I live in St Charles MO, a suburb of St Louis. In my school district, Francis Howell, beginning this year, it is a graduation requirement for each student to take a financial management course.

Sent by Kim Meder | 2:21 PM ET | 03-14-2007

I have a program in St. Louis that puts police recruits and firefighters in the public schools weekly to tutor elementary school students in the St. Louis Public Schools. IT's called Books and Badges. I'd love to share it on the air

Sent by Karen Kalish | 2:26 PM ET | 03-14-2007

I have recently seen a video that I checked out from my local library called "I Am Your Child". This was a very thought provoking and issue raising documentary that was made by Rob Reiner and featured a bunch of famous people like Hillary and Bill Clinton(conversing!), Colin Powell, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Oprah, Michael J. Fox, Charlton Heston to name a few, and hosted by Tom Hanks back in the good old days of 1997. It's been ten years now and we are still on our own when it comes to raising children between 0-3 years! One of the facts brought up in this documentary by the Rand Corporation was that public spending is still not being focused on this critical age group. And the direct result that has been found from there being a lack of public spending on humans at pre-natal to 3 years of age is found in the exhorbent, destructive, undeniable and unavoidable amount of public over-spending many times over that is being spent right now on juveniles and adults in the form of prisons and welfare systems all because we didn't want to shell out a fraction of the cost to take care of innocent babies.

Sent by Shannon Swayne | 2:30 PM ET | 03-14-2007

i've been trying to call in
would love to talk about Books and Badges and another program I started, The Home Visit Project that sends teachers to the homes of their inner city students

Sent by Karen Kalish | 2:30 PM ET | 03-14-2007

We have a program here near Kansas City in Lawrence, KS that is a collaboration between the school district and community mental health center which is helping to bring focus to the social and emotional development of children. The WRAP program has been in existence for 10 years and is achieving strong outcomes in improving social and emotional skills, and even academics for children.

Sent by Christina Mann, LSCSW | 2:33 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Isn't scalability a demonstrated problem with many of these programs?

Sent by Clark | 2:33 PM ET | 03-14-2007

One of the best models I've encountered is the school-based/linked health center. It is a clinic located in or near a school. School health centers make a huge difference because they provide children and teens caring, age appropriate health and mental health care. They are convenient for parents and kids so no one has to miss work or school. Often they offer supportive services and prevention education that help students learn life-long healthy habits. School health centers keep students healthy so they can succeed academically and have a better chance at a brighter future.

Sent by Beatriz Ponce de leon | 2:35 PM ET | 03-14-2007

In Philadelphia there is a collaborative-arts education company called "Yes! And. . ." that does outstanding work w/urban youth in the summer, through day camps, and during the school year thgrough after-school programs. (yesandcamp.org) When possible this group gives Urban and Suburban kids a chance to create together, and the results are always amazing and transcendent, from race and class barriers being shattered, to increased literacy and social skills. Well worth some media attention. . .

Sent by Robb Rineer | 2:36 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Programs from SELmedia, Inc. work! SELmedia publishes evidence-based materials that reduce school violence and bullying, help kids make and keep friends, and strengthen families. These programs are used by teachers and counselors in K-12 schools. Teachers and kids LOVE them and they've shown solid results. Developed with more than $8 million in federal funding and in use for over 12 years, these materials are proven to work and are of unparalleled quality.

Sent by Ken Arneson | 2:41 PM ET | 03-14-2007

This is a backroom solution for many of these organizations that struggle with insurance issues to keep their organizations viable. www.ani-rrg.org is a nonprofit insurance company (Insurance companies are traditionally FOR PROFIT). They are dedicated to 501C3 organizations, of which many of the organization you have described are.
In the interest of full disclosure I am an Agent representing this company in the state of Ohio. I am proud to have helped statewide organizations keep the doors open during hard financial times.

Sent by Andrew Musilli | 2:43 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Many kids come from a home that cannot or will not support them in the area of education. I am a father with young children, and I cannot imagine not being there to help my son in 2nd grade or my daughter whom is in kindergarten. Sometimes I have to read the homework assignment 2 or 3 times before I can explain it to them. I completed 16 years of school. Imagine the parent with much less education or one that does not speak English. There are also parents that work too many hours or have no interest.

The kids of these parents should be signaled out and offered an opportunity to remain in school or daycare center an additional 2 or 3 hours daily. A group of people could basically take over the role of the parent(s) for these extra hours assisting the kids in all areas of their school work.

This would allow many kids to at least return to their broken home or home without educational support and not have to worry about school work. This kind of program would allow many kids to learn the lessons being taught in school without falling behind year after year because of not receiving quality educational assistance at home. Constantly falling behind usually leads to frustrated children that can develop behavioral problems in school and drop out of school later in life in many cases.

Sent by Nino McDonald | 2:43 PM ET | 03-14-2007

There is a nonprofit organization in the twin cities area that is making a huge difference in the lives of teenagers of all races. TreeHouse Youth Outreach has been around for almost thirty years and has been working! Transforming lives by empowering teens to talk about thier feelings and giving opportunites for teens to learn and serve thier communities. The program is based on caring relationhips with adults and giving the kids a safe outlet to be teens. There are weekly support groups and fun educational programs that teach important life skills. There are service projects, activites, and trips to give kids a chance to put into practice what they learn at TreeHouse. Most importantly there is one-on-one mentoring, relationships are built with each teen because every kid need to know they are cared about in an individual way. TreeHouse has helped teens turn away from the gang banging lifestyle, turn away from drugs, helped kids graduate form high school and get into college. TreeHouse works. TreeHouse has made a difference in thousands of teens lives and countinues to grow to reach more and more teens that need someone to care. Currently there are five locations in the twin cities area. www.treehouseyouth.org

Sent by Lindsey Clarke | 2:44 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Friends of the Children - Portland is a revolutionary mentoring progam that provides paid, full-time mentors for our community's most at-risk youth. The children are identified in Kindergarten and their mentor stays with them through graduation.
99% avoid early parenting
96% are in school and attending regularly
92% are not involved with the juvenille justice system.

Sent by Joy Fauth | 2:46 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Having survived many programs to "help youth" over the last 10 years, I just wanted to let Pitts know that the ones that worked did so in proportion to the amount of responsibility and empowerment they give youth inside the organization. Groups like my highschool's student government gave little to no actual means to the youth to accomplish any of their goals, as a result most people came away disenchanted. But other groups, like Summer's End, which was a week long camp run entirely by youth aged 14-22, left everyone feeling enlivened. I'd also like suggest Mr. Pitts look at Bridging the Gap, a radio show in Bozeman Montana hosted and run by youth, unschooling, an educational movement that allows youth to guide their own educations, and PEAR in Portland Oregon which
empowers street kids by giving them the means to express themselves artisticly.

Sent by Mackenzie Cole | 2:47 PM ET | 03-14-2007

Thanks for this topic. In Providence, RI, the Big Picture Company and The Met School are having great success with disengaged youth through an alternative high school approach that centers on the student. The kids create their own curriculum and body of work once they find an area they are passionate about. Big Picture has gotten money from the Gates Foundation to scale the model nationally.

Sent by Allan Tear | 2:47 PM ET | 03-14-2007

El Barrio in Cleveland, Ohio, is working with Lincoln West High School with an afterschool program called the nursing academy. The program begins in the ninth grade and continues to graduation. It has an interesting component - students not only learn about healthcare career options, earn money "working" in one of the local wonderful hospital, Metro, but can also take classes to become a state tested nursing assistant and be able to work when they graduate. It really is nifty - does not make a lot of noise about itself - just does the job.

Sent by JPeters | 2:57 PM ET | 03-14-2007

There is a nationally recognized program in San Diego called TKF whose mission is to "Stop Kids from Killing Kids". Their violence prevention work focuses on understanding consequences and learning life skills of empathy, tolerance, anger management, forgiveness and making non-violent choices. I worked with them in the production of a 6 part educational video series for middle school aged youth which is being piloted in after school and juvenile probation settings around San Diego. Information on the work of TKF and the series is available at www.tkf.org or www.chariotvideos.com.

Sent by Victress Hitchcock | 3:19 PM ET | 03-14-2007

What works, why it should be supported...Excellent questions.

I work in the unique niche of assisting parents who wish to remain involved in the lives of their children post separation, post divorce.

My organization, The Children's Rights Council is the largest international organization which serves to help non-custodial parents remain involved in the lives of their children. We operate more than 40 supervised visitation programs in 14 states and the District of Columbia. We are volunteer based! But, we do much, much more to assist parents with access issues including mediation, parent education, support groups and research.

Among our accomplishments the last 20 years, the national CRC has provided the testimony and advocacy on Capitol Hill to affect change
through HHS with annual Federal Child Access Block Grants and now, efforts for an acknowledgement by Congress that joint custody improves child outcomes. Levy's amicus brief several years ago in behalf of Elian Gonzalez was helpful in obtaining his repatriation to his dad in Cuba from whom he had been kidnapped.

We need to bring these services through a holistic, one stop shopping facility. Child Access, mediation, therapeutic intervention, multi-media resources, professional training. That's what research shows will be most effective in assisting families. We hope that readers might respond with inquiries and funding suggestions.

Sent by mark roseman | 4:13 PM ET | 03-14-2007

In 1988-89 at a St. Louis city high school I took a one year position to teach an after school class called Parenting. The principal provided only the goal of the class: "to prevent teen pregnancy!!!"

Knowing that no one has been able to solve that issue, I ignored that unrealistic goal and taught what I thought would be interesting to the students for a school year.

I developed a curriculum week by week, on the fly. First week began with how to fill out forms to open a checking account and forms to apply to a community college. From there, we tackled the life cycle so to speak: marriage; pregnancy/prenatal care; birth; breastfeeding; postpartum life; roles of husband and wife including sharing taking out the garbage; daycare and so on.

Interspersed were guest speakers on drugs and many other topics; I was lucky to find excellent speakers who did more than just tell everyone not to use drugs.

On the day I had planned for each student to become a new mother or a new father, to "give birth," I appeared with a large plastic garbage bag containing homemade babies, including 2 babies pinned together to represent twins. Before I took a baby from the bag, I asked each student in turn what sex child they thought they would want. And then they got whichever sex I pulled out (pink babies and blue babies).

I wish I had a video of the happenings when one young woman was presented with the twin babies!!!!! Students, male and female, near her chair, scooted their chairs closer to her and offered their help to hold, to diaper, etc. the twins. This excitement about the twins filled the room.

At the end of the year I assigned a "May project" and let it be known that as long as it was a creative item, poetry, collages, etc., I had no limits on their ideas. One young man handed in a most beautiful poem.

Sent by Nancy Cooksey | 7:09 PM ET | 03-14-2007

When I was 12, I had an idea much like the first example given (where they are housing troubled children away from the rough areas where they were living while providing them education), and it brought tears of joy to know that someone is finally trying to do that.

I'm 25 now, and barely scraping by month to month as many are these days... I have never had nearly the capitol needed to begin such an effort, but it has always been in the forefront of my mind. So many kids just need a chance to escape the surroundings that encourage a permanent underclass. I'm overjoyed beyond belief that someone is trying to do just that, and I hope that someday I will be in a position to join him in that effort.

And indeed, as someone said above, scaling would be difficult: that's why there would need to be several satellite locations, ideally near but outside of urban areas in every major city in America to begin with. A place that children can stay and grow without the bad influence of the street that hurt - and eventually killed - many friends I had as a child.

Sent by Alejandro Loret de Mola | 9:14 PM ET | 03-14-2007

I would love to know what works in other communities to keep schools funded. In VT in the late 90's when I lived there, it was declared unconstitutional to fund public schools with property taxes -- towns like Killington and Stowe had great systems whereas Bellows Falls (no skiing there) had struggling systems. Now I live in MA and schools are still funded with property taxes, pitting the crowd with children against the senior citizens. In addition, living in a tiny town (Harvard, MA, pop. 5500) our special education costs are spiraling out of control, and because (once) our school system was great in that area, we have a lot of families with special needs kids who move here. We have NO other tax base... so, any comparable communities that have figured this one out? Thanks for reading.

Sent by Clarissa Belle | 8:26 AM ET | 03-16-2007