Iowa's Children With Pat Boddy

Good evening I'm Pat Bodie and welcome to this rebroadcast of I was children. This program was first broadcast on January 16th the day that war erupted in Iraq distracting everyone from the problems here at home that war appears to be over. Able once again to focus our attention on the home front. We want to bring you the evening we had planned for you back in January. It begins with this program. I was children and I will perspective to an alarming national crisis that you'll hear me describe in greater detail in a moment and then it will continue with all our children with Bill Moyers at 7 o'clock. Please stay with us. Although you'll hear about some very disturbing problems you might also learn how we can help turn things around. Major funding for this program was provided by Iowa Public Television. He was chilled. It was your hopes. Now less than 30 minutes from now Bill Moyers will present all our children a documentary

and town meeting that introduces us to some courageous young people who with the help of some exciting new alternative education programs are trying to turn their lives around. The young people you'll meet are part of a growing group of youth at risk a national report titled America's shame America's hope stated that these children almost 12 million of them currently are at risk because they are at risk of emerging from school unprepared for further education or the kind of work there is to do. Often they are ready only for lives of alienation and dependency. Nationally nearly 1 million kids drop out of school every year. Almost one third of our nation's youth are being abandoned to a life of poverty and failure. The future implications of this are staggering. Unless something is done to stem the tide. America will likely pay a heavy price both in terms of its ability to compete in a global economy and the quality of life here at home. You'll hear more about the national situation later during the Bill Moyers

program. But first what about I was children. According to the I would Department of Education about five to six thousand children drop out of Iowa's schools every year. It's estimated that approximately 15 percent of students entering the seventh grade will not finish high school. This problem represents a very real cost to society. According to an executive summary released by the I would Department of Education in November of last year there were five thousand six hundred fifty two dropouts in Iowa in 1988 89. The report estimated that the reduced earning power suffered by these dropouts will ultimately result in a loss of about ninety one point three million dollars to the state treasury over their 45 year working lifetime and cost the state an estimated two point four million dollars per year in welfare payments. This report further stated that compared to high school graduates I would dropouts are over five times as likely to become incarcerated. It costs money to keep people in prison and a path to prison

is paved with court costs. Damage to property. Increased insurance rates loss of productivity loss of human life incapacitation and medical costs adding a further burden on the state's economy. And there are tragic personal costs to these undereducated individuals in terms of their own human growth and potential and a reduced sense of control over their own lives. But perhaps the greatest tragedy is that many of the problems and costs associated with undereducated youth are preventable. We've brought together a distinguished panel to discuss this issue as it exists in Iowa. I'd first like to introduce you to Wayne Ford executive director of Urban Dreams and inner city social service organization working with youth and families. Also let's welcome Mary why Berg's who works with state education programs targeting teenage parents and welfare reform. She's also vice chair of the Iowa commission on the status of women. Ray Morely immediately to my right

of the State Department of Education works with dropout prevention programs education for the homeless and school based youth service programs. He has responsibility for helping kids at risk. Orlando Ray dial is an administrator in the Waterloo community schools and I was a civil rights commissioner and an officer of the Black Hawk County branch of the CPE and David Williamson seated next to me at my left. A poet and sculptor who has spent more than 15 years and I was schools including juvenile correction facilities and alternative high schools through the Iowa Arts Council. I welcome all of our distinguished panel members. I'm glad you could join join us tonight. The first thing I would look at is when folks do see this Bill Moyers program one of the things they will see is that they are dealing with children young people these are primarily teenagers in this program who have a variety of problems ranging from working through the cult to teenage pregnancy to drugs. What is the common thread

that links these different problems together. What can we do to look at all of these problems at once. Is there a way to do that or are these all distinct problems. Anybody piped in. They'd all have something in common. We have them. Oftentimes you hear people talk about how schools have filled society. In fact society is filled. Consequently we can't service the youngsters like we need to. Home is supposed to be the primary educator and. Parents are not getting involved like they should and should you know are looking for a place to belong. And I always asked the question What is it about the life that we lead that makes these young people not want to be like us. And that's that's obviously what we're not going to be like you we're going to do something else whether it's games with the occult. We're going to do it different than the way you did.

Well that brings up two questions for me one is who is the we you're talking about is that parents as educators and secondly what is it we're doing that they don't like. But one thing that I would like to say is. Some of us are the children of the 60s. We fought for Kent State Vietnam black equality women rights many people imagine aeration have teenage kids who today are gang members but are pregnant dropping out of school. Something happened to us the same thing that was talking about the generation that freed the blacks that gave more power to females in this in this country Greenpeace can state all those things that happened in the 60s and 70s this is our generation. I believe that our generation has become apathetic. Our generation has Believe in the the situation no more we believe in me and the mortgage and all that. And because of that we have paid a tremendous price. So there's a common thread with our generation also. We don't care about the kids. I'm saying that the people who did a lot for this country the innocence of the 70s have become too much stuck on themselves and the calls that we have paid or paid a trauma a tremendous price losing many

generations of our young people and people that their youngsters want it was more material things and people were they were long hours to buy than the best of everything and what the youngsters really wanted and still want is mom and dad. Cheaper tennis shoes just more time with mom and dad. Even if you're only sitting in the other room I know you're home. It didn't help me to know that my dad are all working real hard to get a car when I graduate. I need mom and dad at home to give me some sense of direction or sponsor abilities as the educational system have for filling in when mom and dad aren't there. Certainly someone has to nurture a sense of self-esteem in a child to empower a child with a sense of self esteem. And educational process. Certainly the part that I'm involved with which really the arts is a tool with which we hope to empower youngsters with a very positive sense of self esteem and redefining their capacity to manage the unknown and to manage

risky situations and to alleviate some of the fear. I think their feeling about life in the. 21st century. One thing that's really true is that there are increased numbers of single parent families and that where once mom and dad were there. Mom and Dad not only are not both there in the home but often. That parent or both parents are working and and with a single parent family there are increased needs for a lot of other support services. For the whole family we here in Iowa are trying very hard to look at meeting the needs of the whole family as both a preventative measure to keep our youth from ending up being at risk and also to serve those young people and their parents right now. Now again talking about we are looking at the whole family we being the state department of education is that the we in this case the we was the state of Iowa not just the state Department of Education.

We're trying within state government to do increased collaboration among agencies to look and see how we're serving families as a whole. To see if there's a drug abuse problem and funds are coming from the Department of Health. How can serving a family that has a member with a substance abuse problem funded with one source link to the kinds of educational resources provided through the Department of Education or the Human Services funds from the Department of Human Services to serve the whole family. OK now are we finding answers to those questions. Back to your original question Pat. There's no question that every one of the students we identify want to have some type of success. They want to be recognized they want love. They want to achieve. And within the educational programs our mission is to try to find a way for them to achieve some kind of success while they're in school. That means to them. Well we have to accommodate some of the problems that they bring with them. Every parents or child to school every day and it's the best thing that they have to say in. Regardless of whether

they have problems or not. So the school has to find a way to help them succeed but they have to accommodate the problems they bring with them and try to find ways to help them that goes outside the school so that we know now what are some of these ways of helping families. One of the solutions is you know as educator always saying in terms of what should we be teaching people. And we need to teach the family it's not enough just to teach the child that shows up from 8 to 3 every day I hear at least one parent say I'm doing the best that I can or I'm doing the best that I know how to do. And the best isn't always good and we need to go ahead and show parents these are the skills that you need as a parent to help your youngster develop. When you only give your youngster things and they begin to believe it's not me this important but the things that I have. And that destroys that sense and so were so we're going to have to unfortunate really expand the scope of education and begin

not only to teach children but to teach parents as well. And buying and buying into family values is a part of buying into American values and American values also mean buying into the world of business. The American Dream used to mean that a child would want to become involved in some kind of business in their lifetime. I think in Iowa we do a great job of producing new young employees. But we do a poor job of producing new young employers people who know how to be entrepreneurial and one of the things that I think the art process models. It's what it's like to become entrepreneurial. What it's like to manage a risk. I've said for years that sticking with the ABC s won't get us better GNP and that's what I mean. But it must be true because hours working hours around this country is one of the leaders of the educational system. This show should be about. To me Pat. But what was adorable doing with all these who have all these good grades who are not going to jail because our school system here is much better than the schools as Michael from the watch and they see so what I'm saying to some of the ownership but

summer ownership is on these problems had to be looked upon and have to be looked at looked at and I see the school system to be candid with you at last opening up to traditional organizations opening up to a lot of entities for many years to schools of what's very close if you was outside it was hard to get it. So to be candid with you we all are paying a price for the problem and one of the things that is misleading we talk about where we rank in the country we use a standardized test which means we are producing youngsters who are very good at taking standardized tests which shows they measure very high. I don't know that we can necessarily say that then we're we are educating better training better net that's a whole separate issue but it is something to think about is filling in the little squares correctly the best way to educate. You talked about the schools being more open we're understanding now that diversity is an issue that must be addressed. And I guess to put it in simple terms everybody show that the school is not white. We have

African-American students we have Asian students we have Latino students. And we need to change the curriculum to reflect those students Many children drop out because this is what you teach me in that book about George Washington. Is it me. I don't want to be like that I don't know any more about that. I'm out of here. So if we change it so that we're showing that youngster that you are part of America the American dream is not Euro centric. It is truly more cultural and not stopping us from making those kind of simple curriculum changes since as you've described some of it is fear. People who've spent 20 years teaching George Washington being a great man in Thomas Jefferson Hamilton and now you tell them wait a minute if he was so great why did he own slaves. There's some moral deficiency in his if you don't question things like that. You know that's a question of black folks don't want to do that the other thing is. And it's the issue of race. I hate to mention the term in terms of race because race that it was really didn't exist were all in the human race. But

it's about power and when you control the curriculum you control the minds of all the people who come through the system and if you have a curriculum is truly multicultural then you are in power and everybody in the country to share in that American dream. If you don't teach motorcoach your curriculums then you're fixing it so that the select group in this case a Eurocentric group gets a bigger share of the pie and we see that in America and I'd like to balance one of the things I work with at the State Department of Education is the whole issue of multicultural nonsexist education and we hear and I would need to be proud of the fact. That we have a piece of legislation which says that our K through 12 curriculum will be multicultural and nonsexist in terms of its content. We're still working at seeing to it that that's accomplished. But I I think that we as a state have taken a leadership role nationally and seeing to it that we have legislation that says we need to pay attention to exactly the things that you're discussing going back to your question about what do we

do for families around this. One of the big initiatives here in Iowa is an investment of millions of dollars in early childhood education which not only targets very young children both at preschool and in early elementary grades but also involves their parents both in learning how to help them learn and also learning how to be better parents themselves. None of us got good training in how to be a parent. And we recognize that to help some of these youth at risk and prevent the problem in the future if we can do some of that prevention early on in the child's life and involve the parent we are miles ahead a business perspective on this I think is that if you look at the federal deficit the balance of trade problem the GNP the numbers tell you we cannot keep doing what we're doing. And and so what I think has to happen there is that we must. Realize that the filling in the dots that Orlando was

referring to and I would guess a basic skills will measure how well we gave them what I call quantitative skills which would be answers. But it's the I Will economy of the next 50 years that will measure how well we've given what I call qualitative skills which is the ability to ask a question. Well let's get to that image in terms of you were talking about having self-esteem qualitative all of these different touchy feely type of words and might refer to them as. And what I've heard about in terms of the actual programs going on are a multicultural curriculum. Preschool education or. Youth early childhood I can remember the Great Eyrie childhood education. What I want to know is when you work with the kids out in the street. David you've been with the kids of the juvenile corrections institution at an alternative high schools. Is this going to fix it. I mean I was going to start to speak more grams right now that meet the needs of youth. When you talk about the teen pregnancy issue we need programs in the state of

Iowa that enable any pregnant teen or teen parent to remain in school to have child care and transportation so that she in most cases can complete her education and become the productive citizen that we would like our our work kids to be. All right as we talked about the different types of alternatives that school districts will need to go to there is no one right answer for every student almost every student that comes and has a different type of problem and they need a different type of alternative that's going to work for them. So our schools are busy in the process of developing alternative ways for students to be successful in school. Some of that is schools within schools where the students are able to specialize in an area that they like to study. Some kids are very motivated by the arts and that's the type of core curriculum that they need. Other students are more motivated by the practical. Methods of learning and so academics is a way that they like to go.

Some students can't succeed in either. So we need an alternative learning environment where they can feel more personal success by doing it on an individual basis and going the ways that they need to go. So one of the primary solutions is going to be for schools to develop a lot of different ways for students to be successful achieve that level of education that we want to achieve and come out with a primary mission and that is that they all be productive people. And when they leave all those with the the professional educators are not trained in any of these extra things. When you walk out of any university that you know teach your preface to tuition in this state you are trained to do an academic job not to sit in a room and spot who's a drug abuser who's been abused as a child and then you show up on the job and you're expected to be able to perform these skills and best you teach your academic area at best. The other. We just don't do a good

job of it and one of the reasons for that is we really shouldn't have to do those things well and families do that. Will those problems with a great opportunity are sure to get us a business. Oh I got I got to throw something in here just real quick I'm hearing. We got to. Get better parents. We've got to have better teachers not better but more elaborate training of our teachers. We have to have this early childhood education we have to have programs for all of these different problems people may have with the young people may have. Wow what a bill. Right and the David was talking about that bottom line budget deficit which this this bill you're talking about means we absolutely have to collaborate better. Both with the private sector with programs like Waynes with with the other service agencies that the schools need to link with. If we've got kids with problems with the Department of Human Services whether they're on welfare or with health

with drug abuse problems we need to be able to bring those people into the schools to assist educators in dealing with those problems. Do not even go to school. And I think that's crucial so you know we have a lot of educators here but I'm a founder of a service organization and what we have found out peers mentors volunteers we have find out what they can do with you. Love can turn a kid's life around you can look through all the books you get as complex as you want. I've seen it from the get a washing. I grew up the same thing in the morning working in a study. And what turned my life around was love. We come in here we get all these professional people corporations who come down to Urban Dreams and volunteer comes down to Urban Dream to volunteer. I've seen them turn their lives a while. So what I'm trying to say is that we're trying to make it so complex. Kids need a mother and father. If you can't get the Mother and Father Goulden a role model a mentor or volunteer to turn their life around let you know as you mention those corporations that have gotten involved what they have in fact

and it's it's gone back to community involvement in school. You know we start about the good old days and depending how you view those early days the only thing good about them is the fact that they will. But one good thing about them was that everybody was involved in school. They took pride in the school the school was a place that you ought to go. Now you hear more people talking about well the school is no good it's good and do this is good and do that. And people have to remember what schools are for you you don't blame your doctor if your car didn't start. You know you blame your mechanic we blame schools for everything that goes wrong and we forget that teachers are only trained. In this narrow scope and whereas before in this is there this does provide an opportunity though now an opportunity for partnerships to be built we need and nontraditional partnerships partnerships you wouldn't normally think of. And this I think makes some people uncomfortable. And so. However I think High School Athletic Association said that is motivation that puts

people outside their comfort zone. And so we're going to have to be motivated to get outside our traditional role models of what is an artist what is a teacher what is an educator what is a sports person and and branch off and see if we can't find a network. Here of helping empower kids with with a sense of love and self-esteem. And we have to model it individually and then hopefully model it as small groups and begin to model it as a community as if they could be due for very little cost and no cost we have to restructure something. We can't continue to run the system as it is and then recreate it or create a second system supplemented that will be costly. We're going to have if we're going to have a mix. We're going to have to mix it so that is done at the same cost. We can't afford to ruin. Six different schools in every state within every building we don't have the people or the dollars to do that and I don't think America wants to spend that kind of money we spend 170 billion dollars a year on education right

now. So I mean that's not money is not the only answer. We took a look at all the models that are effectively going to say two things happening within those programs which gets at what you're talking about one is for programs that are successful with students we've got a lot a lot of person power in that program are usually add people to it to get at the issue that Wayne was bringing on and that is to provide them enough. Time to work with students so that love and affection can be provided for students along with leadership and role modeling. So those two primary components are key to any model program that's been developed to set priorities here is what you folks are saying you'd set your priorities in these mentoring type programs is I believe the volunteers people who will come into these kids lives and when he gives up them I mean Big Brother Big Sister we kind of see those commercials because they all say my God was a United Way commercials and a lot we all say well you know it looks good but doesn't really happen yes it really happens. People giving back to people it's not that complex until

we as Americans and recognize this not that we want to play the big game with ourselves. I think that's that's what there's an artistic Grogram of the Arts Council's been about. Pat when you look at. Productivity and our young people. We also need to make sure that as they go through secondary school they learn some sort of. Career direction. They are exposed to what the options might be for our young women we need to make sure that they have an opportunity to learn that nontraditional careers may pay them better wages and allow them if they're a single parent to support a family that secretarial job or a minimum wage job wouldn't allow them to do. And I think vocational education is gaining through the new state standards for vocational education and is going to be strengthened in Ottawa and allow kids to gain some of that. A lot of the programs are just simply getting people to remember that all of us have an

investment in education. Whether you have dollars to put in our time. If we. Levi was walk with my degree. Then we filled the system the system requires that we put something back in. Mentors volunteers United Way his program to simply getting people back involved with the skills of the junior high or senior high because with 80 percent accuracy you can predict what a child's going to do in 11th grade it's what they did in third grade. So you have to do it early whatever you value teaching or modeling you have to do it early. You're right about that but you know with the Persian Gulf crisis a lot of people right now who are not educated in American society that's right but they can make fighting for this country. I think you know while the talking that we all talk about what needs to be done but that we have a war going on. The bottom line is up that America needs a look at some of its values and at this critical point that out of fear and it's very simple. There's a second point to what we've been talking about Pat and the point is that we need to

have individuals pay attention and give time to our youth but the second point is we need to give them the opportunity to practice some of the things that they learn in school in our communities helping each other providing service within their community applying themselves to specific projects through career vocational education that's a medium where that can happen through the arts. That's another medium where that can happen and we need to give them the opportunities to see a path. Let's take a step back for a minute just who we've been talking about giving youth love etc. and I'm sure that there are and we don't have much time left but I'm sure there are a number of parents sitting there at home saying I love my children I've given them everything I know how to give them and good parents struggling to be good parents and they've got a kid that they fear has a drug problem or their daughter is pregnant. What do you say to those people about what they should and shouldn't be doing for them to tomorrow go to a telephone and call the human service organizations in the community.

We have a thing about being so close. I don't want to I don't want to know my cousin went to jail to get all those values or destroyed the fabric of this country. What they can need to do is recognize it's larger than me. Kids are more sophisticated than my generation. I need help until people can recognize they need help the people who are trying to play games with these kids you have to love your kids enough to raise them basically you know it's not enough that they're doing something wrong as a parent you have to stop and you know we've got kids who have their own room a lot to do if they're 11 years old they're paranoid not to come in love. They're not being raised. You have to raise your youngsters it's not enough just to care about and you can watch them go the wrong way all day. It's you know I always say to whom much is given much is expected. And even people who know better are going to have to help people who don't know better next door neighbors family friends every day. Q. I'm Pat bodie thanks to my panel and thanks to you for joining us. And now please stay tuned for all our children with Bill Moyers coming up right after these announcements.

Major funding for this program was provided by friends of Iowa Public Television.