Charlie Rose

tutormentor  06/14/2010 10:49 AM Report

I've led a volunteer-based tutor/mentor program in Chicago for 35 years and I've seen the impact a mentor can have on a youth, as well as the impact involvement in mentoring can have on the volunteers.

We held our year-end dinner last Thursday, with over 200 teens, parents, alumni, volunteers and friends. One parent talked of how a volunteer has been part of her daughter's life for the past six years. One alumni, who went through this program from 1993 to 1997, and is now a college graduate, holding a job, and attending grad school, talked about the "transformative impact" the program and her mentors had on her life.

The challenge we face is that there are not enough long-term tutor/mentor programs neighborhoods of big cities where they are most needed, or in rural areas where they are also needed. There are few leaders who see this as a marketing and distribution problem, such as those retail industry leaders solve every day, by putting stores in thousands of locations near potential customers.

We created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993, based on the retail strategies of Montgomery Ward and Sears, to help tutor/mentor programs grow in all poverty neighborhoods. We share the ideas, and a database of Chicago programs, at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org

This strategy needs many owners, not just a few. If we really want more youth coming out of high poverty neighborhoods, into 21st century jobs and careers, more people need to spend time looking at this information, and finding ways to take ownership.

mackmeen  06/09/2010 11:36 PM Report

The incarceration rate of black people is nothing but Slavery Part II. But author Moore is right, the murderer Moore made choices and has to be responsible. So now the rest of us have to be responsible as well to fight against the gross injustice that just keeps on perpetuating itself decade after decade in spite of The Cosby Show and Barack Obama. Let's not lose heart; our better natures can look this problem in the face. All of our lives depend on it. There's a reason why they make you read Wright's Native Son.

Kekulean_Knot  06/07/2010 04:18 PM Report

REMnant why must you be so obnoxious! I won't even speak about that other guy. This interview spoke to the truth. That is all.

REMant  06/07/2010 01:40 PM Report

Wishful, rather evangelical thinking. It is in no way as simple as Mr Moore makes out. But I do agree with him about expectations. I've often said that one of the best predictors for which team will win a game is which of them the last matchup, and that is because of expectations, which yield confidence. A good coach will try to temper that confidence, but not stifle it, as some do. Ivy Leaguers have confidence because they know they are a select group, and tho we really can't pick out everyone, and just give awards for participation, we can treat people a lot more fairly and objectively than we do, and, of course, confidence has to be supported by good teaching. But it is all complicated by the fact that our economy is not based on confidence, but on patronization, indebtedness to others and manipulation by them, which, incidentally much of the rest of the world bristles at. Parenthetically, this is why it is inconsistent to talk about restoring confidence in the economy and at the same time of restoring credit. Credit means not giving credit where due, but creating a relationship of indebtedness. It is like battered wives, who want the relationship they have, even when they know it is wrong.

robdverity  06/06/2010 05:53 PM Report

A laudable effort, a laudable topic. Lacking a father is an endemic problem amongst blacks that has to be rooted in their unemployment. Until a paradigm shift in black employment occurs, Wes Moore comparisons are inevitable because of their uniqueness - where the author Wes is unique, not the jailed Wes.

Tough problem to correct in times of high unemployment for all races. Perhaps the goal is the same RATE of unemployment between the races.