parenting matters

♪ music ♪ narrator: across the nation, there is a growing concern aboutrising numbers of young people who don't graduatefrom high school. even with nebraska's overallhigh graduation rates in 2010, over 17 students dropped outof school every school day. the state of education innebraska will explore research and practice thatshows how expanding high quality learningopportunities for young

people before they enter theschool system and during out of school time, can lead tosignificant gains in attendance, behavior,academic performance, social and emotional well-being. hello, my name is bob whitehouse, and i am yourhost for the discussion on the state of education innebraska. this program is a collaboration between nettelevision and nebraska children and familiesfoundation. there are other

organizations who contributed tothis effort, for the full list of partners, please visit n-e-tnebraska.org/television and click on the state ofeducation icon. during my 40 year career in education, ihave served as a teacher, coach and high school principal.now i'm part of a community wide initiative in omaha called collective for youth. and it is developing a city wide system to support after school programs. many researchers believe thatthe nation's drop out crisis is due in large part towhat's called "the academic

achievement gap." it is widelybelieved the gap and the propensity for dropping outactually begins before children reach kindergarten,making the issue a "school readiness gap. over the next hour we willengage some of the leading voices at both the nationaland state levels who arecommitted to creating better use of bothschool time and community partnerships to overcomethese educational disparities. it's now my pleasure tointroduce our first panel. they are leaders fromnational organizations that

are at the forefront ofconnecting research to action in support ofour nation's young peoplejoining me in the studio is: dr. helen raikes, she is the willa cather professor at unl, department of child, youth and family studies, helen isalso an expert on early childhood learning. welcome. dr. helen raikes: greetings. whitehouse: and also joining usby phone would be gwynn hughes, program officerat charles stewart mottfoundation, flint, michigan

are you there? gwynn hughes: thanks bob, good to be here. whitehouse: good to have you. we also have on the phone, marty blank, president,institute for educational leadership and director,coalition for community schools, washington, d.c. hello there. marty blank: good evening bob. blank: thank you.

and the last on the panelright now is, priscilla little, project manager atthe wallace foundation, nyc, new york and she's in newyork now. welcome. priscilla little: thank you. it is a pleasure to be with you. whitehouse:it certainly great tohave you all be a part of this. we have quite a longprogram we're going to try to get to in a very short time. so instead of asking how theweather is and all of that,

lets get right to it. [laughs] i do believe there are a number of questions thatcould be asked, but if i could start with the firstone, and i'm knowing to let any of you when you want to jumpin; what does national research and practice say about therole that school and community partnerships to supportstudent achievement during periods before youth startschool and during out of school time?

hughes: well bob, i can take astab first at that one, and thanks again for having us onthe program and dedicating time to such an importanttopic. i think as a nation werefinally realizing the critical positive impact, thetime beyond school has on student achievement and muchof the latest quality research on after school andexpanding learning, underscores what many of ushave long known, which is that after-school programs,when done right, can have

real benefits to students. in fact, we're working onthis more than a decade, shows it improves studentattendance, behavior, overall academic course work, we like to call these the abcs of academic achievement and when you're talking abouthow to make an impact on the dropout problem, a key areais keeping kids engaged and we know through the researchnow, that after-school works to do that. whitehouse: i had an opportunityto see some of that research

that came out i thinkyesterday, and i believe, i believe, that the reductionin behavior alone was near 12% and there are certainlythose kind of percentages for all of those with youngpeople a part of any high-quality after-schoolprogram. about, is there anyone elsethat would like to chime in on that? blank: gwynn has the outlook sodown, but the brain research is so powerful.

the impact of high-qualityearly learning opportunities on young people that get themready for school, has been shown to be clear for many,many years and while some of our young children haveaccess to high-quality early learning opportunities,nearly half of america's young children don't have thoseopportunities available to them. so they start behind and it'stough to catch up. after-school programs, asgwynn said, does a lot to add support for them, but we've gotto do more.

heckman has said early childhood is vital andthen sustain what you gain by providing the continuoussteady set of support. the kids going on to collegesand careers, do things every day for theirchildren. they just don't do earlylearning or send them to sunday school or to the doctor,they do as much as they can to create all of theconditions necessary for learning and we have toremember that the quality teacher in the classroom isonly 40% of what it takes for

children to achieve. good teachers are the mostimportant in-school factor, but what happens out ofschool time, before you get to school, in terms of yourhealth and other dimensions of your life also reallymatters. whitehouse: sure. helen is in the studio withme, and she's nodding her head, would you like tocomment? raikes: i would like to piggyback on marty's remarks

that he just referred to. we have our early pre-kprograms, early childhood programs, home visiting,special education programs and the majority of our pre-kchildren do participate in those; as he said there's adisparity between the low and high income kids haveaccess do. participation in thesehigh quality early learning programs does contribute toreducing the achievement gap for low-income children, butthat secondary out of school

is homes. in the early years we knowthe vast majority in children's development is dueto the things that parents do. reading, talking to children, interact with them. so parenting matters verymuch. and then next ispartnership. we have many examples ofschool-community partnerships in the early years. many childhood programs arealready based in schools.

in nebraska, our earlychildhood grants programs are operated under the publicschools. people in nebraska may notall realize that we even have eleven school districts that provide services for infants and toddlers in low income households. altogether these partnershipsare making a big difference today. whitehouse: thank you. priscilla would you like tocomment?

little: beyond the academicsupport we've been talking about, strong learningpartners, they can facilitate access to a range of learningopportunities and developmental support that are nolonger available during the school day due to budgetcuts. and beyond that due to lackof financial access or resources and mostimportantly out of school learning partnerships canprovide family members to support their studentslearning.

school community partnershipsalso transform the partners, helping schools to supporttransitions across the school year, particularly frommiddle to high school and certainly reinforce conceptstaught in school and also help community partners gainaccess to that are most in need of the support servicesand really help partners work smarter not harder, by usingfacilities staff, data and curriculum. whitehouse: you must see myscript here because it almost

answers the second questionbut the question really is-- what benefits would you seeaccruing to communities that adopted a more comprehensivesystem of educational time built on strong school-communitypartnerships that support high quality early care andlearning and out of school time programs? little: let me just tell you alittle bit about what the wallace foundation has been doing. since 2003 we're trying tolevel the playing field by

helping low income lessadvantaged kids get access to programming and activitiesthat again may not be naturally available to themthrough their communities. and through a coordinatedsystem approach with strong city leaders, then workingtogether to improve the quality of the out of schooltime experiences, what you end up with is really moreequitable access and higher quality of learning. whitehouse:marty, i'd like to ask you andhelen both, the question that

seems kind of common sense,but what has actually blocked more communities and statesfrom taking such collaborative approachesbefore? blank: i would say a few thingsbob. one is we have a kind ofproblem program mentality in this country where you see alot of bullying, you do bullying programs. you want to build kid'scharacter, create a character education programs.

what after school,the beautyof after school, is that you can use the time to addressthe problem and then focus on the resultthat everybody wants. you know the citizens ofnebraska want their kids to graduate from high school,college and career-ready and partnership contributes tothat. so we've got to get past thismentality that every agency is out there for themselvesand we're not partnering. we've made huge progress inlincoln with the community

service centers, which i hadthe pleasure of being in on at it's very outset. so there's this mentality wehave to get passed and also the discipline. we prepare them separately,fund them separately, have different organization andagencies, that's why the community leadership thatpriscilla was referencing before is so important. the business leaders,reverends, schools, youth

organizations, universities--we have to figure out how to all work together. i've been in nebraska enoughto know about the great traditions of your state andpeople working together. i remember once, it was saidthat we want our people to be green and growing, and thatmeans they have to be watered all of the time. we've got to get passed theseindividual interests for the common interest, the commonpurpose of closing the

achievement gap and gettingour kids really ready for the 21st century. whitehouse:i think you made a greatpoint in really it does take everybody and all of us toget it done. blank: if we made a mistake bythinking it could only be done by one small band ofpeople, in a building called schools, when in fact kids live lives in their communities. whitehouse: we're about ready towrap this part of the panel up;

gwynn any comments? hughes: to build on what we justtalked about, there's a great deal of momentum infavor of after school programs recognizing thatschools can't do it by themselves and we really needto come together for the benefit of the students. in nebraska, a survey showsabout 97% of parents are satisfied with their afterschool program. so we know some of this isreally working and i think

it's just going to take moreof some of the same system building efforts that thecity, state and national level, to continue to buildthe right kind of education for all of our students. whitehouse: you bet. it's nice to hear thosefolks, like yourself, from other parts of the countrysaying what we're trying to do and what we believe;helen, a last minute comment? raikes: i agree with martyin the separate programs and

we've, two by two, braided themtogether but very few communities have asked thatquestion, which is what is our cradle to college withinour community and as we do that we'll get to a differentplace. whitehouse: i want to say thankyou very much for being on our panel. during thisprogram, if you would like to ask a question or would likemore information we invite you to visit n-e-tnebraska.org/television and

click on the state ofeducation icon. in our next segment we willcontinue to address the themes of national educationreform, and how nebraska's educational system fits intothese conversations. whitehouse: joining me to talk about nebraska's educationallandscape are two individuals whose work is very well known. dr. roger breed. thecommissioner nebraska departmentof education dr. steve joel,superintendent, lincoln

public schools andi might add, friends of mine, both of you; thank youfor being here. as you both know the themesthat dominate national education reform are thoselike charter schools, national standards, teacherpay tied to students performance, these are notnecessarily driving efforts to improve educationaloutcomes for nebraska youth. my experience in ops suggeststhat this difference is not a bad thing but our districtsare constantly working to

approve academic achievement;couple of questions and we'll just have a little dialogueif that's ok. the first one is, how dothese national conversations intersect with nebraska's educational realities? dr. roger breed: well if i cantake that on a little bit. nebraska has not adopted thecommon course standards and applied to a waiver to nochild left behind requirements. we do not authorize charterschools, nor do we prohibit

them, but we haveconcentrated on things that we think makes sense fornebraska schools. we involve and value ourteacher's input on standards. another is to create anassessment and accountability system that we feel will beinformative to teachers, students and families inimproving learning in our schools. that should be the focus ifeel of all of our schools. bob whitehouse: comment?

dr. steve joel: i would and infact bob, that's what is occurring in our state. while we do look differentthan the rest of the country, a lot of the conversationstaking place across the land are reflected in the work that's occurring in nebraska. we are focused on studentachievement like anybody else. we measure ourselves againstour state standards and we

haven't had to have theheavy-handiness coming with the penalties from the benchmarks. i applaud our department ofeducation and commissioner because we're allowed to havethose conversations in our communities and we're verydata oriented today. we're having thosediscussions but in nebraska it's one kid at a time and wehave great partnerships that help support that. i'm very comfortable with thesuperintendent lincoln what

we're doing and my colleaguesaround the state and like our direction. until there's somethingimposed upon us that says we're not doing it right, ithink i'm take our aggregated assessment and compare it toanybody who wants to compare it. whitehouse: that's the nebraskaway, we do focus on that achievement and it's at theforefront, i believe, in all of the districts andsuperintendent and in

certainly our state board ofeducation and your leadership. i couldn't agree more and ithank you for that. the second question i'd liketo pose to you would be, from your vantage points, wouldmore attention to the elements of time andpartnerships make a difference in helping tosupport more nebraska youth on their path toward graduation? go ahead.

joel: let me go first. [laughs] one of the things we've learned over the years isthat 6.5 hours is not going to get the job done for 100%of the children and as our demographics are changing innebraska and lincoln is a great example of that, when43% of children are represented by a large numberof cultural minorities, we have mobility, growth, limitedresources. that's 6.5-7 hour day thatserved us well for a lot of

years, no longer meets thechallenge of helping our kids be successful. so time is the essence and inlincoln we have community learning centers in about 25of our sites serving many thousands of kids in waysthat are supporting what our national panelists weretalking about before. and really the goal, for me,i look at it is, it's a tremendous way to minimizethe impact of what happens to children that go home afterschool in some cases and in a

very unnurturing environmentand maximizing an opportunity for them to take advantage ofsocial, educational and other nurturing kinds ofopportunities. we in fact see that and as welook at our data, our attendance rates are up forstudents who participate in clcs and behavioral reforms aredown too. not only our graduation ratejumped 2% this year and we need to increase that interms of additional time, before school, after schoolprograms, partnerships with

community providers all forone, one for all making a huge difference in nebraskaand i look for that to continue. breed: to build on what stevesaid, i think there's three critical things about time;it is a limited commodity and variable that we deal with,but the three critical areas are before you ever come toschool, the pre-school years in the early opportunitieskids have-- are we maximizing as communitiesthe time we have?

and putting efforts intoearly education? as a state we're new to thatgame and we need to do more in that area. and then there's the schoolday, the kindergarten through senior year in school-- howdo we maximize that, make the greatest use of the timeincluding improving student attendance? we had this year 18,000students that missed over 20 days.

we have very clear evidenceof excessive absenteeism. and then the third factor oftime deals with after school and how we address usingafter-time school and summer time and making maximum useof summer time so we don't have a degradation oflearning. whitehouse: really you'retalking about time and 6.5 hours isn't much time to geteverything done they have to do and we all know that so. i just want to say thank youfor both of you, for sharing

your perspectives onnebraska's unique challenges and opportunities. thank you. breed & joel: thanks, bob. whitehouse: during this program, if you like to ask a question or would like more information we invite you to visit n-e-t nebraska.org/television and click on the state of education icon. bob whitehouse: all acrossamerica, communities are pulling together tostrengthen education because

they know it's the key to astrong local economy, a good quality of life, and abrighter future for everyone. but they can't do it alone.community organizations can be a powerful force in supportingfamilies and schools and in expanding learningopportunities for all nebraska youth. let's nowlearn more about current programs in nebraska thatbuild-off different strengths that are found in allnebraska communities. our panelists are: very goodfriends of mine,

dr. gladys haynes, directoreducare/omaha and statewide expansion. nice to have you with us. and also lea ann johnson,coordinator, lincoln community learning centersinitiative. and dr. marty mahler, coordinator of nebraska p-16 initiative. thanks for being here. good to have all of youwith us. we have several questionsthat we want to get to, but i

can tell you that localresearch describes some of the previous things we'veheard on this panel or these panels before, and so we'regoing to ask you, as experts in the field, to go ahead andtry to describe things as i ask you a few questions, ok? first of all, would youdescribe the work you're doing to build systems and partnershipsthat help expand learning during the non-school hoursand support more nebraska youth? dr. gladys haynes: wellin the educare childcareprogram, by adding

hours on by providingprogramming for early childhood and young children,in fact, we think we can make a difference in theachievement gap. there was a recognition ofthis achievement gap and it also fed into differences ingraduation rates among lower income children and peers,specifically african american and latino children. so one of the things thatthey came about was to provide a higher level ofafter school programs, to

level out the playing field. i very much believe successbreeds success and children coming to school is going tomake a huge difference in their long-term achievement. whitehouse: can't say enough about theeducare learning program. lea ann johnson: the lincoln communitylearning centers, really we started 11 years ago and westarted with four pilot projects to the lincolncommunity foundation and it truly is an initiative thatbuilds on the strength of our

great schools in lincolnpublic schools and the enormous amount of strengthwe have in community based organizations. what we recognized early isthat schools can't do it alone, but collectively wecan do great thing for and with young people. and so, our initiative, atthis point, we're in 25 schools, and we partner withnine agencies and the role of our lead agencies isinstrumental and i can't not

stress enough the power thatthey bring to our initiative. agencies like the malonecenter, ymca, lincoln parks and rec. family service. they bring not only financialsupport at times, but they bring resources that help uswork with young people during the after school hours inways that school personnel, quite frankly,can't always do.

and so that youth developmentcomponent is huge for us in our after school programs. and the other thing i wouldsay for the community learning initiative inlincoln, we really do not look at it as a program. it's easy to think of anafter school service or program, and they areimportant to the narrowing the achievement gap andhelping young people be successful, but we look at itas we have to have all

support services and we're asystem. whitehouse: couldn't agree moreand i would say that there's a number of our omaha clccolleagues in the audience that would agree with thethings you said and doing the same kinds of things you justdescribed. marty p-16, what is that? a lot of viewers probablydon't know what p-16 stands for? dr. marty mahler: nebraska is one of the 40states in the country,

been around since about 1998. it's supported by many andthen we have about a 32 members that make up a statewide leadership council that essentially is comprised ofanyone and everyone involved in education from pre-schoolto the college level. we really have, over the lastfive years since i've been here, we really have investedin doing things from pre-school and all of the wayout. our primary focus andobjective is to increase the

college-going rate in thisstate. and if we're going toaccomplish that goal, some of the things that go on in theother programs, during out of school time, research shows,you've got to prepare those students early on if they'regoing to be successful. elementary, middle school and high school and education is the economicengine that keeps nebraska moving forward into thefuture. whitehouse: we'rereally saying from thebeginning, pre-school is

so important all of the waythrough and it takes everybody. mahler: i think the investmentwe make earlier on, we tend to focus on, or react to whathappens. if we're at a set of stepsand people are falling down we might say lets build ahospital at the bottom of the steps, but really we shouldput a handrail on it so people don't fall down thesteps. so these programs are helpingstudents move through those

problems until there's anissue to deal with it. whitehouse: i'll going to changedirection and as you what are the biggest obstaclesblocking the spread of more systems-oriented approachesin nebraska? johnson: we hear a lot about time. and we heard doctor joel andbreed talk about time in the classroom and school, it'sabout time. it takes time to buildrelationships between community and schoolpersonnel.

you talk different lingo andcultures you're dealing with. also having a coordinatedeffort. bob, you have done aphenomenal job of coordinating all of ustonight. and you have to have somebodythat wakes up in the morning, sleeps and thinks about thesystem that is being built. and so having thatcoordinated effort bringing everybody together around ashared vision, common goals and basically celebrating andsharing in the results that

no one system is standing upand saying because of that we were effective, but it'scollectively all systems working together. time would be a huge obstacle. haynes: sometimes we've leftfamilies and parents out of the equation and we tend to focuson children and child outcomes and when you sitdown with families and help them realize the strengthsand how to support and strengthen their child'sdevelopment in the home and

community they are more thanwilling to be engaged and work with you. but again, i think sometimeswe're so focused on child outcomes we treat theparents as uh-huh uh-huh, did you really come toconference. we're in this together foryour child's development. whitehouse: obviously you'resaying this collaboration is a bigpartnership with home, school, community and allinclusive.

i know schools try and workon the family and parent aspect a lot that it's stillthe key and we've got to reach out and do more. marty anything else to add tothat? mahler: obviously resources playa big part in what people can do, but it's amazing acrossnebraska what people can do when they collaborate. there's wonderful initiativecalled the panhandle p-16 and essentially a wide array oforganizations and entities

coming together toessentially say we have to chart our own destiny. if we're going to keep youngpeople here, get them well educated and grow the economyin nebraska, we've got to do something about it. no one else is going to worryabout us in western nebraska and we've got to do it andthey're working on it to be able to pull this kind ofthing off. it's wonderful to see thesething happen.

you've got to decide do wehave the will in the community to do these typesof thing and largely i think we do. whitehouse: in closing you feelcomfortable with the systems in place and how they'reworking with traditional k-12 education? johnson: i think we continue togrow in that area and continue to learn from eachother. i just think we have tocontinue to be committed to

partnership and recognizethat many other panelists up here said, that no one systemcan do it alone. johnson: and a dear friend, thefull service community department, she shared acomment with me-- she believed and i believe thatanything can happen when the partners come to the tablewith yes in their hearts. whitehouse: a good way to end. you bet. i want to thank the panel.

we're moving right along. we've gotone more panel to go. i want to say thank you and iappreciate your time being here. haynes: thank you. bob whitehouse: given thatthere are already efforts underway to expand thesehours of opportunity where more nebraska youth can get thesupport and attention they need to thrive in school andlife, how can viewers get involved to help bring theseefforts to their communities

so that all nebraska youthhave access to the supports they need to reach their full potential.our last panel brings us real world examples of what youcan do in your communities. again if you are interestedin addressing these issues in your community visit the webaddress at the bottom of the screen for additional resources. joining us for this last panel are four distinguished colleagues. first we have barbara bartle,

president of the lincoln community foundation. nice to have you here. barbara bartle: thank you. whitehouse: we have larryjohnson, president of thenebraska trucking association thomas warren, president andceo of the urban league of nebraska. thomas warren: good evening. whitehouse: and robin mcdannel -united way of lincoln and lancaster county - who leads theirmentors, tutors and readers wow, quite a group here.

[laughs]thank you for taking your time and being with us. you know the routine here. i'll going to ask a fewquestions and just feel free if you have something you'dlike to add we'll jump in and make this very informal. i guess the first question is;describe the work that you are doing to supportinnovative approaches that stretch the learningenvironment through

partnerships outside of thetraditional school day? who wants to start? go ahead barb. bartle: the lincoln communityfoundation supports the whole child with education andlearning, food health and well being and family economicsecurity. we've heard a lot tonightabout the lincoln community learning centers and thelincoln community foundation gave that original grant in1999 for $100,000 and the

visions as you've heard isfor opportunities. it's an infrastructures from cradle to successful careers. along with the funding of theinfrastructure for 12 years the community foundation isalso funding programs that are presented in thatinfrastructure and things like girl scouts, musiclessons, produce for the backpacks for the children,some of those, and most recently we gave a grant tosupport the educare center

in lincoln for earlychildhood. the partnership has grownsince that original grant. we now have 50 partners andleveraged in this community millions of dollars fromfederal, state and local and we feel that partnership,that collaboration, has provided the opportunity whenwe come together we can provide more impactfulprograms and opportunities for the children and we nowknow the data is showing that test scores for children arehigher as well.

when we come together, worktogether, as a community, which can happen all over thestate, our work can be more impactful. whitehouse:i like your descriptionof cradle to career and that's what it takes to have ouryoung people be successful. larry, it's not wrong on themonitor, it is trucking association. and it's quite a uniqueprofession involved with our after school and out ofschool time and our

professions but tell us alittle bit about what your plan is what you're doing? johnson: all right. thank you bob. being in the center ofeverywhere in nebraska, a large part of our future'ssuccess is being able to develop transportation modelsthat will help improve the efficiency in literally every part of the transportation world.

the supply chain keepsgetting longer and we find with us being in the center,that we're going to need more employees trained and readyto go. we found that we had verybright people, not only on stage with me, but from oureducation systems all of the way from p-16 and able todevelop partnerships where we have middle school to masterdegree programs, in formal class curriculum but nowreaching back to the out of school and community basedlearning.

so we hope with those kind ofcollaboration we can be that industry partner, and be areliable resource to help the other partners out. thomas i know you've donegreat things in omaha, tell us about it. warren: in lincoln nebraska, wework primarily with high school students, 9-12 gradeare those unfortunately labeled as risk, mostvulnerable to dropping out, overaged and undercreditted.

we implemented a youthattendance navigator program to focus on school attendance. we firmly believe in order toimprove academic achievement we need to improve schoolattendance and there's a direct correlation. we looked at what wasoccurring in the public schools and i was veryinvolved in the support that it would be truancy reductionefforts statewide. we implemented the programwhere we have

what we call a navigator. this is not a case managerand this individual advocates on behalf of the studentrecognizing that truancy is systematic on a whole lot ofother things going on in that child's life. so this navigator works withthat student identifying what is their unique situation? why isn't that studentengaged in school? and attention to addresswhere they're at.

and it could be education,juvenile justice, health and human services and reallyassisting that child and meeting their needs. and of course robin wouldelude to, that fact the student has a positive relationship with aresponsible adult, their improvements in academic,achievement and attendance rates. it's all about therelationship.

whitehouse: absolutely. robin? mcdannel:what's happening at unitedway in lancaster county, we really respond to what ourdonors want to do. and our donors want to make adifference. they want to know whenthey're putting dollars in it's changing the community. and so what we have done,really intentionally the last five years is really targethelping kids start school,

ready to learn, succeed andwhatever it takes to keep them in school, at gradelevel, provide the kinds of services around that theyneed and graduate from high school with skills andmotivation. and as lea ann talked about there's great programs in lincoln. we have early care and all ofthe way to helping kids graduate from high school. programs that really helpkids that are losing grade levels and

get them back to grade levelin reading. if they need readers or atutor, mentoring, those types of things. that's what we've beenfocused on the last several years. i'll going to ask you aquestion, and this is something i think the viewersmight like to find interesting, with you all andthat is how do you find yourself in this work and whyis it important to you and the

sectors you represent? johnson:i might start with that one. we, in the transportationindustry, we have a tremendous shortage ofworkers and we've set out trying to find partners thatcould help us solve that problem and one of the thingswe found was it's either career awareness, where wedidn't have learning opportunities. so eight years ago we set outto find those partners and

they've responded very welland we now have great partnerships out there thatare producing new workers and we feel for thelong-term. it gives the state acompetitive advantage in the terms of the workforce. warren: we talked about the nextgenerations work for us, and we recognize the privatesector, there's a huge demand for qualified personnel andat a minimum our students are going to need a high schooldiploma and post-secondary

education at the minimum sowe need to be able to motivate them to reach theirfull potential and just giving them hope and lettingthem know they are opportunities available tothem should they stay in school, fulfill their fullpotential and strive to receive post-secondaryeducation. if you can really engage thestudent and motivate them they tend to respond. whitehouse: ok.

mcdannel: i'll jump in and justsay i think what motivates me is seeing changes. when you talk to agenciesthat are working with kids and lives are changingbecause of programs, that's exciting to me that we canturn lives around. and i want to quickly mentionwe're looking for volunteer opportunities, united way hasa program called leaders, tutors and mentors, and itstarted last june and the idea is if people wouldvolunteer to read, tutor or

mentor a child we couldreally start moving kids towards graduating and get tokids. if people are interested callunited way and just really help a kid like tom talkedabout, kids need relationship and need to know somebodycares. whitehouse: we have time for atleast one more question and i'll just pose it to you. obviously no right or wronganswers to this, and what would be a nebraska that lookslike in ten years from now if

more communities adopted amore comprehensive systems of supports that provided theopportunities all youth need to survive? bartle: my hope would be to havethe framework in place across the state, for our children,for cradles to careers, pathways to success and we'llstart seeing higher graduation rates, morestudents in college, economic growth, less funding forjuvenile justice and our criminal department systemand i think it will be the

best investment our statecould make if we can make it into the humaninfrastructure. if all of our children dowell i think we're going to have to look into our heartspersonally and collectively and decide what kind of statewe want to be and hope we live up to our motto-- thereis no place like nebraska. whitehouse: that's great; thomaswhat do you think? warren: i think education is themost important development we can make in the future of ourstate.

our effort, bringing in anoutsiders perspective into education is to look at theinstitutions that have been operating and we're talkingabout education, working with juvenile justice and healthand human services because that interaction, we're nottalking about kids figuratively we can wrap around ourservices to those youth and they can turn their livesaround and become very productive citizens. that's the goal and objectiveto instill in these children

there is a future and hopeand opportunities for them. whitehouse: good. johnson:bob, i would say in additionto my colleagues here, those are all things we would wishfor as well, but i think if we could see industry becomemore involved and be that resource in the educationsystems and where those jobs are for the next ten yearsand really being there's a good resource for it. robin, do you want to mentionsomething about 211?

mcdannel: 211 is a number beingused tonight to let people know that's a number they cancall. 211 is a number that anybodycan dial on our cell phone, home phone, and it will giveyou a live person that will answer and connect you aroundthe state to the services that if you're wanting tovolunteer, they can tell you in your community what isavailable and also a great number to call if you needinformation about helping services in your community.

it's something that unitedway out of atlanta started and united ways around thecountry picked up. also uses 150 differentlanguages and 24 hours a day, so it's open for anyone. whitehouse: well we've got abouta minute and a half; i don't know if there's any closingcomment that any of you would like to make, but i dobelieve very strongly that your comments are certainlythat which all of us, i think, in the educationbusiness and otherwise are

trying to bring together andthis collaboration and this partnership and i thinkpartnership is probably the big word that sometimes getsoverused but it's so important. i don't know if there'sanything that you'd like to just close on with that,but-- warren: i can tell you in omahawe've probably seen, unprecedented collaborationsbetween the donor in the community, elected andappointed officials,

community basedorganizations, community as well as families workingtogether. we recognize those tremendousneeds in our community and now is a time where thoseentities work together and we hope to move the needle interms of improving the conditions. bartle: i was going to add, ijust learned from leann that one of our leaders just passedaway and she's helped us a great deal.

and i loved what she said. and i think we can end bysaying leave with yes in our hearts. we can do this. whitehouse: i want to thankall of you and all of the other panelists we've had. clearly these conversationsare only the starting point and parents and business andcommunities just can't sit on the sidelines when it comesto our children's education.

we need to be personallyinvolved, every day. consider launching a call to action inyour town. we invite you to continue these conversationsin your own communities. as educators, we are convincedthat there is the potential for strong school andcommunity partnerships throughout the state whichwill allow us to create the

out of school timeenvironments that all our children need to thrive inschool and certainly in life.

i want to thank all of youfor joining us.