navigate their way through the masses of information that they encounter on a daily basis. The media center needs to be stocked with computers, printers, AV equipment, video equipment, smart boards, etc. necessary for training children to use technology. The library needs to be filled with reference books and current reading material to complement what is available at the local public library as well as to supplement the course material of the school teaching staff. The school library should be an inviting and welcome place for students and staff -- a hub of the school.

Another area that I believe we need to strengthen is multicultural education. In a country as culturally diverse as the United States we need to have a public education system that embraces our cultural diversity and educates our children to embrace our diversity. We have been a nation plagued by racism for far too long and yet we ought to be working toward being the nation that sets the example for multicultural diversity and acceptance. We ought to be showing the world how people can live and work together without racism and hatred. I believe that we can achieve that goal through better multicultural education in our schools. James Banks’ five dimensions of multicultural education – content integration, knowledge construction, equity pedagogy through varied learning styles, prejudice reduction, and an empowering school culture – should be a part of all teacher training and should become integrated into schools nationwide. Eventually operating via these methods will become second nature. If we don’t start to make a change in education, we are only adding to the problems of racism, sexism, and animosity that are occurring in our country based on difference.

A final area that I would change is the emphasis on standardized tests. I believe tests have a purpose as a tool, but they are not the end all. They do not prove the intelligence of an individual, nor should they seal a child’s, or school’s, fate. I don’t think that teachers should receive merit pay based on test scores, nor do I think children should be striving to get into “gifted” based on IQ tests. It is reasonable to have a national standardized assessment of some sort to gauge where students are at certain stages throughout the K-12 years. The 3-7-11 model seems reasonable. Putting pressure on those tests for it to be anything other than a diagnostic tool for teachers and parents is ridiculous. It forces teachers to teach to the test and produce robots and undue pressure. The reality is that if the system is working, the children should be able to do fine on the test. If not, there is something wrong with the test.

I truly have faith in our public education system. When I talk to people, they often think that I am far too optimistic. I don’t feel that our public education system is in grave peril and that American students are the worst in the world. I look at my own 17-year-old and her friends and I am proud of how many bright young people are graduating and going off to top universities from public schools. I’ve watched some incredibly talented kids perform plays over the past few years that could have competed with off-Broadway productions – in a public school! If you read media accounts of our youth, you don’t often read about the amazing kids who are performing on stage or spending the summer in China studying Chinese on a scholarship, it is usually a doomsday story. I know kids who spend every spring doing Model UN in New York City as model diplomats solving the world’s problems and sing in choirs that travel to Florida on Spring break. They are good kids with promising futures. I know kids who don’t have such promising futures as well, but I think that it is exciting to see so much ahead for so many.

In fact there are so many things that I love about our current public education system. I love that our current system allows creative teachers like my son’s teacher from this past year to teach the way that she wanted to teach. She was a fabulous example for me of the way to teach social skills, diversity, and acceptance to a group of 2nd graders. Every time I walked into that classroom I ended up in tears I was so moved. She used singing and dancing, had them writing stories and poetry, created photo stories, and did presentations of all of it for families multiple times throughout the year. The writing by the end of the year of all of the students was amazing. It was wonderful to watch!

If as, as a country, we can move forward and I can have my dream of a national system with many of the other changes I suggested, I feel we will have an incredibly strong public education system. I am very passionate about public education staying public and will always be an advocate for it staying that way. I believe that all of our children need to be educated in order to function in our society and we as citizens have an obligation to provide that education. I find myself frustrated when I hear people grumbling about having to pay for schools “because they don’t have children.” We all have to pay for schools because we are citizens of the United States of America. It is our responsibility to educate all of our citizens. As we educate our children I would include education about social responsibility. We do have an obligation to one another as Americans, just as Canadians have an obligation to other Canadians and Australians have an obligation to other Australians. It comes with citizenship. Much like, while I am philosophically opposed to the current war, I am fully in support of our troops and believe we have a social responsibility to care for them fully both now and as they return to the U.S. – no matter what the cost. We sent them to war and now we have a responsibility to care for them. It is a cost of war and a responsibility of citizenship.

By going into education as a librarian, I feel that I can make a difference for so many students at all levels. I know that the students at my 17-year-old’s level will be fine. She is a reader and will find books and resources no matter where she goes. While having a librarian as excited as I am about the job as I am would be a bonus for her, she still manages to find the things she needs. It’s the other students who don’t find their way to library that need me. It’s the teachers who aren’t currently integrating information literacy into their lessons. They are the ones that I am truly going to be in the library to serve. Even though I will be one individual out there teaching, I believe change starts with the individual. We start with our schools. We advocate. We make small changes. We make our voice heard. We hope for the future.






1. Banks, James A. and Michelle Tucker. Multiculturalism’s Five Dimensions. NEA Today Online. http://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session3/3.Multiculturalism.pdf

2. Parsons, Richard D., Hinson, Stephanie Lewis, Sardo-Brown, Deborah. Educational Psychology: A Practitoner-Researcher Model of Teaching. Wadsworth, 2001.

Poverty, Education, and a Place for Community Schools in America

Often when I talk to teachers about teaching in low-income areas their biggest complaint is about apathy. I ask them where they think that apathy comes from and they overwhelmingly respond, “home!” So if apathy is such a huge problem in our disadvantaged schools and it stems from home, how do we solve the problem? How do we get our disadvantaged kids and their families more involved in school and school life? How do help them see that school can help them, all of them, have a better life? I think there is an answer, but it is one that will take some serious national discussion and some changes in how we think as a nation about schooling. It lies in the idea of community schools – integrating services and the community within the local schools.

First, I believe that we as a nation need to change our perceptions of poverty. The official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5%; that percentage of our population equates to 37.3 million people. 19 The largest percentage of those people are African American or Hispanic. Among children, 18% of the population lives in poverty.19 That’s nearly 1 in 5 children! For a country with our wealth, that is an awful statistic. It’s a statistic that every U.S. citizen should be ashamed our society hasn’t changed. The poverty thresholds would stun the average American: a single individual is considered living in poverty if they earn $10,787, single parent with one child, $14, 291, family of three, $16, 689, family of four, $24,744. 18 None of these figures is a realistic amount of money for a family to live on, particularly in an urban setting.

In addition to the statistics of poverty, there is a global discussion about the link between poverty and education. It’s not a new discussion; it dates back to early societies and the development of formal education with the industrial revolution in Europe and progressed further when the welfare states developed after WWII. Europe, devastated by the war, developed national healthcare, national education systems that extended all the way through higher education, social services, pension plans, and other support systems for their countries. The UN has taken the discussion further into this century to put child-centered education, the raising of literacy rates, and increasing hours of instruction to 800 hours a week on its agenda for those countries that are currently in extreme poverty globally. 12

With all of this clear evidence pointing to a link between poverty and a lack of education, what about our own country? The U.S. also developed a social welfare system along the same timeline as Europe, but ours has always been somewhat different. We didn’t feel the same kind of pain and devastation as other areas of the world after WWII. We instituted Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid, and Medicare, but we never instituted national plans. We’ve had debates about national health care for years, but there is huge resistance to the idea. We developed a national education system, but there has been constant debate about curriculum, structure, accountability, accessibility, assessment, and funding. I believe much of this stems from the way that our system originated. Our system was born out of a group of charitable organizations taking control of needs that needed to be met and simply filling those needs. For example, the Societies For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed in New York and became our country’s first child protective agency. There are those in our society today that believe we can still operate in this manner. Obviously there is a huge role for non-profits and charitable organizations in our society, but government is also critical. The child protective agency, for example, is better suited to a government social agency where it can have consistency and guidelines across our large country.

As we look to how to improve our schools and address the issue of poverty in our nation I come back to the idea of education. Education is how we attack poverty on a global basis and it should be our best defense here in the U.S. We have a long history in this country of community–based solutions from which to draw inspiration and ideas for a new scheme of community schools that will help this generation. If we look at social settlements, the platoon-plan , and various community school plans developing around the country, I believe there are solutions in the making.

The Platoon Plan was born in the city of Gary, Indiana in 1906. It ended up dying a slow and painful death with much criticism as the result of the unintended segregation that occurred with the area and the high cost of maintaining the schools. There were many good points to be gained from William Wirt’s plan, however. The plan was a progressive plan based upon a work-study-play philosophy that focused on educating the whole child. The curriculum was expanded beyond regular academic subjects to include shop, cooking, recreation, nature study, public speaking, music, art, and other activities. The classrooms were kept in constant use including nights, weekends, and summers. The school even included adult education and health care was provided at the school. These concepts of child-centered education, adult education, extended hours, health care, and community involvement are still key concepts in a good community school ideal for this century.6

In the late 1880’s, London developed its first social settlements in response to problems created by urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. The original settlements were run by religious and university students who volunteered time to educated the poor. America’s most famous settlement house was Hull House, founded by Jane Adams in 1889 in Chicago. Hull House was secular in nature but many settlement houses were run by religious organizations. In 1911, Chicago had 35 settlement houses. Hull House grew over the years and by the 1920’s it offered daycare, Kindergarten, an employment bureau, an art gallery, a library, English classes, citizenship classes, theater classes, art classes, music classes, a variety of clubs, cultural events, meeting places for trade union groups, and more. It was a first living quarters for many immigrants and a hub of the community. Settlement houses were the nations first community centers. The Chicago settlement groups helped found the NAACP. Key concepts like daycare, Kindergarten, ESL classes, community clubs, job support and assistance and the general support of the community learned from these early community centers are key concepts that are applicable to a good community school ideal for this century.11

Looking into this century, the models for community schools that are being built are indeed growing out of those early seeds. The Hull House Association lives on today as does the Gary Community Schools Corporation. The Hull House Association continues a tradition of “neighbors helping neighbors.”11 The services it provides carry on Jane Adam’s values and then some. They currently serve 60,000 Chicagoans annually with everything from after school programs to ESL programs to community schools to senior services. They follow the creed that “Ignorance, disease, and crime are the result of economic desperation and not the result of some flaw in moral character.”11 In addition, Chicago is making huge strides with the Coalition for Community Schools and the tremendous amounts of high quality research they are producing. Its close ties to the Administration and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will help in making Community Schools a national discussion. New York has the New York Children’s Aid Society born out of a group formed in the early 1900’s. In community schools in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, social and health care services are integrated into the schools from infancy through high school, foster care services are available, there is on-site daycare, and preventative care. Countee Cullen Community Center in New York City is located at PS194 and is open from 9am to well past midnight plus weekends and summers. It offers homework help, on-site social services, parenting workshops, child welfare services, drug awareness programs, movie nights, basketball, street clean-ups, voter registration, and more. 10 Many New York public schools are making inroads to change.

Within the city of Philadelphia, there are also some schools experimenting with the idea of community schools. Sayre High School has a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania faculty and students in medicine, nursing, dentistry, social work, education, law, and arts and sciences. Sayre students are prepped to deliver health promotion and education to their community especially in the areas of hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. They receive free tutoring services from volunteer students as well as health care services. These services are also extended to eight other Philadelphia schools within the area serving K-12 aged students. 14 The Francis Scott Key School in South Philadelphia serves a high immigrant population and offers services including extra hours and adult language classes. West Oak Lane Charter School offers a longer school day and year, smaller class size, research-based curriculum focusing on math and science, links to community resources, and a low cost after school program.10

So what are the key components of a community school model that make it truly successful? The most successful community school models seek to “improve the material conditions of the neighborhood.” 10 The schools themselves become integral centers within those neighborhoods and provide missing links to all services and systems of support. The Chicago systems seem to be heading in the right direction. They have a grasp on the biggest gaps and seem to be filling them the best at this stage. Currently those key components seem to be:

1) Extended Learning Time
Extended learning time has the greatest impact on disadvantaged populations. In addition, adding time to the school day and year gives teachers time to participate in professional development with their colleagues during the school day as they bring in outside instructors for special presentations. By adding time to in-class time, teachers are eligible for increased pay.

2) Health Services
Disadvantaged communities rarely get the health care they need. By providing it at school, kids win.

3) Dental Services
Like health care, dental care is usually neglected. Healthy teeth leads to healthy kids.

4) Social Services
All varieties of social services are needed within disadvantaged communities and by making them easily available at the community school, parents are better able to find them and access them.

5) Parenting Classes
Parenting is a tough job. Many disadvantaged communities have high teen pregnancy rates and many young parents. Parenting classes can help these parents cope and become better parents.

6) Job Training for Adults
Supporting parents helps families and helps kids. Providing job training is good for the community.

7) ESL Services
According to the 2000 U.S. census, nearly 20% of school-age children speak a language other than English at home. Providing ESL classes for both children and adults is an essential need for many community schools.

8) GED classes
The dropout rate in many poverty-stricken communities is still high. Providing an opportunity for adults and teens to return to school easily is a must for community schools.

9) Housing support services
Quality housing has always been an issue for disadvantaged populations. Community schools can provide support services to find affordable quality housing.

10) Daycare
Daycare for working parents and teen mothers returning to school is essential in a community school.

11) Full Day Kindergarten
Half-day Kindergarten needs to become a thing of the past in all schools, but especially disadvantaged populations. Early literacy skills and the needs of working parents are best met by full-day Kindergarten programs.

12) Substance Abuse Programming
Many poverty-stricken areas have issues with substance abuse and community schools are the perfect place to provide programming and refer counseling services to address these issues.

13) Tutoring
If academic needs are not being met in the normal school day, the community school can provide tutoring services often via volunteer organizations.

14) Food programs
Meals are often a source of stress within a disadvantaged community. Although this is one area that many of our schools are already doing an excellent job in coping with, it’s one that should be addressed formally in a community school plan.


If we create community schools in our poverty-stricken areas and include all of these features, it will not be an inexpensive undertaking. It will require money -- and more money than we are currently paying. It will cost more to operate these schools than other schools without these services, but not all of our public schools will need all of this support. Only 18% of our nation’s children live in poverty according to our current definition. I would argue that that number is low, for there are undoubtedly many more families existing near the edge of poverty. But even if the number is 25%, that means that 75% of our children do not need such extensive services in their schools. Currently, funding for community schools comes from a mix of federal funding, state funding, local government funding, the local school system, community funding, national philanthropies, and corporate funding. 7 Each individual school has to apply for its own funding. While the mix of funding is not a bad one, there has to be a better way of accessing it than forcing each individual school to apply for funding.

As a national agenda, many will be against the idea of funding such elaborate schools as these. The argument will be that they are unfair and too expensive. I believe that we as Americans need to ask ourselves what it is costing us to have such a huge portion of our population living in poverty? I believe it is time for us to ask ourselves if it is fair that a wealthy, industrialized nation boasts 1/5 to 1/4 of its children living in poverty? The problem isn’t going to fix itself and it isn’t going to go away overnight. It’s going to take dedication, activism, education, and people willing to stand up with a strong, solid voice for change in our nation’s communities in poverty.

Bibliography and Endnotes

1. Addams, Jane. Philanthropy and Social Progress. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 1893. pp. 1-26.
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst203/documents/addams.html

2. Blank, Martin J.; Melaville, Alelia; Shah, Bela P. Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools. Coalition for Community Schools. Washington, DC. May 2003.
http://www.communityschools.org/

3. Brown, Victoria Bissell. "Jane Addams," in Women Building Chicago
1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary. 2001.
http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/newdesign/ja.html

4. The Children’s Aid Society
http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/

5. Coalition for Community Schools
http://www.communityschools.org/

6. Gary Community School Corporation
http://www.garycsc.k12.in.us/

7. Grossman, Jean Baldwin; Vang, Zoua M. The Case for School-Based
Integration of Services. Public/Private Ventures GroundWork . 2009.
http://www.ppv.org

8. Haberman, Frederick W. , Editor. Nobel Lectures, Peace 1926-1950. Elsevier
Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html

9. Harkavy, Ira; Blank, Martin. Community Schools: A Vision of Learning that Goes
Beyond Testing. Education Week, Vol. 21, No. 31. www.edweek.org
Also available at:
http://www.communityschools.org/images/Media/commentary.html

10. Hill, Paul; Campbell, Christine; Manno, Bruno. Building More Effective Community Schools. The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Center for the Study of Social Policy. Baltimore, MD. 2000.
http://www.aecf.org


11. Hull House Association
http://www.hullhouse.org/

12. Matsuura, Koichiro. Ending Poverty Through Education – The Challenge of
Education for All. UN Chronicle. Issue 4, 2007.
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2007/issue4/0407p37.html

13. National Center For Children In Poverty
http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_825.html

14. Philadelphia Community Schools
http://www.upenn.edu/ccp/uacs/university-assisted-community-schools.html

15. Rocha, Elena. Choosing More Time for Students. Center for American Progress.
August, 2007.
http://www.americanprogress.org

16. stateuniversity.com
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2002/Gary-Schools.html

17. United South End Settlements
http://www.uses.org/about_us.htm

18. University of Michigan, National Poverty Center Poverty Threshholds in the U.S.
http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/

19. U.S. Census Bureau Statistics on Poverty
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty07/pov07hi.html