kyle lierman: allright, everybody. welcome to the white house. how's it going? good. all right. we're excited to have youhere today for our summer opportunity workshop inchampions of change event. my name's kyle lierman. i'm an associate directorin the office of public
engagement, handling ouroutreach to young americans. i just want to tell you howexcited i am to have you all here today. before we get started, ijust want to do a couple of special thanks. one to our partners acrossthe administration, the department of education,department of labor, hhs, cncs, and so many others whohave made today possible. let's give them around of applause.
(applause) and then i also just reallywant to thank the national summer learning association,who has been our partner day in and day out over the lastseveral months putting this event together, and is goingto be our partner moving forward. so, let's give them around of applause as well. so with that, to kick thingsoff i'm going to turn it over to someone who hasreally been an advocate for
young people inthis building, and across theadministration, and around the country. and on this specific projectshe has really made the work that we are doingpossible, my boss, senior advisor to thepresident, valerie jarrett. valerie jarrett: thank you. thank you, kyle, andgood morning, everyone. multiple speakers:good morning.
valerie jarrett: we are justdelighted to have you here, as we celebrate ourchampions of change for opportunity for the summer,and i want to tell you at the outset that championsof change are our favorite events here atthe white house, because we have theopportunity to recognize ordinary people who are justdoing extraordinary things, changing our worldeach and every day. so, i want to begin byasking our nine
champions of change to stand. they're from eight statesaround the country and let us recognize you. up you go. thank you. thank you for yourextraordinary service, and i also want to give ashout out to the rest of you who are here in the audienceor watching at home, because obviously championsdon't create themselves
without an enormousamount of support. so, thank you for all ofyou who have come here to support our champs, becausewithout you they couldn't do what they're doing. i think everyone rememberstheir first job. i certainly remember mine. i was a clinic coordinatorat the university of chicago medical centerwhen i was 16, and my job was to checkpeople in when they came to
the doctor, and make surethat all of their tests were complete, and thencheck them out. and at first, i didn't thinkit was a terribly important job, but then i began toappreciate how important everybody's role was inthe health care delivery, working effectively andsafely for our patients. and i still remember when ireceived my first pay check. i think i should have framedit and saved it forever, but i probably spentit that first weekend.
and it made me feela sense of value. and fast forwardabout 30 years later, i became the chairman of theboard of the university of chicago medical center. and i think it helped meenormously share the board to have been aclinic coordinator, and really seen how theorganization worked from the ground up. and those earlyopportunities too many of
our young peopledo not have. and it can be the differencebetween a life towards prison, or a life towardsthe corner office. and everybody here isworking to make sure that the track is as if everyyoung child has an opportunity toachieve their dreams. i often say thattalent is ubiquitous. opportunity is not, and it'sour job to make sure we level their playing field,and make sure that every
young person regardless ofthe zip code in which they live has that opportunityto achieve their dreams. and i often told a story ofursula burns who started out as a summer intern at xerox,and now here she is the ceo of xerox. and so, we just want to makesure every young child has that opportunity, and whoknows what they're going to want to do in life, but thatjob gives them a sense of self worth.
it teaches themimportant skills. it will stay with themthroughout their lives and it can dramaticallychange their lives. and so, that's what ourchampions have dedicated themselves to doing, andthey have worked their magic each and every day in theircommunities around our country and thoseeight states. and we want to hold them upas role models that everyone else should emulate.
the president often talksabout how this is his home stretch, his lastyear in office, but that after that theoffice he holds is one of citizen, and that'sone we all hold. and part of being acitizen is accepting our responsibilityto our society, and to make it good. and just because we have ajob doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility toensure everyone does.
and that beginswith your first job. it begins with a summer job. so, i want to close as iopen by saying thank you to the champs. you are our heroes. we are delighted to have youhear in the white house. it was a pleasure for me tohave a chance to meet each and every one of you, andi've done a lot of reading about the magicthat you've worked.
and we really, reallyappreciate it. and we thank everyone whowas here to show their support. so, enjoy the day. i would mention that wehave acting secretary of education, johnking, who is here. we have megan smith, ourchief technology officer. we're going to have aterrific panel discussion. part of what my office does,what my office does is public engagement, and sowe really want to have a
conversation at the sametime as we honor these terrific heroes. so, thank you verymuch, everybody. john king: goodmorning, everybody. john king: it is good tobe here with all of you, proud to be here tocelebrate our summer opportunitychampions of change. as valerie talked about, thepresident has been committed from the outset to investingin summer opportunity for
our young people fromthe earliest days of the stimulus package wewere focused on making investments that wouldsupport opportunity for jobs and summer programs. we've had a greatpartnership with the agriculture department,focus on addressing food and security that so many of ouryoung people face in the summer, our young people whorely on school as a place where they get their meals,and then don't have that
access in the summer. and we've been workingtogether with usda to ensure that more of our youngpeople have access to food in the summer. great work that has happenedthrough americorps and the expansion of theamericorps program. there are many organizationsin the room that benefit from americorps members, andthose americorps members are helping to provide qualitysummer programming for our
young people. we all know -- we allunderstand how important summer is tostudents' success. as a teacher and as aprincipal i saw firsthand what happens whenstudents don't have good, productive thingsto do in the summer. we know that it's a timethat can contribute to summer learning loss andis a major factor in the achievement gap forlow income students.
we also know summer is oftena time where students are less safe, and whereviolence in the community becomes a part of theirdaily life that maybe would be less so if they were ina quality summer program during the day. it's also the time whenstudents who are our adolescents willget off track, because they don't have thatmentorship that they might have in a qualityschool setting,
or educational programsetting, or job setting. on the other hand, wealso see great evidence, researched based -- a greatresearch base that students who do have high qualitysummer opportunities actually do betteracademically, are more likelyto stay in school, more likely to graduate,more likely to get good jobs. there is a long term benefitto the investment in summer opportunities.
the president has proposedin the 2017 budget a very significant investment insummer opportunities and first jobs. the president's proposed$5.5 billion in a partnership between thedepartment of education and the department of laborfocused on summer programming, summer jobs,and also our disconnected youth, our young people whohave dropped out of school, who have gotten disconnectedfrom school and work.
and we have an opportunityworking with congress, we hope, to make thissignificant investment. we can't afford as a countryto leave any of our kids out of the path to opportunity,and summer opportunities again, summer programmingand summer jobs can be a part of the answerfor our young people. we also pride -- everyone inthis room also understands that summer jobs often helpput you on the path for professionalsuccess long term.
i became a teacher andprincipal in no small part because the experiencesi had as a summer camp counselor. one of my most significant,most important summer jobs was while i was in collegerunning a summer day camp for students in a publichousing development in boston, where we actuallylived in the community for the summer, a group ofcollege students and ran a summer camp for students.
and i saw firsthand thedifference that experience made for my students, andfell in love with teaching, and the experience ofhelping young people find their path. so, we know summer jobs canbe life changing and life transformative. looking forward today tohaving some of our champions of change come up fora panel discussion, where we can delve deeperinto the great models that
they are involved in. we had 700 nominationsfor champions of change, and we selected ninefolks who are here today. five of whom are going tojoin us for this panel, and i think you willhear from them powerful, powerful examples. so, i want tointroduce our panelist. first we havelaura huerta migus, the executive directorof the association of
children's museums inarlington, virginia. the association-- come on up. the association is theworld's largest professional society promoting andadvocating on behalf of children's museums and children's museums professionals. next, i want to inviteup lauren reilly, who is the program directorof practice makes perfect in new york city.
as program director, laurenhas created a scalable programmatic framework tohelp take our nation -- help tackle our nation'ssummer school crisis. next, i want to invite upvictor francisco lopez, founder -- victor is thefounder of learners chess in albuquerque, new mexico. learners chess uses the gameas a medium through which to coach and mentor students. over 5,300 students haveparticipated in learners
summer chess camps and afterschool chess programs. next, i want toinvite up riya rahman. riya is a senior inpolitical science at baylor university in texas, andhas increased child hunger awareness and advocacyamong college students, alongside with the texashunger initiative and share our strength's nohungry kid campaign. she has also worked as anamericorps vista summer associate, where shepromoted
the summer meals program. next, i want to askalec lee to come up. alec is the co-founder andexecutive director of aim high in san francisco. aim high is an educationalnonprofit serving middle school youth in the bayarea from under-resourced communities. for the last 30 years aimhigh has engaged students in a multi-year free summerlearning program that blends
academics enrichmentin college and career preparedness. so, now that everyone'son the stage, let's jump intothe discussion, and let me ask each of youto describe for us what is it -- maybe we'llstart with you, lauren. what is it that inspired youto get involved in issues of summer learning andsummer programming? lauren reilly: definitely.
i grew up in san francisco,and i was blessed with opportunities that a lotof students didn't have. my parents were professorsand i got to have books over the summer. i got to go to camps, andi became a teacher in the bronx in harlem, and irecognized that my ninth and twelfth graders didn'thave those opportunities. and i saw everysingle summer, the work we did all schoolyear kind of fell flat over
the summer, right, and thatthey didn't have those opportunities. and so, joined practicemakes perfect, and realized thatthere was a solution, that summer didn't haveto be a time of loss. and so, what wedo is basically, we are summerschool providers. so, we know the principalsdon't really have those opportunities to builda summer program,
because they don't havethe bandwidth to do it. and so we come in and weonly focus on summer. and we're using a near peermentorship model to make it work. riya rahman: so, i reallyhad no idea that child hunger was an issuein the united states, until the summer after mysophomore year of college. i went on a mission tripwith baylor university and the texas hunger initiativeon a complete whim,
and we learned about childhunger and what, you know, people are doing aboutit at a federal level, at a state level,at a local level. and i just remember comingback that summer to dallas, which is where i'm from, andi was sitting in my bed. and i just thought, "i amsitting here right now, but what could i be doing? what did i do that reallyinspired me in d.c., and why can't i be doing ithere in my own home,
in my own community. so, i reached out to thetexas hunger initiatives, dallas office, and they wereso kind enough to offer me my first summer internship. and once i got involved withthe summer meals program and saw the kids i was helpingin my own community, i was hooked. and that's whereit all started. john king: great, thank you.
victor. victor lopez:yeah, so for me, i provide summeropportunities for kids to learn chess, and chess was agame that i learned when i was in sixth grade. and it immediately resultedin me getting better grades in school, and being moreengaged with my school work, and feeling more confidentabout how smart of a person i was.
and so, my mom helped mestart an after school chess program the following year,and i was the chess coach from the seventh gradethrough twelfth grade. and kind of after college iwas community organizing and substitute teaching, and ineeded a summer job myself. and so, i started a summerchess camp for kids, and then that's where kindof things really clicked for me, and i realized thati was really making a difference in alot of kids' lives,
because chessreally does like, meet a niche that isn'tfilled by sports, or by art, or things like that, thataren't quite engaging for kids. chess is a perfectinterdisciplinary opportunity forthem to learn, and so i've been getting alot of feedback from parents that chess reallychanged their lives. and that's how i gotmy programs started. laura migus: well, i'm herebecause i'm inspired by the
community that i represent,the children's museums around the world, and reallywas involved with them because i had such a richexperience with informal learning organizationsin my life. you know, we really believethat learning happens all life long, and all day long,and summer was just such a rich time for me growing upof not only museum visits but also library visits. and as we look at ournetwork of organizations,
we know that -- i'm suremany of you in the audience are thinking about themuseums you're going to go to this summer, and it's ourtime of highest visitation. and i think that tells ussomething about the need and the role that museums andchildren's museums in particular can play. and i'm just constantlyinspired by the amount of outreach. it's not just aboutgoing to the museum,
but the amount of work thatour organizations do in their community to takeplay, and learning, and their expertise, andout to their community, partnering with wonderfulprograms, summer programs, partnering with schools,partnering with community based organizations,and churches, to really provide a rich andstable network of experience for children. and especiallyduring the summer,
and especially for ouryoungest students. that's reallywhere our heart is, that we're building thatfoundation from age zero, and we're justreally, you know, i'm really proud to be ableto represent the wonderful work that our network doesacross the country and around the world. john king: thank you. laura migus: thank you.
alec lee: well, i also hadrich and joyful summer learning opportunitiesas a youth. i went to camp miniwancain stony lake, michigan, and it was fantastic, butafter graduating from college, i spent foursummers working at horizons-upward boundin detroit, michigan. and that's where i reallysaw just how powerful a multi-year, collegereadiness summer opportunity can be, and most of you knowupward bound
is for high school students. so, i moved tosan francisco, and a friend and teachingcolleague and i came up with the idea for aim high. and we love the name. and we love the model. and we decided to focus onmiddle school students, and make a multi-yearcommitment to kids, four years, grades sixthrough nine during the
summer, and really try tointersect academic rigor, but alsoopportunity and joy. that's really whatsummer is about. so, we're celebrating our30th anniversary this summer with 17 programsacross the bay area. we couldn't be more proudto represent our kids, and families, andteachers here today. john king: thank you all. let me ask you to sharemaybe what you see as some
of the ways that you'veeffectively partnered across sectors. so, how have youengaged government? how have you engagedphilanthropy in the work that you're doing? laura reilly: ican kick it off. we are really bigon summer jobs, and i think this issomething where we're not leveraging the communitieswe're working with as a society.
there are kind of successstories in every pocket of america, and if we can bringthose into summer we're seeing success, and what pmphas done really well with summer jobs is finding thosehigh achieving mentors who are only four years olderthan our kids that are in our program. if we're in akindergarten class, the kids i'm hiring arefourth grade success stories from the same neighborhood.
if i'm in a seventhgrade class, my high achieving mentorsare in eleventh grade, but they go to the samebodega after school to grab a snack, and so by showingthat we can connect really great success stories, andshow our scholars what success looks like. they are already seeingthat path to success. they can't always look totheir teacher as a role model, because we'retoo big in age, right?
if i was teaching seventhgrade, i'm too old. they're not goingto see my path, but they are going to seethe eighth grader who is getting a's on their exams,and we're giving them jobs over the summer, so they cancontinue to push themselves, and really be college ready. and our scholars are nowseeing what college ready looks like. riya rahman: so, i'm solucky to get to work at the
texas hunger initiative,and we're a statewide organization, but we have 12regional offices throughout the state. and they really try tostrive for public and private partnerships,and really utilizing the community members in makingsure that there is local autonomy and working withthe people in the community to better the peoplein the community, while working ona statewide level.
and just advocatingfor them, and being a voice for them. and we work with everyone. so, in dallas we workwith the united way. we've worked with multipleother organizations for every summer mealopportunity that we had, and it was a really greatexperience to see people coming together to justreally love the people that they live with, theirneighbors, their classmates,
and everything like that. and so, being a student itwas great to see that in my own community, and get toshare and part with that. victor lopez: yeah, so forour program a lot of the challenge is gettingthe word out, and kind of making chess acool thing for kids to try in the summer program. so, partneringwith businesses, just to put our flyersin their, you know,
in their place of business,in their storefront really helps out, but we alsowork with a nonprofit. actually, it's united way,and they have a program called mission graduate,where they're trying to graduate 20,000 new, likenew graduates by the year 2020. and part of that is alaunched and learned program which encourages kids to getout and take advantage of summer opportunities. and so, they have like, asummer learning passport
that you can get stampsfor going to chess camp, or going to the library,or doing some like, even do it yourself type oflearning opportunities at home. and they also have like, alist of places where you can go get like, yourimmunizations, and things like that. so, a lot of things thatparents need to do over the summer, they canget those stamped, and then at the end of thesummer they have a big party.
and a lot of localbusinesses contribute for prizes and things like that. and so, i think that'sone strategy like, beyond my program that isreally good for keeping kids engaged throughoutthe summer. laura migus: in ourcommunity we see these relationships at anumber of levels, at the community level,which i would say at the museums level, wherethey're leveraging local
relationships, particularlyto create opportunity. nearly 100 percent of ourchildren's museums have dedicated relationshipsaround access. we know accessis such an issue. so, working with their titlei schools to provide free or reduced membershipall year round, or access free -- excuseme, access to summer camp programs, et cetera. we also see some of theserelationships at the
regional level, and at thenational level one of the programs that we areleveraging because of this wonderful commitment thatchildren's museums have to access and to equity isin partnership with the institute of museumand library services, our federal agency for themuseums for all initiative that provides free to $3admission for anybody who shows an ebt card. so, this is particularlyserving folks that are
receiving food assistanceand other benefits. so, we're really looking toleverage existing channels and programs, to provideaccess to i think an experience and opportunitythat we think is very rich, that folks may notbe looking for. we really believe in theecology of services and that we are a criticalnote in that. and we need tomake folks aware, and give them access tothings maybe they aren't
aware they canget access to. alec lee: our closestpartners are schools, and principals, districts. fifteen, 20 years ago assome of you may know, the california statebudget was just crushed, and summer wasessentially eliminated. it's slowly coming back,actually thanks to the work of national summerlearning association, but we fill a nicheserving about 2,000 kids,
and we're only effectiveif we're adding value to schools, and helpingincreases proficiency. but also i thinkprincipals, and counselors, and teachers look to usbecause we're creating problem solvers, andcritical thinkers, and lifelong learners likemy colleagues up here. i was struck by yourquestion though about partnering withphilanthropy. i imagine we all -- that's achallenge
and opportunity, right? but the whole field ofsummer learning and the impact of summer learningas a critical lever in addressing both theachievement gap and opportunity gap, i mean,that has started to resonate with city governments,and with foundations. and so, we've had somesuccess obviously raising the fundingrequired to grow, and i hope that's true forthe other organizations up
here too, butcertainly a challenge. john king: thanks. so, we've got some localelected officials in the room, folks who are leadersin their local communities. if a local community wantedto make sure that every child from k through 12 wasin a high quality program, or in a great job, what aresome of the obstacles that you think -- or challengesthat they'll need to overcome, and then yourthoughts on how they might
overcome those? and anyone can answer. we don't have to godown the line, but -- laura migus: i'd like -- john king: yeah, please. laura migus: i thinkspecifically from the place that we're sitting and thefamilies that we know we hear from, it's -- there'sboth too much information and not enoughat the same time.
so, there was an afterschoolalliance survey that was done about afterschoolopportunities, and particularly looking atlow income and underserved parents who had a highawareness of the need and importance of high qualityafterschool and summer opportunity programs fortheir children and their success, and a very lowawareness of how to get to those programs. so, i think in terms of howwe overcome those barriers,
again, something that we'rereally working on leveraging is not reinventingcommunication wheels, but identifying an openingup those channels and those programs, especially thosethat are run from at the governmental level, whetherthey be city, state, regional, national. and opening those up toyour community partners to provide access, so thatwe're not working on creating new access pointsfor folks that are already
very overwhelmed. lauren reilly: i think theother piece is allocating money in city budgets,in state budgets, as well as at eventhe school level. right now, i know in newyork city the budget for summer educationis very small, and i think a little bit isbecause we've failed, right? summer school in the pasthas a 60 percent attendance rate.
you're not seeingthe outcomes, so why would youallocate money there, but if we hold our summerpartners accountable for real results, right, wherestudents are showing up, where they are not justeliminating that summer learning loss, but they'realso making gains. that's the program thati can put money behind, and so i think we've kindof combated that i little. i practice makes perfectby being a fee for service
model, and not relyingstrictly on philanthropy, because this isn't a problemthat's going to be solved philanthropically, right? year after year kids aregoing to continue to lose, and we need to put moneybehind it where programs that are actuallydriving results. and that's kind of whatpmp's been doing and we're looking to expandbecause we have the program and we have the results.
victor lopez: for us, we'realso a fee for service program, but we have a needbased scholarship program. and so like, with kids whoare in our after school programs, we really wantthem to come to summer camp, and build on what they'velearned during the school year. and in our low incomeprograms that we run at no cost, it's hard to convincethe parents of kids who are in that program to cometo the summer camp,
because they don'thave transportation. so, i think onething that, you know, local governments and schooldistricts could do is think about how they can allocatetheir resources to keep the buses goingthroughout the summer, to take kids to summercamp, or to the museums, or things like that, becausei think transportation with parents who work two jobs,or maybe don't even have transportation is somethingthat's very critical.
john king: go ahead. alec lee: i think there area couple of challenges. i really appreciate whatyou said about funding and allocation. i also think creatingflexibility in terms of funding, so that districtsand cities can use that funding for summer. i think at least in thebay area in california, principals and districtsfeel compelled to use every
dollar during theacademic year, and by the way i get that. but flexibility, i thinkanother piece is quality, and what doesquality look like? and fortunately, there aregreat tools, and models, and again, the nationalsummer learning association has developed and become --really raised the bar in terms of quality. so again, kind of here'swhat quality looks like.
there's great models andtools for looking at that. so, those are a couple ofchallenges, and again, challenge is alwaysopportunities. and as you said in yourintroductory remarks, summer is just socritical in so many ways. so, let's make it happen. male speaker: letme build, alec, maybe on that quality point. i'd be curiousfor each of you,
what would you say ifyou were speaking of philanthropy representingin the room, and you know, lots of folks are comingand asking for resources, how would youevaluate quality? what are the things thatdrive you when you think about what a great summerexperience is going to look like for a young person? riya rahman: soabout quality, after my firstsummer in dallas,
i really saw the summerfood service program. i saw the numberof sites in dallas. i saw the number of sponsorsand all i could think was, "you know, there are somereally great sponsors doing really exceptional work, buthow can we highlight them and encourage other sponsorsto incorporate best practices? how can we make them betterand make sure that all of these kids are getting thebest meals that they need? and so, this summer atthe dallas office at thi,
we actually piloteda program called the excellence in summermeals campaign. and i was really honoredto get to do evaluations. and it was anobjective evaluation. and sponsors wereable to opt in. so, it's their ownaccountability that they're choosing to decide to --i want to be evaluated. i want to know whati can do better. i want to know whatmore i could do,
but then recognizing themfor doing really great work. in the process we encourageother sponsors to join in that, and so there isquality in highlighting quality, and making surethat other people want to, you know, come upto part of that, and recognizingthe people that do. i think that's reallyessential to the process. lauren reilly: i think a lotof quality ends up being about making sure thatsummer learning is fun,
and summer is cool, and it'sokay to want to do a math class. and make an inquiry base,and develop this love of learning. and it's not, "let me toughout the math class in the morning for summer school,so i can do the arts and crafts, and the sports,in the afternoon. there's a way to do a mathclass where it's going to be fun, and it's goingto be innovative. and it's teaching our summerteachers how to flip summer
school stigma onits head, and right, how do we make it areally cool class? and a little of that isbringing dynamic teachers into the classroom. how are we training ourteachers for summer education to make surekids are developing that intrinsic motivationfor learning? and i think when we'retalking about a quality program, it means kidsare showing up, right?
attendance is high. yes, you're going to haveto do the testing piece, so we can prove we'reeliminating that loss. let's make sure that kidsare consistently being even a small exit ticket, justfiguring out is what you're doing day after day working,and making sure that we are driving student outcomes. john king: alec. alec lee: i love what yousaid and completely agree.
summer is an opportunityto be different. our program team, i mean,i think they wake up every morning saying, "howcan we be different?" and that doesn'tmean not rigorous, and not challenging, andnot linked to standards, but we make sure that everykid after three or four years at aim high theyhave built a terrarium. they've done a catapult. they've done an oral historyand interviewed members of
their neighborhoodand their family, and those are really theiraim high exit tickets. in edition they've spenttime on college campuses. so again, it's that kind ofintersection of rigor and challenge, but alsofun and opportunity. and to me that's whatsummer quality looks like. laura migus: i think i'dlike to offer just some thoughts in our -- theapproach in our community is really thinking aboutthe whole child,
and i would like to invitefolks to think beyond academic outcomes whichof course are critical, but academic outcomes aredependent on so many other things in a child's life. so, i'd like for us to thinkabout what's developmentally appropriate, what isenvironmentally required for a child's success. that may beacademic support, but it may be more importantto provide social emotional
support, life skill support. even at the youngest ages,it might be more important to provide family support. so, when we're lookingat quality and quality programs, do our programleads know the children that they are serving? and the other thing i thinki'd like to put out there is that it's easy for us tofall into this idea of fixing children.
and our children don't needto be fixed over the summer. male speaker: right. laura migus: our childrenare perfect the way they are, and we need to helpthem move through some systems that arechallenging for them, and environmentsthat might be broken. and i think that that'sanother indicator of quality. what's the plan?
what are the outcomes forlifting our children up, all of them? victor lopez: one quickthing i have to add to quality is just hiring like,for me i'm hiring chess coaches all the time, and iwant to hire coaches who are passionate about bothworking with kids and also about the game of chess. and usually the best poolthat i have to recruit from are the former participantsin my program.
so, we have a juniorleadership program where we're developing kids tohave leadership skills and learn how to managea group of kids, and teach them chess. and then, like the idea isthat eventually they'll go on and be paidchess coaches. our program's stillkind of young. so, we're notquite there yet, but i think tapping theresource pool of the kids
who've already participatedin your program is really a great way to get passionatepeople who can make it a high quality program. alec lee: i'm going to getthis right eventually. (laughter) i wanted to add just onecomment about the quality, and i'm not sureif you agree, but that kind of quality --and it's the aim high story too is sometimesharder to measure.
and so, you asked aboutchallenge and making the case. and again, that's probablywhat we all do every day, right, is make the casefor investing in our work? but that kind of quality isa little harder to measure. and so, i think that's achallenge we probably all face, but i think we'realso committed to tackling. and we're faithful to thekind of program model that we've developed. female speaker:really quickly,
just wanted to add becausei think laura brings up a really great point aboutsocial emotional learning, as well as getting thewhole family involved. so many times we thinkabout summer learning, and it's justabout the child. well, i think we doourselves a disservice there, right? let's get the whole family involved in summer learning, right?
let's see what'shappening during the day, whether they'regoing to a museum, they're playing chess. let's get the familyexcited about that, and then it's not just theorganizations we work with inspiring the kid, but it'sthe organization inspiring the whole family. and that's how systemicchange is built. john king: so, we don'thave that much time left,
but i have twolast questions. i'm wondering if at least acouple of you could share something that you improvedabout your program or even a mistake that you made whereyou started to do something and you realizedit wasn't working. and you shifted strategy. (inaudible) sometimes in theseconversations when we bring up folks who are doinggreat work like all of you,
it seems like the straightpath with no bumps. but there are always bumps. so, it'd be helpful to heara couple of places where you feel like your program oryour efforts have grown or improved. laura reilly: i'm sorry. we make mistakesall the time. no. i think the big piece whenwe first started practice
makes perfect isfive years old. my ceo founded theorganization at the ripe old age of 18. so, we've been around forjust over five years, and the near peer mentorshippart of our organization is the -- my favorite part. it's the biggest part. kids show up because there'sa role model that looks like them, and i think the piecewe thought -- we thought
that was enough, right? as long as i had mykindergarten class and i'm hiring my fourthgrade mentors, everything will be fine. i'll put a lead teacher inthe front of the classroom and that model works. well, if you don't tella fourth grader what the summer learning loss is, howto be a mentor, it's just a, you know, an additional fivekids in your classroom.
so, the piece that we kindof had to overhaul is that near peer mentorshiptraining. i have a staff that workswith all of our near peer mentors duringthe school year, so that by the time summerrolls around we can hit the ground running. that training piece andtraining not just your near peer mentors, but i'msure your teachers, your museum staff,whatever the case is,
preparing them for whatmentorship looks like for a summer program hasbeen huge for us. female speaker: areyou guys (inaudible)? victor lopez: i canspeak to that, actually. when we first started out,we were really focused on like, chess. if kids get good at chessthey'll be good in school, and so we would really focuson making sure the kids were really excellentchess players.
and we found that what wewere doing was burning kids out of -- some of our kidswere getting kind of burned out of chess. so, we expanded what wedo, and now we have chess puzzles, and like, lots ofdifferent chess related activities that still engagewith the mechanics of the game, that can turn kidson to the game of chess, and make them moreengaged with the program. so, we've kind of actuallypulled back from the
requirements of trying tomake kids better or higher rated at chess, and let themfind their own path to it. john king: great. go ahead. alec lee: i'll be brief. john king: that's okay. alec lee: i think our bigstep forward recently was becoming superfocused on data, and using data to driveimprovement across our 17
programs, and reallycreating that organizational learning culture whereour site directors, they can't wait to look atthe data from the summer, and start setting goals, andplanning for how to make the next year and thenext summer better. and how to serve kidseven more effectively. so, that was animportant step for us. thank you all. so, i think we havea minute left, maybe.
male speaker: (laughs) john king: so, if you couldeach in 15 seconds or so give folks in theroom a call to action. what would you encouragethem to try to accomplish if our goal is making summer'16 the best summer of opportunity everfor kids in america? what's the call toaction for them? lauren reilly: putmoney behind it. i think summer, right,summer is not a time we have
to give up on. we know that there are greatorganizations out there who are doing reallyamazing work. let's put the dollars behindit to make sure that every kid has access to agreat summer program. riya rahman: looking around,i feel like i might be the only student here, but iknow that there are so many other students just aroundthe nation looking for a cause, looking for a voice,and i think we have a role
in that. and so, if you can workin your communities, and encourage your students,encourage your millennials to do something about it,to take up a cause and be a voice for peoplewho need a voice. you know, children are sucha vulnerable population, and i found so much value inmyself and just lending my voice to them. and so, encourageother people my age.
encourage younger peoplewho are not quite children, but you know, inthat weird age. just encouraging them tohave a part in it, you know, show their stakein this issue. victor lopez: yeah, it'shard for me to say that you guys should doany one thing, because i know you guysall come from different backgrounds and industries,but i think one thing is just giving people sometime to be summer mentors.
i know that there's lots ofpeople who have passions that they can't make theircareers like i have with chess, but if you're intopottery or something maybe, or if you have an employeewho's into pottery, they can take a week offand run their own summer program, because it'ssomething that they're passionate about. they can be an influencerover a child, you know, beyond just the teacher,but they can help mentor a
child, and ignite passionsfor kids throughout the summer. laura migus: i'd like tooffer this idea of holding hands. so, i want to make sure thatas you as individuals are thinking about what you'regoing to do in the summer, you know somebody whose handyou're going to be holding in partnership,to move forward. and if you are a funder, oran official who is funding in supporting programs,making sure that you're --
the folks that you'resupporting are holding each other's hands, becausewe're a system. we're a network. we're a fabric. summer is one part of theyear and the year is a year long. so, that's what i'd liketo leave people with. alec lee: one of theblessings of being the co-founder, i'm still intouch with our original
students, and one ofthose students from 1987, was with aim highfor three years, came back to teachin the program. and the way shedescribes it, she says, "when i walked through thedoor that very first day, i had no idea how may doorswere opening up for me." and so, my call to action isthat summer really matters, and so thank you for hostinga day devoted to summer. and dig into theresearch and the models,
because we can make thishappen for millions more kids. john king: please thankme in joining our -- congratulating our -- -- fantastic panel. you know, it's a privilegeto be in a room of people who are all committed toexpanding opportunity for our kids this summer, andit's important that we remind ourselves what isat stake for each of our children, right?
this could be the summerthat helps a student gain academic skills, thesocio-emotional skills, the life experiences thatset them on the right path, or this could be the summerthat we lose a child. you know, i was inmiami last week. we were announcing a part ofmy brother's keeper that's focused on reducingchronic absenteeism, and congresswoman wilsongave a powerful speech at an event on friday as thecommunity committed to my
brother's keeper, about therisk of losing our children, and the number of funeralsthat she has gone to. and everyone in the roomcommitted that we're going to do better. we're going to dobetter as a community. we're going to dobetter as a country, and then on saturday inmiami a six year old was killed. and it just, it brought tome such clarity about the urgency of this work, theurgency of making sure that
every one of ourkids has a safe, productive placeto be this summer, not sometime longin the future. this summer, and we can allmake a difference in that. so, thank you all for beinghere and part of this conversation.
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