My name is Maia Cucchiara, and I am a professor at Temple University’s College of Education. You have already heard from/or will be hearing from many people whose lives were changed by their involvement with El Centro. I too have been inspired by the school—and by the Big Picture organization, which has one of the most effective and transformational approaches to working with at-risk students that I have ever seen. I have also had the distinct privilege of working with several El Centro teachers in my Masters course in urban education at Temple, and have been consistently impressed with their remarkable talent and dedication.
But I want to talk today about something different. I want to talk about what we know happens to kids who don’t get to go to schools like El Centro, kids who never get the kinds of support, attention, and educational experiences that the Big Picture model provides. I also want to talk about how hard this work is, and how important it is to support and maintain interventions like El Centro that have been proven to be effective.
Dropouts are significantly more likely than high school graduates to be unemployed. On average, they earn about half of what high school graduates earn. They are also significantly more likely to receive government support, including welfare, Medicaid, and food stamps and over four times as likely to end up in prison. Looking at taxes paid versus costs from government benefits and incarceration, the average high school graduate contributes nearly $6000 annually, while the average dropout costs nearly $7000.
A national study of the dropout crisis estimated that individual lifetime contribution adds up to more than $250,000 more for every person who finishes high school rather than dropping out. $250,000. The cost of maintaining schools like El Centro, that turn dropouts into graduates, pales in comparison.
This report goes on to describe the types of program proven to be effective in re-engaging dropouts. These programs are generally small, they are led by committed and experienced educators, and they focus on providing real world learning experiences. In other words, what “works” looks a lot like El Centro.
I understand that the district is proposing to provide similar project-based instruction in the alternative programs it plans to run when schools like El Centro are closed. This proposal is worrisome. The history of urban education is filled with failed efforts to implement “innovative,” “student-centered” programs. Failure is so common for two reasons. First, providing the sort of project-based, individualized experiences that Big Picture provides at El Centro is really, really hard. It is hard to structure these experiences, hard to make them both engaging to students and educational, hard to find a staff with the skills to manage them, and hard to sustain this system over time. Second, it is especially hard to do all of those things with a student population that has had years of bad experiences with schools, is often way below grade level, and faces a variety of personal issues and problems that can interfere with regular attendance. And yet El Centro does all of these things very well.
Given the challenges involved with this work, and the consequences associated with not doing it well, it seems to me that our goal should be expanding, rather than cutting programs that have been proven to be effective. I urge you to find the resources that will allow El Centro to continue serving the students it serves. Doing so would not only give the students a chance for a different life, it would also help them contribute to the city’s future.
Thank you very much.
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