DC SCHOOLS
- ‘D.C. really has an opportunity to serve as a national model’ (WaPo, 8/27) – an interview with HyeSook Chung, executive director of D.C. Action for Children, about new “blended” pre-K programs
- Progress slows in closing achievement gaps in D.C. schools (WaPo, 8/26)
PHILANTHROPY | “Foundations: Fleas or Elephants?” (Blue Avocado, 7/20) – Rubie Coles (Moriah Fund) says: “I highly recommend this article. The importance of funding community organizing and local advocacy is made very clear.”
HEALTH | New report from GIH: “Implementing Health Care Reform: Funders and Advocates Respond to the Challenge (August, 2010)
“KNOW YOUR SECTOR” | Via Tactical, this video is full of facts: “Nonprofits in the U.S. generate $1.1 trillion every year, which is more than the entire economies of Saudi Arabia and Sweden combined.” (There’s a pairing you don’t see every day.)
ARGHHHHH | Stephen Strasburg out for rest of season, possibly next (ESPN.com, 8/27) – Torn ligament. But, “the success rate for guys coming back from Tommy John [surgery] and retaining their stuff is very good.”
CHILD CARE | “Those of us who work on children’s issues are very depressed.” – Edward Zigler, Yale Professor, co-founder of Head Start. Excerpt:
Let me tell you about one study that’s really very interesting and tells you what I’m talking about.
The Benton Foundation spent $7 million simply to get a sense of people, the man on the street. They spent this money and they did focus groups and the whole survey bit. What they found, down to one word: It’s a container. Mother or father brings the child to the child care center, you put him in this container, and you keep the child safe and dry all day and then the mother picks them up at night.
We didn’t used to call it child care, we used to call it day care, caring for the kids during the day while the parents are working. I don’t see that usage much anymore but that’s exactly how people think of it. It’s not viewed as a place where children can learn and develop, or not depending on what they encounter there.
…We have to turn it into education and not just a container. But this has proven very difficult, the attitudes haven’t changed very much over the entire period I’ve been involved, which is a long, long time now.
Sorry to leave you on a downer. Get outta there! Start that weekend!
-Nick
