Is this what Milwaukee Youth have become? This is too gangsta. Everybody wants to be a *worldstar but this ain’t how you do it!

As the world’s technology advances and our information highways become revolutionized through the internet, information is easier to obtain now more than any other time in history. These days, teachers can easily incorporate different educational tools into their classroom routines such as websites, online videos, and PowerPoint presentations. With just the click of a button, or more popularly, a simple Google search, students can gain a seemingly unlimited amount of knowledge about whatever topic they wish to learn about.

Today, most children and young adults receive a great deal of information through our ever-changing forms of media. However, despite the overload of information and educational outlets supplied by the media, many Americans, particularly our youth, still struggle academically.

According to the US Department of Education, since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade with the inability to read at a basic level. During the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether.

A dilemma such as this is likely to make people question America’s commitment to education. How can a nation which provides seemingly unlimited educational information to its citizens have undereducated children?

As easily as most people would like to blame our country’s education issues on our school systems, inadequate government funding, or even an overall apathy toward the importance of education in this country we fail to realize that this problem is bigger than a blame game. There are numerous factors which play a role in a person’s academic development. We need to understand what factors develop the attitudes which cause students’ academic failures as well as success.

One of the most influential factors is in the educational development of a youth is his/her family background. Statistics from the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a journal on Developmental Psychology, have shown that a student’s parents’ educational levels and views on the importance of education usually have a major impact on the students’ views on education as well.

Another thing which we must consider is the learning environment of students. In many major Americans cities, particularly in our urban areas, schools are shameful. There is a lack of discipline, schools are over-crowded and poorly funded. These conditions often inhibit student’s learning abilities as well as their attitude toward learning.

Another major part of a student’s learning environment which is often overlooked is the teachers. It’s obvious that teachers have a tremendous effect on a student, especially when that student is of a young, impressionable age. A problem in many major American cities is that teachers fail to relate to students of different cultures than theirs and sometimes don’t have sympathy for students who struggle in school.

Dr. Cornel West once said, “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people, if you don’t serve the people.” It’s time for Americans to apply that same standard to the education of our youth. We have to make sure we intend to lovingly serve our youth and help to ensure their academic success.

We cannot continue to rely on the government to increase funding in order to educate our children. The job of the government is to REGULATE, not EDUCATE. Government funding can’t motivate a student to learn like his parents can. Government funding can’t change a student’s perspective on school subjects such as history and math like a dedicated teacher can. Government funding can’t make a student proud of his/her academic achievements like his/her community can.

It will take a collaborative effort of parents, teachers, communities, and most of all the students themselves to make sure that our youth haves the proper environments and mindsets to reach their full potential.

When I went to high school in Colorado my school had a 7-11 on campus as well as a choice of Chic-Fil-A and Dominoes pizza depending on the day of the week. We had vending machines that were filled with soda and candy, and a dessert selection of sugar and chocolate chip cookies.

Fast forward some years later and now schools across the country are competing to win organic choices over unhealthy lunch options for their school. I’m jealous!

The Organic Trade Association is hosting a national contest to award a lucky school with an organically grown garden or the option to have an organic vending machine on campus. The initiative “Organic. It’s Worth It In Schools” aims help schools access more organic food.

According to a survey by the OTA, more than half of the individuals polled feel that the best way to encourage children to make healthy food choices is by improving education about health and nutrition. A good way to start is by offering it!

So, if you want to enter your school to win a really cool organically grown garden or an organic vending machine, act now!

Visit www.OrganicItsWorthIt.org through May 1 and enter your school’s name and address when you sign up for an electronic newsletter to win. Similar to a petition, your school must receive at least 1,000 newsletter sign ups to win.

Newsweek recently posted an article titled “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers”. The article cites that “what matters more than the class size or the textbook, the teaching method, or the technology or even the curriculum, is the quality of the teacher.”

The article also points out that “as the population of disadvantaged students grows, overall scores continue to sag.” Thus, as long as communities continue to be stripped of funding which provides assistance for things such as social services, housing and the creation of new jobs, there will continue to be a widening achievement gap between privileged and poor and minority students.

What I found interesting is that there is a connection between the two. According to Newsweek, “the weakest teachers are relegated to teaching the neediest students, poor minority kids in inner-city schools.” Statistics often demonstrate that this does not always happen due to mere coincidence.

In the state of Nevada the relationship between these factors is no different. An annual survey by Education Week magazine ranked Nevada 50th in the nation for the quality of its public K-12 education, with Las Vegas receiving a letter D grade. Also, according to city data Nevada ranks third in unemployment. If Las Vegas was a state it would rank second behind Michigan. The unemployment in Las Vegas ultimately led to foreclosure where Nevada ranks worst in the nation, causing many displaced families. To top it all off, Nevada teachers are some of the lowest-paid employees in the state and are currently facing an additional 1.75% salary cut on top of the 10% across the board that has already been proposed by Republican governor Jim Gibbons, which would result in thousands of teacher layoffs and 50-student class sizes in high schools.

How do we improve education for all when faced with so many obstacles?

On this 99problems.org exclusive, Game tells students to think twice about the street life. There are other options out there.

Last week, Game went on an extented Twitter rant about the American educational system. At one point he even said that he thought school was a “waste of time.” The rapper, who does a lot of behind the scenes community activism, expressed that he felt that public schools are often times little more than glorified “baby sitters.”

While the public school system definitely needs improvement, I think it’s important that Game understand that he has more power to change his local school district than 100 school board meetings. Maybe I need to holla at this brotha to get him involved with his local school board. Because if he stood up lots of things would change.

Check the Twitter rant after the jump.

spotted at rapradar.com

You prolly don’t know this because your high-school civics class most likely wasn’t worth sh#t, but every ten years the US government counts every human being within its borders. Over the next several months, we are going to be talking a lot about the 2010 Census because it’s pretty effin important. Billions of your tax dollars are spent on schools and other important community projects. And were not talking fake rich rapper money either; the census adds up to big paper for local communities.

Of course, most times young people and people of color don’t fill out the form.  Were too busy doing other cool sh#t like filling out unemployment forms or waiting in lines at the emergency room. That’s why the good folks at the Census Bureau spend so much money producing commercials that attempt to speak directly to our demographic.

We’re not sure if these commercials have always been successful because the one above sucks really bad.  Maybe were too young to remember, but its hard to imagine that dancing that hard in ugly clothes was ever cool. After the jump is an example of a census commercial from 2000 that is much less likely to make you want to punch someone in the face.

Clowning is no laughing matter for Tommy the Clown (born Thomas Johnson). Instead, it’s a way to combat deeper issues like gang involvement, boredom, hopelessness, violence, and inactivity.

Born in Detroit, T.J. moved to LA as a teenager, where he soon found himself in trouble with the law. He had plenty of time to reconsider his life’s direction while spending 5 years in jail, where he decided to turn his life around. He’s done that and more–he’s changed the lives of youth around the world.

How? By clowning. It started out as a favor for a friend’s kid’s birthday party, but soon evolved into a way to help at-risk youth, youth who were in danger of falling through the cracks the same way that T.J. had been. Young people were allowed to join his clown/krump/hip hop crew on the condition that they did well in school, stayed out of gangs, didn’t do drugs, and acted as positive role models. In 15 years, this has grown to become a world-wide phenomenon, with 60+ dance crews in LA, performances across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and motivational lectures in schools across the country. It has also spawned a new form of street dancing (y’all know it as “krumping”) and even a 2005 movie by Dave Chapelle, called “Rize”.

Tommy is more than just a red-nosed, smiling face–he’s entertained millions, inspired thousands to get off the couch and off the streets, trained, guided, and helped countless urban youth, and spread a message of peace to us all: “You got problems? Don’t fight no more. Bring it to the dance floor.”

Aren’t you glad summer’s finally here? The recent reemergence of the sun makes me crave days at the beach and nights spent camping. But the recession means that for many (hell, most of us) a vacation simply isn’t that feasible this year.

We should consider ourselves lucky if that’s the worst recession can do. It’s hit a lot of people a lot harder. Every year, the number of families who are homeless skyrocket at the beginning of summer. This year has been particularly bad. People from 10 000 families will become homeless in New York alone this summer, an increase of more than 28% from last year. At last count, that number had already hit 9420—9420 moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and children on the street in one city. That’s A LOT of people—so many, that if you wanted to meet them all, one a day, it would take you more than 27 years.

But numbers are just statistics. They don’t tell the whole story. People do. Like 11 year old Arielle Figueras, who completed fifth grade one day and was in a shelter with her family the next. Or the Dixon family, who were evicted in April, have been separated in various homes since then, and are now reunited on the streets. Families who had found short-term solutions—like staying with relatives or asking the landlord to temporarily take pity on them—are booted out now that the weather is warmer and the kids are out of school and underfoot.

Across the nation, families are becoming homeless faster than any other demographic. PBS estimates that roughly a third of the homeless are families. Families who approach shelters are subjected to intense questioning, metal detectors, long waits, and overcrowding in addition to the stress of displacement and an uncertain future. Many of them are not allowed in the shelter during the day, left to wander the streets. 1 in 2 families are split up and put in different shelters. They are the lucky ones—one third of families are turned away from shelters entirely because of a lack of resources.

It’s a summer ritual that makes you understand why not everyone welcomes summer. . .

Being a teen is hard enough. Being a teenage mother is infinitely harder—and according to a study by John Santelli of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, there are more and more teens who are becoming moms. Nearly 4 in 10 American teens will be preggers by age 20, and a whopping 445 000 of them will give birth. At those rates, America is the teenage pregnancy capital of the Western World.

Having a baby is a wonderful, beautiful act—but there is a time and a place for it. When a teenager gives birth, the odds of her or her baby having a fulfilling life are significantly lower than if she had waited until she was in her twenties. Teen moms are more likely to drop out of school, receive welfare, and have more children within a couple of years. In turn, the children of teen moms will statistically have poorer health and inferior results in school than their peers who had parents who gave birth later on. Children from teen pregnancies are also more likely to end up in prison (if they’re sons) or giving birth while still teenagers (if they’re daughters).

Which is why Santelli’s study is so disturbing. It shows that teenagers are having kids at a higher rate, not necessarily because they desire children at that stage in life but because they are not taking simple precautions to prevent it. The use of contraceptives is going down, leaving health educators wondering where the f*%# they went wrong. Because, instead of using a condom, youth are trying the “withdrawal method,” and even the “let’s not use anything” approach—otherwise known as the “I’m playing Russian Roulette with my girlfriend’s future” approach. Hell, the guys should be worried too, because STIs tend to spread a lot faster when there’s no condom to stop them (and by “tend to” I mean DO).

And while the need to place blame is both understandable and widespread—everything from teenage celebrities such as Jamie Lynn Spears who glorify pregnancies to sexual education programs that promote abstinence only and forbid any mention of prevention—placing blame only detracts from the real issue, which is how to reverse the trend.

Ultimately, the potential for improvement lies within each and every one of us. . . When it comes down to it, the only way these statistics will improve is if you use a condom next time you’re “gettin’ jiggy with it.”

Education as we know it is changing. Remember sitting in class and having your teacher yell at you for listening to music? No longer! If Run-DMC has their way, teachers will not only be encouraging music in the classroom but will be bringing in rap and hip hop of their own.

Darryl McDaniels, a member of the pioneering rap group Run-DMC, was invited by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to attend a conference at the Summer Teacher Institute last week. While there, he spoke to teachers that had gathered from across the country about the importance of using rap as a way in which teachers could better connect with their students, saying that rap made school more interesting, relevant, and personal for students. All I can say is, why wasn’t Run-DMC saying this to my teachers when I was in school?

But seriously, he’s got a point. While he admitted that rap can be “raw,” he also pointed out that it is a form of social commentary and as such has the potential to become an educational tool and a medium of expression for kids who might not have another outlet. In his own words, “real hip-hop is information, education, communication and motivation, whether you’re rich, poor, black, white, Puerto Rican. Hip-hop is the total expression of the existence of what it’s like to be alive on the face of the earth.”

So look out students. This September, it could be your teacher that busts into the classroom with a few Run-DMC lyrics of their own:

One thing I know is that life is short

So listen up homeboy, give this a thought

The next time someone’s teaching why don’t you get taught?

( From Run-DMC:  “It’s Like That”)

It’s understandable to be rejected from college because of your grades, your SATs, or even your extracurriculars – but is it valid to be rejected because you need financial aid?

According to this NY Times article, Reed College in Portland, Oregon is doing just that. As a result of the recession, revenue is dropping at the school, which can’t financially commit to as much financial aid. Long story short, they’ve started rejecting students because they lack full ability to pay.
Let’s go into crippling student loan debt after the jump!

All colleges seem to follow the model that they will admit students on a need-blind basis, which means that if you are a suitable candidate, they will admit you regardless of your financial situation. If you are in dire straights, they will help you find a way to pay your bill.

However, Reed seems like the pioneer of a disturbing trend – the small liberal arts school in Oregon rejected “100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and [substituted] those who could pay full” tuition. Check out how the president of the college defended his decision:

“Like everybody, we are trying to start by trying to cut the stuff that is least likely to inflict real pain on the program,” said Colin Diver, Reed’s president.

“I keep trying to say, we are in the education business,” Mr. Diver said, describing the pressure to keep up with wealthier colleges and expressing a frustration rarely voiced publicly by college presidents. “The whole principle behind higher education is, we know something that you don’t. Therefore, we shouldn’t cater to them.”

(99P Editor’s Note: For you grammaristas out there, this is an actual quote from an actual president of an actually well regarded college. That bolding is mine.)

One can only wonder how many more private colleges – and maybe even state-funded schools – will fall by the wayside as a result of the economy. I mean, things have to get worse before they get better, but this is freaking ridiculous.

We have to expect our government to take on the real problems in our neighborhoods. We’re not used to counting on them for change, but we should be able work with them and make something important happen.

There are over 80 cosponsors of the Youth PROMISE Act right now; we’re trying to get up to 150, but that’ll take all of us working together, contacting our representatives and telling them personally that we want their support for this pivotal piece of legislation.

Go to 99problems.org/youth-promise to send a message to your representative. It only takes a few minutes but will mean a world of change.

Ben Gilbarg is the Director of 3rd EyE Unlimited, a film/video producer and socially conscious Hip Hop artist from New Bedford, MA. Ben works in New Bedford to build a movement of young people to organize for the betterment of their communities. Check out: http://www.3rdeyeunlimited.com/

IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. This is a legally binding document that spells out exactly what special education services your child will receive and why. Makes a lot of sense, right? It is supposed to help our friends and children who need a different kind of education to succeed but a lot of school districts are just ignoring IEP’s and setting up young people to fail.

We’re serious about this. The Youth PROMISE Act is the biggest step we can take right now to keep the kids of America out of prison.

Please get involved; speak up for all the youth who’ve been given the right to remain silent.

Stand up for the leaders of tomorrow.

Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to start the discussion in your community.

Write your Congressional Representative to let them know you support the Youth PROMISE Act!

There is something we can do to save our public education system and ensure that not only the arts and music programs we care about are sustained, but that every qualified young person can seamlessly attend college for little to no cost.

This week call your Congressmen and tell them that YOU support President Obama’s stance on education in his proposed budget by calling 1-888-299-1447 or go to www.unionvoice.org/campaigns/studentloans and write a letter. Every little bit counts to save our public education system to benefit US!

For more info on organizing around education issues, check out www.usstudents.org

Here’s a revolutionary idea: get to know your town’s teachers. They’re pretty easy to spot; chalk on their shirts, rulers in hand. They’re the ones teaching our kids how to take charge of America.

Investing in education is an investment in ourselves. Moreover, it’s an investment in our businesses, in our technology…the minds of our children will enable the prosperity of tomorrow, and our schools will either discourage or encourage their dreams.