What factors affect learning at your school? Interactive map

click here to view map

My Twitter feed drew my attention to the interactive maps on the Hamilton Project website, which is a part of Brookings.edu

While there are many different reports on the site the map I'm pointing to focuses on a report that focuses on the factors that affect learning at individual schools.

If you browse through this blog or sections of the Tutor/Mentor blog you'll see that I create stories by zooming into sections of map platforms like this, then creating a screen shot that I convert to a jpg that can be put in the story.

Below is a closeup of the Chicago region.  You can drill down even closer to look at individual schools.

Below you can see how I share maps from these stories on Twitter and how I'm trying to motivate youth from schools across Chicago and the world to create their own map-stories, focusing on issues in their own community.

I've followed a "rest of the story" strategy shown in blog articles like this since 1994. I point to #Chicago #tutor #mentor orgs in these areas, or the lack of such programs. Students could learn to do this, helping build public awareness. https://t.co/2AbuyRkmAh pic.twitter.com/MdX6Ykp0Fb

— Daniel Bassill (@tutormentorteam) December 18, 2019

This is something that youth as early is middle school could be doing for various class projects, or for service learning. If practiced all the way through high school and college, I suspect we'd develop a generation of spatial thinkers who use maps to draw needed programs and resources into more places where such help is needed.

Thank you to everyone who has read and shared stories from my blogs over the past year.  I wish you all a  happy, healthy and hope filled holiday.

Link between poverty, segregation and education performance

In my Twitter feed today was a post that pointed me to this article, titled: An analysis of achievement gaps in every school in America shows that poverty is the biggest hurdle.  The article draws upon data that is available in this Stanford Opportunity Explorer map.

Below I'm showing three map views that I created by zooming in on the map.

The blue shades show "students' scores, in grade levels, relative to the national average (grades 3-8, 2009-2016)". This is explained in the table in the lower right corner of the page.  Click on the "more info" link and a panel opens on the left side of the page with a set of questions and answers.

National View of Opportunity Explorer

Then I zoomed in to look at the Chicago area where I've focused on helping volunteer-based, non-school tutor/mentor programs grow since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993.  At this level of detail  you can see individual schools, which are color coded to show how they perform vs the national average.

View of Chicago region - Central/South

Then I zoomed in more to focus on the central part of the city.  For reference, look at this map which we created more than 10 years ago, showing the Illinois 7th Congressional District. You can see how this district stretches from Chicago's lakefront to the far West suburbs and that there are areas of high poverty in the middle and South part of the district (note: this is 2000 census data). 

7th Illinois Congressional District

Now look at the third map that I created using the Opportunity Explorer.  I'm focusing on the same area as the 7th Congressional District. You can see the difference between more affluent areas (green) and greater poverty areas (blue).

This map covers much of the 7th Congressional District

Now look at the map below, showing the 7th Congressional District, which was created using the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, which a team from India built for the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 2008 using money we'd received from an anonymous donor. (This team first introduced themselves to me in 2007 by rebuilding our Organizational History and Tracking System (OHATS) page - on a pro-bono basis!)

7th District view using Program Locator - click here

The Opportunity Explore is a great resource.  However, I wish it had overlays showing Congressional or State legislative districts, so voters could build an understanding of the segregation, poverty and school performance within their district and hold elected leaders accountable for generating the resources and mobilizing the leadership needed to improve the lives of those living in poverty.  

Unfortunately the Tutor/Mentor Connection was not able to attract new funding after 2008 due to the financial crisis, which also affected the volunteers from India who were helping us. In 2011 this led to the strategy being discontinued at the non profit I founded in 1993, which led me to form the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (also 2011) to try to keep this resource updated and available.  

It is available. It's not updated. However if you explore it's features, it's loaded.  For instance, in the upper right I've pointed to an "enlargement" button which expands the map to your full screen. That enables you to look closer at the information on the map, including the green stars, representing non-school tutor and/or mentor programs in the map area.  

Data platforms - click here

The Tutor/Mentor Program Locator is not the only resource people can use. It is one of the few that overlays non-school tutor/mentor programs and is intended to support leaders working to fill neighborhoods with a wide range of k-12 youth programs.

I point to a wide range of data platforms in this concept map. I'll add the Stanford Opportunity Explorer today.  These can be used to understand issues and create map-stories that share your understanding with other people, mobilizing the talent, dollars and votes needed to change conditions shown on the maps.  

View more stories on this blog showing uses of maps, and view stories on the Tutor/Mentor blog, also using maps. Imagine such stories appearing on thousands of web sites and blogs, created by students, volunteers, policy makers, elected leaders, etc.

I'm looking for partners at universities, businesses think tanks and/or other non-profits who will spend time learning what I've been trying to do and then invest and adopt, updating the Program Locator, and rebuilding strategies that I'm no longer able to lead as well as needed, due to lack of support.  

If I can get the attention and investment from just one of the growing number of billionaires in the world, this entire strategy could be relaunched, using their name and influence. Share this article, and perhaps you can help me reach these people. 

This link points to social media platforms where we can connect.

Chronic School Absences - Interactive map

The map at the left is a screen shot of this page, which host an interactive data map that shows chronic school absence rages for areas as small as a single school.

This article provides a great tutorial on how to use this resource.

I zoomed into Chicago and could have created an even closer view of any part of Chicago. However, this resource covers the entire country.

Understand Graduation Rate in Every State

The America's Promise Alliance hosts a map on its web site showing graduation rate data for every US state. Take a look.

Earlier today I posted an ESRI storymap showing places around the world where each of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals needs to be addressed.

With that map, and this map, I said "Great work. Useful data." Then said "We need to look at this information at the block level, or at the zip code level" (not sure how this works in other countries).

The state and national level are too large. Within such boundaries are many places where there is much greater need than what the average shows, and other places doing far better.

The Education Trust Data Tool

Here's another map. This is shows inequality and funding gaps (2018) in school funding from state to state. States shaded green provide greater funding to schools serving high numbers of low income kids. States shaded pink  and red (Illinois) provide less funding to these students than to other schools in the state.  View article here and data tool here.

If you compare the different maps shown on this map you begin to see that areas with high poverty show up as places needing extra help.

Building the public will to provide that help is something the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) and Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC (T/MI) have focused on since 1993.

Chicago United for Equity - CPS equity maps

I attended an event last night titled "65/54 Brown v. Chicago: Race and Access in Education" which was held at the Hull House Museum near UIC in Chicago. The map below was shared by one of the speakers, Niketa Brar, a co-founder and executive director of Chicago United for Equity (CUE). 

Link to interactive map - click here

The event description says "Sixty-four years after Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared that separate was unequal, Chicago’s public schools remain segregated, and access to education continues to be out of reach." Panel members were passionate and full of data to support this claim and urged that anyone who cares, should take an active role.

The map on the CUE web site helps support this. It is one of the few maps I've found that show CPS school boundaries. You can zoom in to enlarge the maps. You can also run your mouse over the map and find data for each school, showing segregation rates, student gains and/or loss over past few years, and school utilization by community members.

Other speakers were Amanda Lewis, Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at UIC and  David Stovall, a Professor of Education Policy Studies and African American Studies at UIC. I met Dave last year and continue to encourage him to put his research on a blog or web site.  The moderator was Cassandra McKay-Jackson, an associate professor, and the new director of the Master of Social Work program at Erikson Institute. 

Last night's session was recorded and once the video is available I will add it as a link to this article. Listening to the speakers is much more effective than me trying to paraphrase what they were saying.

As you look at the CUE map, look at map stories on this blog and on the Tutor/Mentor blog.  I feel that students, parents, volunteers and others could be using map platforms like the CUE site to tell stories, specific to areas as small as a city block or a CPS school neighborhood. Every time something happens that shows the inequity in the city, a story needs to be created. Every time something good happens, stories can be created.

This needs to be happening daily if we're going to get more people involved and build the political power needed to address the deeply implanted root causes of these problems. 

Do you value what I write about and the information I share. Visit this page and use the PayPal to send me a small contribution to help me continue this work. 

Too Many School Districts in Illinois? Look at maps on BGA web site

Map from BGA web site

In January 2018 I posted an article, showing a Better Government Association (BGA) story about police shootings in Cook County, Illinois.

The map at the left is from another story, that focuses on the number of school districts in Illinois. Take a look at the story, and the maps.

Help More CPS Youth Move To&Through College - See the Data

I attended an event in Chicago yesterday hosted by the To&Through Project of the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute. The Project's mission is:

The To&Through Project’s mission is to close the gap between the 76% of CPS freshmen who aspire to attend college and the actual results of only 18% obtaining a 4-year college degree within 10 years, with research, data, and resources designed to give every student who aspires to earn a college degree the opportunity and support to do so.

The Project web site has a data portal that anyone can use to understand how each CPS high school performs, with a multi-year history and with comparisons to other schools, CPS in total, and national results. The site also has reports produced by experts in Chicago and beyond that provide additional ideas that can be used to build a stronger support system for Chicago youth.

This is a rich resource. You'll need to spend time on site to learn what's there.

One of the features of the site is a collection of stories, submitted by anyone in the community, showing how they are using To&Through data to help CPS students through school and through college.

I attended this event in September 2016 and posted this story on the Tutor/Mentor blog.   In that story I encouraged Project leaders to review the ways I'm using maps and showing how others use maps, via articles on this blog. 

Birth to Work Support

I included this graphic in that story, emphasizing the need for support that starts as early as first grade and points to jobs as the result of post high school college and/or vocational school programs, along with an expanded network of mentors who help open doors to those jobs.

In the breakout group that I attended yesterday I asked if any of the data was plotted on GIS maps. The best answer I received was that you could find such maps on CPS web site, and perhaps on other sites, such as that of WBEZ radio. 

data platforms

This blog is full of articles showing uses of maps. The concept map at the left shows many data portals that are models that can be reviewed.

On other concept maps, like the one below, I show how maps should be used in planning and community building efforts that focus on specific neighborhoods, such as the area surrounding each CPS school. 

Use maps in planning

I'd like to see stories on the To&Through site that show how people in different map-areas are using some of the ideas I'm sharing and are coming together to help students be more successful in moving through school and into jobs and careers.

One goal expressed by the To&Through Project director at this year's event was data that show income and earnings of CPS alumni, as a result of having obtained a college degree. That would align with my own goals and perhaps build greater support for the broader system of supports needed by youth in many school neighborhoods.

Last year's article did not result in an invitation to connect and share ideas with any of the organizations working toward the To&Through Project goals. Hopefully, this year's article will lead to some conversations.

CPS School Librarians - cut from the budget

This map shows Chicago public schools with librarians and those without.  It's from this article which was written by Anne Li and posted in the South Side Weekly.

I've been using maps for many years to show areas where kids need extra help, such as non-school tutor and mentor programs, due to living in areas of high poverty.  This is just one more example of how kids in affluent areas get greater support and learning opportunities than kids in high poverty, highly segregated areas.

Browse through other articles on this MappingforJustice blog site and see more maps telling this story.

Create your own map story and or blog article and help draw attention to this problem.

Impact of schools closing in Chicago

These maps were included in a 2013 blog article talking about a wave of school closings in Chicago.

Now The Chicago Reporter web site has an article, along with an interactive map, updating us on the continuing negative impact of these closures.

Use these and other maps that you find on this blog to build an understanding of these neighborhoods and ways to help build and sustain a wide range of non-school tutor, mentor, learning and jobs programs in every high poverty neighborhood of the city.

The nation's most chronically absent students

This set of maps shows that half of the students who are chronically absent from school are concentrated in just 4% of school districts.  

Click on the tab for "High Minority High Poverty Urban School Districts" and  you'll see that Chicago is included.

In past articles I've emphasized how big cities have unique challenges and opportunities and we should be connecting in on-line forums, blogs, Twitter chats, etc. to share ideas and innovate ways to generate the public will and flow of resources needed.

EDBuild map focuses on school funding inequities

I learned about this mapping platform via my Twitter feed.

28 state supreme courts have mandated overhauls to #edfinance systems. See why here:https://t.co/h954JsqpCt #ewa16 pic.twitter.com/jNhWYLm4Bb

— EdBuild (@EdBuild) May 4, 2016

I am on Twitter @tutormentorteam and invite you to connect with me to share resources like this and encourage more people to use them.

Interactive map shows ACT scores and poverty

Thanks to my friends at GenerationAll for sharing this image on Twitter, showing a Chicago view taken from the EdMap  interactive site.  The color circles on the map represent high schools with 150 or more students, and show the average ACT score for each school. The higher scores are in shades of green and the lower scores are in shades of red.

These are overlaid over a map showing demographics. The lighter shades of blue represent areas of higher concentrations of poverty.  If you zoom in closer you can clearly see a correlation between low ACT scores and high poverty.

This is the message I've been providing with map stories for nearly 20 years. Below is a map made using the interactive Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator, showing the Woodlawn area of Chicago, and showing public schools that were on the 2008 Illinois schools low performance list.  

The green stars on my map are locations of non-school tutor/mentor programs in the area. On this map there are none within the Woodlawn area, which either means I do not have them in the database, or they do not exist.  

You can also add layers of information showing poverty levels, and layers showing assets, such as faith groups, colleges, hospitals and businesses.  A map view centered around a specific school could show political leaders and assets who should be working together to improve in school and out-of-school time learning opportunities for youth in that map view area. 

Youth in local schools could be creating these map stories.

Below is a presentation showing how other people can create their own map images, and then use them in blogs and newsletters and on social media to draw attention to a problem and to draw people together to try to reduce the problem.

How to Use Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator to Make Your own Maps by Daniel F. Bassill

While this uses the Program Locator as an example, any interactive map that enables you to zoom into a zip code, or a single school location, can be a platform used to create a jpg image following the same steps.  

The Program Locator was built in 2008 using what was then advanced technology, What's available for making maps in 2016 is much more sophisticated, but I don't have the dollars or talent to rebuild my platform, or to keep the data up-to-date.

Thus, I'm sharing examples of how people could create map-stories using any platform, and  using my stories as an example, while I'm also looking for partners in business, universities, and/or philanthropy, in Chicago, or any other city, to help upgrade my own mapping resources.

See more articles with ideas for using maps. click here

If you'd like to explore this just email me at tutormentor 2 at earthlink dot net.

Map of high schools in Chicago - Crain's web site

Crain's  has been running a series of articles under the headline of "Five Big Ideas for Chicago's Troubled Schools". Day four article includes an interactive map showing location of different types of high schools, overlaid on poverty demographics. Click on each dot on the map to see the identity of the school, graduation rate, ACT school and number of students enrolled.

Browse the map stories I've posted since 2008 and see how I've been trying to develop an interactive mapping platform that supports leadership planning and volunteer involvement.  I keep looking for partners and volunteers to help me keep my sites working, and to  upgrade them and teach more people to use them.

Poverty Rates per US School District - maped

This Washington Post article introduces a new interactive mapping platform shows Census Bureau poverty rates in each of the nation’s nearly 14,000 school districts nationwide. It was created by a new organization, called EdBuild.org

I hope to see stories from anti-poverty and inequality activists using these maps to draw support to new strategies that improve the learning paths for kids in these areas.

US Schools Highly Segregated

This Metro Trends Blog article shows that "Despite our country’s growing diversity, our public schools provide little contact between white students and students of color. Metro Trends has mapped data about the racial composition of US public schools to shed light on today’s patterns at the county level. These maps show that America’s public schools are highly segregated by race and income, with the declining share of white students typically concentrated in schools with other white students and the growing share of Latino students concentrated into low-income public schools with other students of color." Read the article.

How is the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator Supposed to Work?

If you've visited the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator recently you'll see that some features, such as the boundary overlays, the zip code overlay, and the political district overlays, do not work. We're also having trouble adding new program information. This is all a result of Google changing how sites like mine interface with their map, and the fact that I don't have any money, or tech talent, to fix the problem.

If you want to know how this should work, visit the Chicago Public Schools "School Locator" page. It may take you a while to figure out how this works, but on the left side is a label that says "political overlays". Click on any of these and you'll see political district outlines on the map.

Now on the Tutor/Mentor Program locator, you'd be able to use a drop down menu to zoom into a specific district or geographic areas. I don't see this on the CPS locator, but I really like the way the technology works.

Of course, having a great map-directory is only useful if many people are using the maps to tell stories that draw needed resources into school neighborhoods so families and schools have more help encouraging youth to become active learners who take a greater responsibility for their own learning, and their own futures.

If you are creating map stories using this information please post a link to this article so others can learn from how you are using the maps.

Gang Territories and School Closing - View map

DNAInfo Chicago has created an interactive map showing gang territories around schools that Chicago Public Schools plans to close. Maps like this could be use by business, faith groups, political leaders, etc. to build non-school supports for youth and families in these neighborhoods so kids would a) come to school better prepared to learn; b) and be less likely to turn to gangs as a source of social/emotional and economic support. See the DNA Infor map here.

Public and Private Schools in Chicago. Create Your Own Map

Great Schools offers this widget for making maps showing private schools in a city. I've mapped Chicago. If you're someone writing about public education I'd like to connect so we expand the conversation to include private schools as well as public. Maps like this can help.

Chicago schools

Illinois schools

I want this widget for my site

This map does not include poverty overlays, or show which schools are under performing, but I'm sure others may be developing map-tools to do this. The Interactive Map that the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC hosts includes these features and points to the location of non-school tutoring and/or mentoring programs. However, our map has not been updated in three years and without the resources to do this we can't expand it's impact.

Building Partnership with other cities

This map shows high schools with high drop out rates in Sacramento, CA. It comes from this web site.

We've been creating maps of poverty and poorly performing schools in Chicago since 1993 as part of a 4-part strategy aimed at helping volunteer-based, mentor-rich, non-school youth programs grow in high poverty neighborhoods. This Tutor/Mentor Connection web site was built by the technology department of IUPUI in Indianapolis, as part of an effort to help the T/MC strategy grow in that city.

As we look to the next five years we've created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to support the growth of the T/MC and our mapping project in Chicago. However, our goal is to build partnerships with non-profits, businesses and universities in other cities, that enable us to share our ideas and technology as part of organizations led by leaders in these cities. Such partnerships provide local ownership and funding to support local actions, but provide revenue and fees to the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to support what we do in Chicago and the way we manage this web library and share it at no-cost to others around the world.

If you can help develop this strategy please review the planning wiki and contact Dan Bassill via Linked in, Twitter, Facebook, or Skype.

Where Each Chicago Mayor Candidate Stands on Education and Mentoring

"Government can’t do everything you want it to do. ... That’s why you have partnerships with non-for-profits and profit organizations." – Mayor Richard M. Daley, 2/9/2011

Chicago’s voters will choose a new mayor for the first time in over 20 years this coming week. I found surveys online that puts each candidate’s ideas about education in their own words.

If you live here, you probably don't need my maps to tell you that Chicago is dealing with a crisis of poor school/student performance. In fact, I can't personally remember the last time I saw a news story that framed Chicago's public schools in a light that didn't include failing, closing, mismanagement or crime.

Against this backdrop, I have written a lot of articles for Mapping For Justice that supplement the ongoing negative news with stories of hope, showing cases where tutor/mentor programs are helping some of these communities, and advocating for leadership to build tutor/mentor support in areas where our kids need as much help as possible.

I have also come to believe, based on my research, that poorly-prepared students become poorly-prepared adults and eventually becomes a taxpayer burden for everyone. For this reason, I feel this is an issue voters should not ignore when choosing Chicago's next leader.

Recently, Cabrini Connections program leader Dan Bassill wrote, "I wish voters in Chicago were holding the Mayor and other elected officials accountable for what they do to improve student learning ... voters and leaders need to do their own homework to know more about the poverty gap, and why it is a critical issue that affects all of us, not just the poor."

So with that said, my intention today is NOT to endorse a particular candidate. Instead it is to share the links to the education surveys I just read, so you too can take a look at each candidate's proposed plan - in their own words. So we can do our homework.

I've listed the candidates in alphabetical order, and highlighted moments in the surveys that I feel might relate on some level to tutoring/mentoring (the theme to my maps). Oh and of course, I've added a few maps. Click on these to see how maps make elected leaders more effective!

Carol Moselely Braun

* Read her full survey here.
* Read a recent MFJ article that features Braun here.

Braun reminds us of her support as Senator for "Midnight Basketball programs, which brought local youth together with local police officers." This is as close as she gets to discussing tutoring/mentoring programs.

Much of her plan focuses on what she believes needs to happen in the schools. For instance, she calls for an expanded curriculum that includes courses students find attractive, to can keep them from dropping out. She also wants to add vocational training to the curriculum, to "provide students with the skills to be more competitive in the workforce and less likely to join gangs."

It makes sense that the majority of a candidate's policy would be focused on the schools. After all that's where the students get the bulk of their academic and social training. However, I wonder if these candidates have looked into using non-school mentoring programs that could give a boost to their efforts to keep students in school, on a path toward the workforce, and away from gangs.

Braun does suggest that her administration "will coordinate social services to meet such needs that transcend teachers' ability to resolve, such as homelessness, hunger, poverty and traumatic home environments," so maybe the connection will eventually happen.

=========

Gery Chico

* Read his full survey here.
* Read a recent MFJ article that features Chico here.

Chico regrets that the afterschool programs he accomplished as President of the Board of Education "have been scaled back and in some cases, eliminated." These programs "gave nearly 200,000 CPS students alternative and constructive things to do."

Indeed, the city budget is a mess, so I hope when he suggests that "by partnering with community organizations ... we can leverage resources to reduce costs," he's aware that there is an existing network of tutor/mentor programs Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) has in their directory that are also currently giving CPS students "constructive things to do."

=========

Miguel Del Valle

* Read his full survey here.

A former CPS student, with a community organizing background, Del Valle says, "I am inspired by efforts where neighbors, churches, and other partners work together to ensure the safety of our children. I will encourage and support all such programs in conjunction with parents and neighbors [and] non-profit organizations..."

Del Valle has strong ideas about how to "provide youth with [at-school] opportunities to engage in positive activities and contribute to community life through after school programming." In fact, he seems to provide the most detail in his survey, regarding specific education policy goals, proposed programs, and developed ideas about where the money will come from (taxes, TIF funds, and private sector alliances included).

He also seems, looking at the surveys, to have the best-developed plans for what to do with kids in non-school situations, proposing "an expanded program called 'Community Learning Centers' to create extended day learning opportunities that may include technology clubs, the arts, sports, tutoring, and specialized programs for students. This would be done by creating partnerships among the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and schools."

Del Valle echoes the hopes of the tutor/mentor community when he states that, "it is imperative to promote and help bring to scale programs that intervene and bring corrective action to get youth back on a productive path rather than simply emphasizing punitive measures that lead down a path to nowhere."

=========

Rahm Emanuel

* Read his full survey here.

Much of Emanuel's platform seems to focus on programs that will happen at the school. He "calls for comprehensive after-school programs ... integrating child intervention programs across departments." He calls this win-win for the students, citing after-school programs' abilities to "both increase academic progress and reduce violence. He seeks funding through "school partnerships with local businesses and non-profit organizations that want to target specific schools."

Perhaps he too is aware of the existing network of non-profit tutor/mentor programs available to partner with the city and support student development when the students are away from school. T/MC can even map which resources are available near the "specific schools" he wants to target.

After all, Emanuel does want to "incent community based organizations, citywide non-profits, universities, commercial companies and other civic institutions to bring their people and programs to bear to support particular struggling schools by providing mentors, tutors, job training, access to college courses, and in classroom support to schools that need it most."

=========

William Doc Walls

* Read his full survey here.

On a personal note (as map geek), I'm fascinated by Walls' interest in "increasing the use of Crime mapping and data analysis" to help combat crime in high poverty neighborhoods.

But staying on topic, and looking for indications that Walls intends to incorporate tutoring/mentoring into his plans to support for at-risk students, Walls does say that he "will provide tutoring, social skill development and increased recreational activities in an effort to achieve normal educational accomplishments in chronically low-performing schools."

He does not go into great detail about how this will happen, yet I am hopeful he supports existing programs in his community - he does offer some genuine opinions and somewhat creative/alternative solutions to problems his community faces.

=========

Virginia Van Pelt Watkins

* Read her full survey here

An alumnus of Fenger High School with an intimate understanding of the challenges and hazards at-risk students like Fenger's Derrion Albert face, Watkins outlines her ideas for school leadership, curriculum, quality schools, and teacher mentoring.

Particular to student tutoring/mentoring, she wants to "champion for early child education" and promises to "remove barriers families experience in accessing existing early childhood education programs and services."

She also touches briefly on "peer-to-peer mentoring programs that are developed with and supported by youth" but does not mention partnerships with existing adult-student tutor/mentor programs specifically.

Remember! Polls open at 6am this Tuesday, February 22!

Find your polling place and other information about the election here.

And let's make sure whoever wins keeps their promises, and explores all resources available to improve the health of our schools and the prospects for our students.