|
|
Vice Mayor Greg Stanton's
My Turn Column
The Arizona Republic
March 15, 2003
City of Phoenix: Partnering to Improve Education
Education -- it is on everyone's mind and it must be everyone's business. Each person who cares about the future of our community knows improving education is the single most important ingredient to promote our economic vitality and improve our quality of life.
To accomplish this goal, parents, educators, cities, business, community and faith leaders must make a long-term commitment. As Phoenix vice mayor and chair of the City Council Education Subcommittee, it is my responsibility to ensure that the city of Phoenix reaches out to our schools to be the very best education partner possible.
Though the city does not operate schools, we play a critical role in education. Despite our difficult economic times, Phoenix remains committed to youth development. Our $65 million annual investment in education and youth development includes:
- Dropout Prevention and Recovery. Recently, Raul Cardenas, Jr. and I co-chaired the Graduate Phoenix Task Force, which examined how Phoenix can better help schools reduce the dropout rate. One part of the solution is dropout recovery. We organized two phone banks with Univision, Channel 33 to encourage dropouts to return to school. We have created a dropout recovery resource book for city employees who work with at-risk youth and we are developing a long-term strategic plan for youth development in Phoenix. Finally, we are working closely with schools and the court system with a comprehensive truancy prevention program.
- Keeping Kids Safe on the Way to School. We have implemented the recommendations of the Phoenix School Safety Task Force, including improved training and protective gear for school crossing guards. We have increased our investment in school zone speeding cameras. This ensures that drivers who endanger children are more likely to be caught and severely penalized. Finally, we are working closely with school officials in developing "Safest Route to School" plans, so parents will know the most secure route for their children to travel to and from school.
- Keeping Kids Safe and Productive After School. After school hours are the time when youth are more likely to get in trouble. Consequently, we now offer after school programs at more than 150 sites throughout the city. These programs provide youth with constructive, supervised activities during this critical time. We continually investigate opportunities to make our after-school programs more enriching for kids and recently began arts programs at some after school sites, emphasizing visual and performing arts. We discovered arts improved school attendance because it gave the children who participated new interests outside the classroom.
- Keeping Kids Safe at School. If students don't feel safe, they cannot fully concentrate and may not even attend school. For this reason, the city has police officers in 84 schools. The city hires, trains and places officers on school campuses to work on campus safety, truancy, law-related education, homeland security and other related issues. This relationship is a win-win for our police and our schools. It allows youth and police officers to build strong relationships and creates a safe environment on campus.
- Helping Kids Learn to Read. Reading is the cornerstone for education. If children can't read, they won't succeed and may not stay in school. Phoenix has one of the best public library systems in the country with successful teen centers in the libraries where teens can work on computers, listen to music, watch videos, do homework and, yes -- READ.
- Helping Higher Education. Leading genomics scientists from around the world will relocate to Phoenix due to our strategic investment in the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). These scientists will partner with Arizona colleges and universities, resulting in more research dollars flowing into our community. This important investment will help improve the academic reputation of each institution, and will make our university system even more attractive to top students.
I am proud of our role in continually improving education in our community and the city of Phoenix will always strive to be a great education partner. We are all in this together.
Greg Stanton is Phoenix Vice Mayor, chairs the City Council Education Subcommittee and practices education law at Gust Rosenfeld, P.L.C.
Last modified on
|
|
|
| | |
| Related
Links |
 |
|
|
