Unequal access to educational opportunities in the United States has helped to create a poverty trap from which it is difficult to escape. In this episode, Dr. Chuck Dziuban and Harris Rosen join us to discuss a remarkable program that demonstrates how students and communities can flourish when educational barriers are eliminated.
Chuck is the Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the University of Central Florida (UCF) where he has been a faculty member since 1970, teaching research design and statistics. He is also the founding director of the university’s Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Harris Rosen is the owner of several large hotels in Orlando and a philanthropist who has invested heavily in the Tangelo Park and Parramore school systems.
Show Notes
- Charles Dziuban’s bio
- Harris Rosen’s Bio
- Tangelo Park Program – The website of the Tangelo Park Program. Of particular interest is the “our results” page and the slide show illustrating the results.
- Charles Dziuban’s talking points about this program
- A PowerPoint slideshow about the project.
- RosenGivesBack.com – A website describing the work of the Rosen Foundations.
- Economic Policy Institute. “Tangelo Park Program (Orlando Florida): A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.”
- Lochner, L. (2010). Measuring the impacts of the Tangelo Park project on local residents. University of Western Ontario.
- Smalley, S. Y., & Reyes-Blanes, M. E. (2001). Reaching out to African American parents in an urban community: A community-university partnership. Urban Education, 36(4), 518-533.
Transcript
John: Unequal access to educational opportunities in the United States has helped to create a poverty trap from which it is difficult to escape. In this episode, we explore a remarkable program that demonstrates how students and communities can flourish when educational barriers are eliminated.
[MUSIC]
John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.
Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…
John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.
Rebecca: Together, we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.
[MUSIC]
John: Our guests today are Dr. Chuck Dziuban and Harris Rosen. Chuck is the Director of the Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness at the University of Central Florida (UCF) where he has been a faculty member since 1970, teaching research design and statistics. He is also the Founding Director of the university’s Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Harris Rosen is the owner of several large hotels in Orlando and a philanthropist who has invested heavily in the Tangelo Park and Parramore school systems.
Welcome.
Chuck: Thank you.
Harris: Yes, welcome. Thank you.
John: Are teas today are:
Harris: I have the blueberry and it’s caffeine free. That’s what I drink: blueberry tea, caffeine free.
Rebecca: Yum.
Chuck: and I have orange spice.
Harris: …and is it okay if I put a little honey in it? [LAUGHTER]
Rebecca: You have our permission for sure.
Chuck: Thank you.
Harris: Thank you so much.
Rebecca: I’m drinking royal English breakfast today,
John: I’m drinking Tazo Refresh Mint tea today. The first program that you worked on was the Tangelo Park Community school program that began in 1993. And the more recent preschool program was instituted in the Parramore Community schools. Could you tell us about the origin first of the Tangelo Park program?
Harris: Yes, well, we go all the way back to 1993. And I remember, very vividly, sitting in my office and thinking about how incredibly fortunate I’d been… from New York City’s Lower East Side to college, in the army, and then ultimately working for Disney, and then after Disney purchasing a tiny little motel here in Central Florida. And at that point of time, in 1993, the owner of five hotels with my sixth under construction… and planning and dreaming about another property, a resort property they I always dreamed about having. And it occurred to me that I’ve been blessed beyond anything I ever imagined. And that a voice said to me, “Harris, it’s time for you to offer a helping hand to those in need and to say thank you, God.” And so I thought about that for a while, and I remember growing up in New York. My mom would be very, very strict with my brother and myself in terms of doing homework and getting good grades, indicating that if we did well, one day we wouldn’t live in the neighborhood we lived. And the neighborhood we lived in was between the East River, Little Italy, the Bowery, and Chinatown. Not exactly a gated community. And so my brother and I certainly dreamt one day that we wouldn’t be living there. And so, here I was sitting at my desk with all of the things that have occurred in my life being so incredibly blessed. So, I called a couple of friends of mine, because education was something that was always very important growing up, Bill Stone and Sarah Sprinkle. Sarah, an early childhood expert; Bill, a Principal of one of the top high schools here in Orlando. And we met several days later, and I said, “I want to do something that has to do with education. What do I do? I can give college scholarships. If you think that’s probably the answer.” But the answer was a little bit more complex. It was “Let’s put together a program that is a little bit different, Harris. Let’s create a preschool program for 2-, 3-, and 4-year olds and then let’s offer fellowships, complete scholarships, for those who are accepted to either college or community college, or perhaps a vocational school. And I said, “God, that sounds beautiful. That sounds really simple. Let’s think about doing it.” And so we thought about it. And we ultimately decided that all we really needed was a community. And so I called Orange County Commission. And I spoke to Commissioner Mabel Butler. And I said, “Mabel, this is where I am right now with a thought, all I need is a neighborhood, an underserved community.” She said “I’ll be right over.” I said “Really?” [LAUGHTER] She said “Yup, I’ve got something in mind.” And she did. She came right over, then drove me to a community not too far from my office. And she said, “Harris, welcome to Tangelo Park.” I said, “Well, wonderful.” And she said, “Well, not wonderful. This community is under siege. It is in terrible, terrible straits. Crime is out of control. Drug abuse is absolutely outrageous. Teachers that teach here at the Tangelo Park Elementary School have to leave with security. As soon as classes are over, they’re not permitted to stay.” I said, “Oh my God, that’s awful.” But she said “The neighborhood wants to change. And that’s a good thing.” So I was introduced to some of the neighborhood individuals, and I just introduced myself as who I was without going into any detail. And then I was introduced to the Principal of the elementary school, Bob Allen. And I shared with Bob what I had in mind. He said, “Harris, look, let’s have a neighborhood meeting, and you share with the neighborhood what it is that you have in mind.” And I said, “Fine.” So, several days later, I was asked to go back to Tangelo, which I did, and there were about maybe 100 people there at the meeting, and I indicated what it was that I had in mind, and the reception was not what I had anticipated. People, I think, just didn’t understand what the program was, but they were wondering “If I have a child that 16 or 17, I guess he or she won’t be able to take advantage of this scholarship, but if they’re 2, by the time they’re 17 they’ll be able to go to college for free.” And I thought that that might be something that was puzzling them. And I said, “Well wait… in June, those youngsters of yours who are in college, I will pay everything. Those of you who have youngsters in high school and are graduating and are contemplating college, community college, or vocational school, I’ll take care of everything.” Well, the place went crazy. [LAUGHTER] And that was the beginning of the Tangelo Park program. We’ve been doing Tangelo Park now for 26 years. And Chuck can give you all of the data in terms of how many kids we’ve sent to college, what the graduation rates are, what the return on investment is, all of that stuff, but that was it. It wasn’t complicated. In the army, we learned K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid) and we kept the program simple at Tangelo. We had a challenge because we didn’t know where to put the preschool, because the Tangelo Park Elementary School certainly was not able to accommodate a preschool. So we drove around the neighborhood and spoke with individuals who owned homes (they were all single-family homes), and we asked them if they might mind if we converted a little part of their home into a tiny little preschool accommodating about six children. And we would pay for all of the refurbishing, provide all of the material, and they would be certified, we would certify them as certified caregivers. Well, within a very short period of time, we had 10 volunteers. So, we had 10 little preschools, and that was the beginning of the Tangelo Park program. Boy, that was a long babble, wasn’t it?
John: That’s wonderful.
Rebecca: No, it’s a great story.And I really love the idea that it bookends. We tend to think about interventions being K-12. But it’s interesting that the intervention is really a before school, and then after K-12. Can you talk a little bit about some of the results that you’ve seen by having the interventions at this early stage
Harris: Before Chuck will provide you with all of those details, you mentioned preschool two, three, and four. What we have discovered, and I think it’s fairly common knowledge now, the brain develops more in 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year olds and then at anytime else in their lives. So, Isn’t it wonderful to begin education then to what a wonderful advantage these youngsters have in kindergarten, and elementary school, and middle school, and high school, and in college. And so that’s why we decided to do 2, 3, 4 programs, because it’s a perfect time to do it.
Rebecca: I have a two year old so I deeply understand what you mean. [LAUGHTER] She’s rich in learning everything. She’s in preschool and you can just see her brain exploding with new information and new ideas. She’s a sponge.
Harris: I had four for a while, a five-, a four-, a three-, and a one-year old. So, I know what you’re talking about. [LAUGHTER]
Chuck: Let me just review. I just love to hear Harris tell story. To be clear, in Tangelo, it starts at two years of age. quality education begins at two years of age, three years of age, four years of age, pre K, all the way through school that begins. But, all the way through the system, these children in Tangelo are supported. They get support all the way through the school. They start with a tremendous advantage coming into kindergarten. They come in and in many cases reading. It’s just a marvelous kind of experience. But, we also have a program in Tangelo for years where we work with the parents…. parent leadership… help them become advocates and help them learn how to become leaders in the school, help them how to negotiate with the school on their children’s behalf. Oftentimes these parents would go in and confront. That’s not the way to do it. The way is to learn how the school operates and then advocate for their children. Then, all the way through, we have a counselor at the high school who works with the children all the way through… prepares them for college… and the results are really amazing. So, they begin to prepare for college. We have an alumni association: students who have graduated from college and come back.. work in the community… and are activists. To be clear, not every student has to go to college. Harris pays for many other things. They can go to community college, they can choose to go to the military, God bless them. And if they want to go to vocational school and learn a productive trade, there is support for that as well, so they have lots of options. We understand that college is not for everyone. Given those kinds of things, given those bookends, as you said, Rebecca, the results are nothing short of amazing. Now I’ll say this about Harris, in the early years, he didn’t want to collect any data. And then what began to happen is people began to notice the program. And then they began asking for data. So, Harris said to me at one time, “Chuck, we need data.” So, we have data.
Let me give you some of the data. We know that the children both in Parramore and Tangelo are making tremendous cognitive gains from two to four years of age. They’re also learning things like executive function, how to control their anger, how to work in groups, all of the kinds of social skills that they need to function well in groups and work with college. They’re also learning social-emotional skills, how to communicate their feelings. So all of these wrap up around in this early childhood program. Now, 26 years ago in Tangelo, we reckon (as best we can tell) the graduation rate in high school from Tangelo was about 60%. Today, it’s 100%. Virtually every child within Tangelo graduates from high school. We’ll talk about the impact of that financially in just a minute. So, from 60% to 100% graduation. Now, if they choose to go to college, they can go either to community college and through our direct connect program move on to a State University of Florida college. And you have to listen very carefully to this. Mobility rates have gone down greatly in Tangelo. They used to move away, now they don’t. So, those children who are eligible, they just don’t move away. Those children who remain in Tangelo and are eligible for the college scholarship, graduate at a rate of 78% from college. Caveat, they remain in the community. Think about this. Because I’ll tell you right now, the national data show that if a student lives in the lowest economic quartile in this country, the chance of their graduating from college is 10%. The odds against them are 10 to 1. That’s unacceptable. And Harris will tell you, we are wasting millions of minds In this country, we raise that to 78%. Even if all the kids, even the kids who don’t graduate from college, they have college exposure, all the data shows they make more money in their lives than if they’ve never ended college at all. Crime rate in Tangelos is down 78%.
Harris: Correct.
Chuck: That is nothing short of amazing. Harris will talk to you about that as well. But preschool, college graduation, high school graduation, success in college has tremendous impact. So Tangela was fixed, in a way. My kids are older, they’d graduated, I’d move into Tangelo for the scholarship. Why not? Rebecca, move to Tangelo. [LAUGHTER] Your kids have a scholarship. So, that’s the general picture. John and Rebecca, have your listeners contact me. I will send anyone in the country all the data… the data, they are compelling. That’s what I have.
Rebecca: One of the things that you were mentioning is related to a lot of our previous episodes about first-generation college students and the lack of support networks that they might have or not knowledge about how to negotiate school institutions like college, but also their high schools to get the resources and things you need. So, I really love that your program includes educating the parents and supporting the parents and learning how to navigate those systems, especially if they’re not familiar.
Chuck: Well, sooner or later, you should ask him how much he‘s spending on this. [LAUGHTER] Because it is a bargain of the century. But, what we noticed in Tangelo to expenditures, preschool and college scholarship at the beginning of the program, most of the expenditure was for college scholarship, and then it crossed over. And Harris became concerned. He was saying “What’s going on here?” …and what’s going on here is, as the students know how to negotiate the system, they’re getting other scholarships. So the Rosen scholarship becomes a safety net. If they don’t get a scholarship, he pays the full ride, but they’re getting other scholarships because they know how to operate the system. They work with the counselor, there are transitions of all kinds.
Harris: Yeah, I must confess that I was really quite concerned. All of a sudden, I’m looking at data…. I can now pronounce that correctly, right? It’s not data [said with a soft “a”], it’s data [said with a hard “a”], [LAUGHTER] and I’m looking at data and I’m looking at a line that’s declining… a line that previously was skyrocketing. And I was like, “Oh, my God, we’re failing.” No! Grade point averages in high school have skyrocketed from let’s say, 2.00 to 3.7. And these youngsters are qualifying for so many other scholarships. Rosen, you have become a safety net. And that’s actually what happened. Now, there’s one thing that Chuck mentioned that I can touch upon, crime in the neighborhood down almost 80%. Oh, my God. So, about a year ago, I met with Sheriff Demings, and he said, “Harris, I have to tell you something.” “What’s that Sheriff?” He said, “Tangelo Park. We just have to thank you so much. I said ”What have I done?” “Are you kidding, we hardly get any calls over there. We now consider Tangelo Park to be an oasis. There’s less crime in Tangelo Park than there is most of the gated communities here in Central Florida. Thank you.” Amazing, isn’t it?
Chuck: One more thing about data. I love data. John knows I love data. [LAUGHTER] People ask the wrong questions, or ask the wrong metric. And here’s the question they ask: “How many graduated from high school? How many scholarships did you give? How many went to college?” How many graduated, divide.” The wrong metric. Let me tell you, given where Tangelo was of the 500 or more college scholarships that were awarded, the expectation would have been 45 college graduates. You know how many we have? 154. We have increased the probability of graduating from college in Tangelo Park by 300%. We have produced 216 college degree. Why? Because they’re getting multiple degrees. We have 26 graduate degrees. So, what they do is they they get an Associates, they get a bachelors, they get a graduate degree. We have doctors, we have lawyers. It is amazing. That is the right thing. You’re offering hope to this community. And when you offer hope, amazing things happen.
Harris: That’s so much positive stuff. But there is a negative component. We’ve been doing this now for 26 years, we spoke to some of the wealthiest individuals in America and some of the largest foundations in America… maybe in the world. Nobody else has replicated the program, despite all of this incredible data. Why? They certainly have the financial resources to do it. We cannot figure that out. Why, why, why, why? Out of complete frustration and because I wanted to continue to do good things, we adopted the Parramore community three years ago, and the same results are forthcoming and yet no one else in the entire United States of America has raised his hand and said: “Rosen, the results are amazing. We have underserved communities in Ohio. We have underserved communities in Chicago. We have underserved communities in Baltimore, we’ll do it.” Why not? I don’t understand. It’s driving me crazy.
Chuck: John and Rebecca, what I like to say is the funding crickets keep chirping in three-0year cycles. You have to understand this is a 26-year commitment. This is not a three-year funded cycle.
Harris: Oh, yeah. And I think Chuck raises a very good point, because I used to foolishly… when people would say, “Harris, how long do we do the program?” I said, “Well, in perpetuity.” I would see them almost wanting to throw up. Well, that’s a long, long time. And so we just say now until the neighbor transforms into perhaps a middle income community, but that might be the obstacle. We don’t know how long we have to do this. And we might have to do it for a very long period of time. How sad it is, though, that that is a hurdle that can’t be overcome.
Chuck: Yeah.
Harris: What is so wonderful about this, is that those individuals who have wealth can benefit. “Rosen, how do they benefit by doing something good.” They have a good feeling. Oh, no, no, no, no. Because every youngster who graduates from high school will earn over his or her lifetime, a half a million dollars more. So, I don’t care what business I’m in in that community, I’m going to benefit from that, right? If I can get all of these youngsters to graduate from high school, they’re all going to be earning a half million dollars more over a lifetime. They’ll come into my store and buy stuff, or they will avail themselves of the service I provide. And the United States of America is a beneficiary. Because for every dollar we have provided, and I think it’s about $16, $17 million so far, society receives a return on investment of $7. So we if we invest a a million, it’s $7 million; if we invest $100 million, It’s $700 million. My God, what a wonderful investment is that if you’re in business, if you’re in the private sector, and yet not enough to persuade people to say “we’ll hop on board.”
Chuck: And this 7 to 1 is not off of the top of our head. We hired an economist from the University of Chicago to do a return on investment study of Tangelo and he came back with a conservative estimate of $7 put back to society for every one that is invested in Tangelo and Parramore. So, the thing that’s a side effect that we’ve just begun to figure out is the economic impact of this philanthropy is tremendous. We were always working around, this is the right thing to do. But now we discovered amazing things that there are 1.2 million students who do not graduate from high school; they drop out every year. If we created a program that allowed them to graduate each year we would add $10 billion to the United States economy. Those are facts. The reduction in crime would be astounding. There is a huge economic impact of the Tangelo model. It’s not just the right thing to do. It will change the economy of this country. It costs far less to educate a student than it does to incarcerate them.
Harris: What is so amazing is this. It’s almost as if God is watching us and is tormented as we are by the lack of others to hop on board. And he said: “Maybe we have to change the equation, guys. Maybe instead of it just being a completely philanthropic initiative, we could infuse some economic benefits also.” Oh really God, economic benefits. My God. That’s amazing. A half a million dollars they graduate from high school, add another 200,000 maybe a million dollars of graduate from college, depending on the degree… crime will evaporate and save billions and billions and billions of dollars. The return on investment is seven to one. So, if you invest a bit and we as a society get back 7 billion and we’re doing something really good. Isn’t that the perfect, perfect, perfect scenario? Excuse me, I get a little bit excited about that.
Chuck: He does.
Rebecca: So, I’ll say it sounds pretty good to me. One of the discussions that happens a lot in K-12 and also in college settings is about diversifying student bodies and bringing underrepresented groups to college and then, of course, transforming different disciplines as a result… like careers and fields. And it seems like if we can get kids that would normally be in college to college that starts to actually solve or address some of those problems or those things that we really want to accomplish in higher ed and really in our society writ large.
Harris: So, this really is, if there is a perfect kind of philanthropy, this is perfect. Look at the wonderful things we’re doing. Yes. And I’m not patting myself on the back. It does accomplish some wonderful things. In addition to that, the private sector, the United States of America is the beneficiary. Look, if I were president of the United States of America, I would invite some of the wealthiest individuals in America and I would invite Harris and Chuck and some other people Lance Lochner and I’d say “Guys, talk about your program because we have people here who can hop on board in a heartbeat… people here from Baltimore, from Detroit, from Chicago. We want them to do as you guys have done and guess what? They will benefit from this also.” That’s my dream.
Chuck: We want your dream to come true. We believe, deep in our hearts, that the talent pool in our underserved communities is as deep as any gated community in this country. We know it. We’ve seen it all of the time. And the things that you say, Rebecca, are absolutely true. We have to reform our universities to understand better how to deal with more diversity. We have to help these students when they get to college. We’ve heard lots of things about these students as they come on to college campuses. It’s just not walking onto a campus and succeeding. They need support all the way through. You know what? I love Oswego. By the way, these people are sitting where I went to school, I went to school in Oswego, and you just bury yourself in snow. [LAUGHTER] But, you’re right. We’ve gotta support from that two-year old program all the way through, and then we’ve got to pay it forward. But we can’t understand and I said this again, and I’d love to do it again. The funding cricket keeps chirping in three-year cycle, you cannot fund for three years. It will not work. It cannot work. You’ve got to stay with it. Think about this… 7 to 1. And it’s only a conservative estimate. And now we’re going to put together an economic package. The data we have are astounding. We have some data that suggests that 75% of high school dropouts commit crimes. You can’t have it.
Harris: This is not very complicated. Not very complicated at all. If we can convince wealthy individuals and foundations throughout America, to do what we’ve done, adopt underserved communities… if we can make sure that every underserved community in America has a preschool component, and every single one of those youngsters stay in high school until they graduate, we will change America, one underserved community at a time. And we will not recognize what we have become: the perfect nation in the world.
Chuck: Yes, you can see, he’s not very passionate about this. [LAUGHTER] I want to repeat, I have all the data. It is clear, it is compelling. Please have your people contact you, I will send them the data, the return on investment study, any videos they want. And when you hear the testimony of these young people, how their lives have changed, it makes you want to weep.
Harris: And so Chuck,, we can invite them to Parramore and Tangelo Park.
Chuck: …anybody who wants to come.
Harris: You would not believe what you see. Two-, three- and four-year olds reading! …enthusiastic about school… can’t wait until they finish high school and go to college. It’s amazing, transforming these underserved communities by infusing hope. That’s all that we’re doing.
John: And that does require that long-term commitment that you mentioned. Now, you talked a little bit about those preschools. Could you tell us a little bit more about how they were set up? You said they were groups of five or six or five to seven children in each?
Chuck: Yes, the original Tangelo, as Harris said, the school was simply not capable of adding a facility that would be a preschool. But, there was some talk about this in terms of what would you do? How can you get around this program? So, what Harris did is he refitted houses, he trained residents. Now, we had 10 preschool residents who were trained to work with the school system. This is an education, but he was providing employment for them as well. So, he infused an economic component into this preschool kind of thing. And they were wonderful. We have all kinds of videos, you would love it. John and Rebecca, you should come down and sit with these kids… learning, learning, learning… We’ll send you videos, you can see them. But what happened is… we’ve been doing this for 26 years and most of the daycare provider educators are retiring. So, the natural thing to do is Harris simply build facilities in the new school. We have a set up now where we have two facilities. The preschool program was just wonderful. It was wonderful because it was in homes. The parents knew the providers, they trusted the providers. They were in the community, so if the parents who were little late getting home to pick up the kids, it was no big deal. It was a perfect, perfect scenario for the community at the time. And the new school in Parramore is phenomenal. It is just amazing. Because the model was like going into schools and houses in Tangelo, it is now built so every classroom looks like you’re going into a home. It’s amazing.
Harris: And that is something that we learned from Tangelo Park that the youngsters just loved the home environment. They did so beautifully. They were tranquil and they were eager to learn and the caregivers were so wonderful. So, we said: “Now in Parramore, how do we recreate that feeling?” If you come down and visit the Parramore preschool, you will not believe it. It’s almost as though you’re entering a beautiful area with little homes throughout, because each school room has a door that looks like a home door with a little mailbox next to it and you walk in, and it looks like a little part of a home. And we have preserved the integrity of the six to one. We have 12 youngsters, two teachers… two caregivers… and it works beautifully. So, we can replicate it. You don’t need to have that home, you can replicate the environment and the feeling. And we’ve done that.
Rebecca: It just sounds like the next step in maturing that idea.
Chuck: Oh, absolutely. We have talked to experts all over the country. And we know without a doubt that this education has to begin early. Our adage is “the first year of college begins at two years of age.”
John: There’s a lot of research suggesting that. I know in economics, that’s where most of the cognitive differences start to show up in test performance. That’s an ideal time to start it.
Chuck: John, I forgot you’re an economist. We’ll have you come down and do the next return on investment study. [LAUGHTER]
Harris: The United Negro College Fund… I think Chuck touched on this… says “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” We’re too great a nation to be wasting minds. We can do better than that. Preschool, and then the college scholarship program…, but make sure preschool and then high school graduation. That’s the key component. College… not required. Wonderful, but preschool and high school graduation… focus laser lik on that.
Rebecca: It’s clear where folks who could fund projects like this into the equation. What role do you see educators or higher education playing in advocating for programs like this or helping propel initiatives like this forward?
Chuck: Well, I can speak from the university’s side because I’ve represented the University of Central Florida 26 years and I can see that universities in many ways are going to have to change the way we do business. One, you need to ask about the organization of the Tangelo Park program. There is none. What we do is we make a decision every month in the community board meeting. That’s all there is. There’s no chart , no organizational chart. There are no CEOs, nobody is paid. We’re all volunteers. Harris provides the support that’s necessary, but it is the right thing to do. And it really puts organizations off because it’s so…. What did he use the term? K.I.S.S. That’s what it is. It’s very simple. It’s very informal. It’d be interesting for you to see Harris as the treasurer for the board. And his report is “I paid the bills, end of report.” [LAUGHTER] But the notion is, therefore then Rebecca, there’s no overhead. You know what I mean about grants in colleges and universities. Every dime goes to the program. So, universities are going to have to really change how they look at their notion of philanthropy. Our notion is to go to a foundation in the program and take our cut. There’s no cut in there. And then we’re working a great deal with adaptive learning. I did a podcast for you on adaptive learning. If you put a kid in college algebra for one semester, there’s going to be a difference in how much each of them learns. We have to rethink the way we deliver education. There’s no question. You can’t take a kid from Tangelo and put them in college and give them 21 hours, it’s the wrong thing to do. They have to acclimate to higher education.
Harris: So, we have been asked on occasion why, when we’re asked about the public sector, we say no. My understanding is that government now is about… is it 22… 23 trillion in the hole. They can’t afford to do anything like this. I’m a little guy, but our little company has no debt. I can afford to do this. There are thousands and thousands of thousand people like me out there. I want them to get off their tush. I want them to listen to what it is that we have to say, ask for whatever material or information they want, step out of their office, take a look at their neighborhood, find an underserved community and do what we’ve done. Now, I must confess that early on, 23 years ago, I wasn’t sure if the public school system would be able to do the job. They have done a brilliant job. I am so proud of them. We don’t need private schools, we can do it within the public school system. And what happens is when the teachers see these youngsters start school at two and enter kindergarten already reading and writing and knowing colors and numbers and everything, they’re motivated. And when they know that these youngsters will all graduate from high school, and some of them will go on to college and not have to pay a penny. So when they’re sitting around with their friends in college, and inevitably that conversation is “How much money do you owe?” and our kids silently smile. They don’t owe a penny. So, government doesn’t have to be involved. The public school system can do it. We, the private sector, might have to help with the preschool component, as we did. But, aside from that, let the private sector do what the private sector should do support this wonderful program.
Chuck: The lessons that have been learned, there is no question that this has worked. The lesson that is learned is that there is no question that it can be replicated in hundreds of communities across the country. We have people all over the country doing pieces of it: preschool programs, scholarships, but we have yet to have someone put the entire program together somewhere. We don’t give up. We’re going to keep trying. And I’m going to emphasize again, I have all the data, we have a template. If somebody wants to learn how to do Tangelo, we have it. We have everything. So, the lesson that we have learned is that we do have hope. We have so many stories we could tell you, but I know we’re getting to the end of the time.
John: I seem to remember in some of the documentation, some estimate of the cost per student. Do you have that offhand.
Chuck: I think it’s about $5000? Isn’t it?
Harris: Yeah, probably around that, yes?
Chuck: Yeah, probably around $5,000. Yeah.
Harris: I guess it’s something that I should know, but I really don’t… [LAUGHTER] We’ll get the number for you, but it’s close to $5,000.
Chuck: I have an interesting story, though, with the preschool. Harris has a graduation… preschool. When the students finish preschool, they have caps and gowns. They have a commencement ceremony, and Harris invites them to turn their tassels from the right to the left. And we do this by every preschool graduation. And I was in Parramore, and there were hundreds of students graduating and Harris said, “How long is this going to go on? He was flipping tassels. But, then at the end, a woman came up to me and said, “Thank you, this is wonderful.” “You’re welcome. Did you have a student graduating?” She said, “”No, I just live in Parramore, and I wanted to see.” That’s what this program does. It unites and supports and codifies the community. But it takes time.
Rebecca: So, you’ve already done so much. What are you going to do next? [LAUGHTER]
Chuck: We’re going to have you do a wonderful edit of this. It’s going to be broadcast all around the country, and we’re going to find someone else to do it.
John: That would be wonderful.
Chuck: That would be great.
Harris: That would be wonderful.
Chuck: Go Lakers.
John: Go Knights.
Rebecca: Thank you so much for sharing your story and your program with us today.
Harris: Thank you so much.
Chuck: Thank you so much. Have a good day.
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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.
Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.