오바마의 청년 멘토링 프로젝트

얼마전 미국 오바마 대통령이 어려운 여건에 있는 (흑인 및 히스패닉 등) 학생들을 위한 교육개혁 프로젝트를 제안했다.

그 중 중요한 구상이 <My Brother's Keeper>라는 이름의 멘토링 프로그램이다.

 

인기를 올려보려는 몸짓이라는 평도 있다. 

그러나 가난하고 힘없는 여건에서 자라는 유색인 아이들은

자랄 수록 자신들이 성공하기 힘들다는 것을 알아채고

일찌감치 백인들의 성공루트인 소위 '정상적인' 학업과 성공을 포기한다.

대신에 저들 나름대로 살아갈 방도를 마련한다.

그러나 사회는 이를 용납하지 않고 그들 역시 그 사회에서 생존하려 하는 한 고난일 뿐이다.

 

멘토링은 이런 아이들에게도 작지만 구체적이고 실질적인 도움을 줄 수 있다. 

나아가 도움이 되고 안 되고를 떠나서

배려와 연대, 나눔, 기여, 고통을 나눠갖기..와 같은 중요한 가치를 지닌다는 점에서

나는 이 프로그램에 의미를 둔다.  

 

(조금 긴 연설이다. 그러나 영어공부 삼아 들어보시길..  오바마 대통령을 소개하는 청년의 연설도 훌륭하지만

특히 오바마의 연설은 언제나 훌륭한 문장과 카리스마있는 분명한 강조, 감동적인 내용, 유머들로 영어공부 하기에 좋다.)

 

  

▶ 오바마 대통령은 미국에서 흑인 남학생들이 학업적으로 성공하기가 어렵다는 것은 자명한 사실이지만 학교와 사회가 이를 고려하고 있지 않다고 지적함. 한편, 조사 결과, 4학년 학생 중 영어 읽기가 수월하지 못한 흑인 남학생은 86% 정도, 백인 남학생은 58%인 것으로 나타남. 또한, 살인 피해자를 될 가능성이 흑인 남학생이 백인 남학생보다 6배나 이상 높은 것으로 나타났으며, 20세 이상의 흑인 남자는 12% 이상이 무직이라고 함. 전문가들도 미국에서 흑인 남학생이 학업에 집중하거나 성공하기가 굉장히 어렵다고 지적함

   

▶ 이에 대통령은 어려운 환경의 학생들을 도와주기 위해 재계의 대표들과 정부 관계자들이 함께 새로운 교육개혁인 "My Brother's Keeper"를 시행할 예정이며, 이를 위해 2억 달러를 5년 동안 투자하기로 함. 이번 개혁은 흑인 남학생들과 같이 어려운 환경에 있는 학생들이 인생에서 성공할 수 있도록 도와줄 수 있는 교육개혁 프로그램 개발에 초점이 맞추어져 있음. 특히 프로그램 측정 및 평가에 대한 연구에 투자를 통해 주와 지역의 리더들이 지역구에 가장 적합한 프로그램을 도입할 수 있도록 지원하겠다고 함. 또한, 한발 더 나아가 어려운 환경의 학생들에게 효과적인 교수학습 및 행동개선 프로그램을 찾기 위해서도 노력하겠다고 함

   

▶ 첫 임기 동안 오바마 대통령은 논란이 있는 인종과 관련된 정책에 소극적이었지만 선거에 더 이상 연연해 하지 않아도 되는 지금은 다양한 인종 관련 정책을 내놓고 있으며, 그 효과에 대해서는 지켜볼 필요가 있음

 

 

기사 원문

Huffington Post(2014.2.27.)

 

My Brother's Keeper: A New White House Initiative to Empower Boys and Young Men of Color

 

 

Posted: 02/27/2014

 

필자: Valerie Jarrett : Senior Advisor to the President and Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls (백악관 대통령 고문, 여성과 소녀들에 관한 위원회 회장)

 

Today, from the East Room of the White House, President Obama will launch a new effort aimed at empowering boys and young men of color, a segment of our society which too often faces disproportionate challenges and obstacles to success. These obstacles are found in our schools, our communities, our criminal justice system, our families, and even in the minds of our young people themselves. The president is committed to build a broad coalition of backers to help break down barriers, clear pathways to opportunity, and reverse troubling trends which show too many of our boys and young men of color slipping through the cracks in our society.

 

To launch the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative, the president will be joined by local and national leaders in philanthropy, business, government, faith communities, and media. The challenges facing boys and young men of color are broad and multidimensional, and so must be the team we bring to the table to begin fostering solutions.

 

On hand today will be General Colin Powell, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Adam Silver, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Congressman Ruben Hinojosa, Magic Johnson, and many more leaders from key national and regional philanthropic foundations and major businesses, all of whom understand what is at stake with this effort. When we let this many boys and young men fall behind -- we are crippling our ability to reach our full potential as a nation.

 

For decades, opportunity has disproportionately lagged behind for boys and young men of color -- particularly in our African American and Latino communities. As recently as 2013, only 14 percent of black boys and 18 percent of Hispanic boys scored proficient or above on the 4th grade reading component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress compared to 42 percent of white boys and 21 percent of black and Hispanic girls. Youth who cannot read "proficiently" by third grade are four times less likely to graduate high school by 19.

 

By the time students have reached 9th grade, 42 percent of black male students have been suspended or expelled during their school years, compared to 14 percent of white male students. While black youth account for 16 percent of the youth population, they represent 28 percent of juvenile arrests, and 37 percent of the detained population. While just over 6 percent of the overall population, black males of all ages accounted for 43 percent of murder victims in 2011.

 

The fraction of young men not working or enrolled in school is nearly twice as high for blacks than whites. Those neither working nor in school are not building the skills and experience needed to ensure their ability to succeed later in life.

 

Across the country, communities are developing and implementing promising and proven approaches to help put our young people on paths to opportunity and success. Using intensive tutoring, the Becoming A Man program and the University of Chicago are demonstrating that dramatic improvements in math performance can be cost effectively made with middle school boys in Chicago.

 

The Miami public school system is serving thousands of students in dozens of schools with targeted interventions to lower dropout rates.

 

Restorative Justice programs used in Los Angeles contributed to a 38 percent reduction in suspensions, cutting black student suspensions in half.

 

In New York, the Young Men's Initiative is validating the significant impacts the ASAP program is having on the college persistence rates of African American and Latino young men. These efforts are cause not only for hope, but for a renewed sense of urgency. As we learn more about what works, our resolve to act now must strengthen. This initiative is about building on successes and promising ideas in the field by testing, implementing, and scaling-up strategies which have been shown to have the greatest impact at key moments in these boys' lives.

 

A New Presidential Task Force to Expand Opportunity

 

President Obama will sign a Presidential Memorandum today, establishing the My Brother's Keeper Task Force, an interagency effort, chaired by the Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary Broderick Johnson, that will help us determine what public and private efforts are working and how to expand upon them.

 

The Task Force will work across executive departments and agencies to:

 

•Assess and suggest improvements to Federal policies, regulations, and programs that apply to boys and young men of color.

•Create an Administration-wide "What Works" online portal to disseminate programs and practices that improve outcomes for boys and young men of color, while promoting incentives for private and public entities to develop and adopt strategies that have been proven to be effective.

•Develop a comprehensive public website, to be maintained by the Department of Education, that will assess, on an ongoing basis, critical indicators of life outcomes for boys and young men of color in absolute and relative terms.

•Recommend to the President means for ensuring this effort is sustained for years to come within government and across public and private sectors.

Key Investments by Leading Foundations and Businesses

 

The foundations supporting today's call to action have already made extensive investments, including $150 million in current spending that they have already approved or awarded. Building on that, today these foundations are announcing that over the next five years they seek to invest at least $200 million, alongside additional investments from their peers in philanthropy and the business community, to find and rapidly spread solutions that have the highest potential for impact in key areas.

 

The foundations will work over the next 90 days to design a strategy and infrastructure for coordination of these investments, which can be aligned with additional commitments from a diverse array of actors from other sectors.

 

This is just the start of an effort that will continue to build over the coming months and years. When research clearly shows us a problem that needs fixing, it is our responsibility as leaders to band together to start implementing solutions. When we do - we will not only see better outcomes for boys and young men of color, we will see the entire country begin to fulfill its full potential.

 

 

다음 주소에서 더 많은 관련기사들을 볼 수 있다.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/search.php/?q=my+brothers+keeper&s_it=header_form_v1