Many of the sixteen million children growing up in poverty in America are being dramatically under-served by our nation’s public school system. Helping those young people reach their full potential is the driving desire behind advocates for education reform. One of those advocates – Nicole Baker Fulgham – makes an intriguing claim. She believes the church holds the key to closing the achievement gap. We hear her story and her challenge on this latest Connecting Faith as she discusses her book .
Nicole is the president & founder of The Expectations Project. She served with Teach for America for several years & grew up in urban Detroit. She shares her story of seeing educational inequity first hand from a young age and desiring to play a role that made a difference for the better. We hear of her journey to Compton, where she discovered her students to be very bright and curious – but far behind academically. Some of the young people she taught there were functionally illiterate at the fifth grade level. Our teachers are expected to make a difference, but how can they reach into the troubles at home that are often the root of issues like these?
Situations like Nicole experienced in Compton are not specific to a few communities. It’s a national epidemic. She shares this statistic: 16 million American kids are growing up in poverty. Only one in ten of these kids will go on to graduate from college. Clearly reform is needed, but what should it look like? And what are the roadblocks that must be overcome?
Nicole explains how apathy must first be defeated if reform is to succeed. She describes key aspects of schools that are successful and how schools that aren’t working can begin to move toward improvement.
Then we hear a call specifically to us as people of faith. Why should we be so invested in this issue?
All this – and much more – on this latest Connecting Faith.
