Outdoor School has been one of the most beloved and memorable educational experiences for many Oregonians for years. Unfortunately it is often also one of the most hatcheted items in school budgets. During the last few years many Outdoor Schools have bit the dust because of budget cuts.
If we could get Outdoor School endowment accounts set up that would not be subject to district or state economic ups and downs but from which each year's Outdoor School could be at least partially supported from the interest from the endowment fund, then we would perhaps be able to sustain the Outdoor School over a long period of time. For example, in my district the ODS for 80-100 6th graders is about $18,000. $4000 of that is paid by parent fees, PTO and a few local groups add about another $1000, and the district had for about 40 years paid the rest. Last year the district was only able to pay $7000 of the remaining amount and we were very fortunate to get a grant for $7000. This year the district does not expect to pay that amount nor do we know if similar grants will be available. This uncertainty in financing makes many districts and parents and teachers give up from weariness of trying to constantly raise new funds.
In our district we have been thinking about starting a fund that people could donate to that would not be used right away but would grow over time to eventually be enough to consistently fund ODS through the interest.
However, this would obviously have to be a very large fund to get enough to sustain the program just off of interest.
That is where the MMT could help districts by providing some seed money for districts to start these kinds of long-sustaining accounts.
This might be especially valuable to do with Outdoor Schools that offer Challenge Courses to their students because Challenge Courses teach youth to solve tough problems together, to think outside the box, and to consider other students' ideas and suggestions. This is the kind of teaching that might help keep future Oregonians thinking creatively about how to solve new problems together.

Research has shown that the achievement gap is well entrenched by kindergarten and once children fall behind their chances of catching up are slim. A high-quality early education linked to a strong elementary education is the most promising way to close the gap.

Regrettably, early childhood programs and elementary schools are almost always isolated in practice and policy and rarely, if ever, integrated into a coherent strategy for maximum effectiveness. Moreover, many of the public funding streams focused on health, education and early childhood development are not integrated or aligned for the greatest possible impact and do not fully engage parents.

This has to stop and something new must take its place.

The Children’s Institute (www.childinst.org) is working closely with others to build a blueprint for a new model where the barriers to integration, coordination and quality improvement can be addressed and outcomes will be used to inform decisions at the local, state and federal levels. Our goal is to create an integrated and seamless system of services and supports for children and families that engages community members within an elementary school neighborhood.

Brain science, Pulitzer-prize-winning economic research and common sense have come together to form a rock-solid case for investing early in the lives of children, particularly children living in poverty and other adverse environments. Armed with this knowledge, our shared responsibility is to build an early childhood/early elementary system that will put children on a path to success in school and life.

Preschoolers are expelled at 3x the rate of any other grade in this country due to behavior. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports is a research supported model that promotes young children's social and emotional development in order to ensure more readiness for learning at school age. The ability to work in a group, to solve social problems, and control anger and impulse are skills that are highly valued by not only schools, but employers. As this work starts early, preschools and early childhood is the best time to be teaching these skills. Research by Joyce and Showers also demonstrates that training teachers is not enough. Coaching teachers is essential if we want teachers to change their practices. School age systems are using coaching for both behavior and literacy efforts, however, early childhood in Oregon has no current system to support coaching of teachers. The North West PBIS network is a non-profit based in Oregon that already promotes PBIS across the state through conferences and other activities. This network would be the perfect place to house and help facilitate a coaching center for early childhood PBIS that preschools from around the state could draw from. Many preschools in Oregon have little to no outside support or funds to support teacher improvement and teacher continuing education. A center such as this would be an incredible resource for preschools from around the state to draw from in order to improve services and long term outcomes for children in Oregon.

I have been volunteering in the public schools for years. The last few, I have been mentoring high school and middle school students, in an "Academic Mentoring Program". This year the vice principal at the high school recruited more adult volunteers and I coordinated the program as well as mentored students.

The volunteers work with specific students for one or two hours a week to improve their academic success. We work on organization, motivation, study skills, some tutoring but mostly mentoring - basically we work to help the students that have been falling through the cracks. These students are academically capable, but for many reasons are not academically successful.

My idea is to use this money to fund Academic Mentor Program volunteer coordinators for our middle and high schools in Oregon. This person acts as a liaison for all involved people; teachers, counselors, parents, students and volunteers.

The coordinator gets a referral from a staff member, interviews the student to make sure they are interested, discusses the program with the student's parent for input and buy-in, connects the student with a mentor, and works with the student, mentor and teachers to check on progress. Students get reminders on the days they meet with their mentor, and the coordinator works on making sure that calendar changes (absence, doctor, dentist, vacation, etc.) are communicated to both mentor and student. Also, the coordinator continues to recruit new adult volunteers from the community. The end-of-year feedback from the adult volunteers was almost unanimous in how much easier the coordinator makes things flow.

I believe strongly in this program, and was able to get it started, with additional volunteers, in the middle school the last few weeks of the school year. I truly feel that the more positive adult connections we can make with our students, the better chance they have of finding their way.

Sparing children the trauma of divorce could save Oregon taxpayers millions of dollars each year. A cost-effective program designed to educate parents about preventative measures they can take during divorce to protect their children could diminish the juvenile justice annual tax burden on Oregonians by $10 - 20 million dollars.

Children who endure high-conflict divorces and custody battles between their parents are two to three times more likely to manifest destructive behavioral issues later in life, such as drug abuse, educational under-achievement, teen pregnancy, suicide, juvenile delinquency and persona divorces as adults. In absolute terms, 20-25 percent of these at-risk children will exhibit these behaviors. Now, approximately 30-50 percent of divorce and custody battles qualify as "high-conflict". With about 14,809 children in Oregon feeling the effects of a fresh divorce each year in Oregon, anywhere between 4,500 and 7,500 kids are at an increased risk of this destructive -- and ultimately expensive -- misbehavior.

According to some estimates, Oregon spends over $120 million dollars per year on juvenile justice programs, $100 million of which is related to substance abuse. With approximately 11,000 juvenile offenders per year, Oregonians pay an average of $11,200 in taxes per offender. Multiply that figure by the 4,500-7,500 Oregonian children likely to engage in juvenile delinquency or drug abuse, and you've got a staggering figure of $10 - 20 million dollars that taxpayers will incur. Sparing just one child from the harmful effects of divorce could save the state as much as $11,000. Consider, too, that this figure only accounts for the costs of juvenile delinquency and drug abuse; it doesn't account for the adverse costs of harder-to-quantify behaviors like poor school performance and teen pregnancy, or the unquantifiable costs of suicide.

An educational booklet titled "Putting Children First During Family Conflicts" designed for divorcing parents who lack legal representation for themselves or their children could help parents mitigate these adverse consequences of divorce. This booklet contains proven-effective information and can be distributed for as little as a dollar per book. A targeted distribution program through schools and courthouses could get this information into the hands of every divorcing parent in Oregon and curtail the costly trauma of divorce on children before it begins.

Use the $1million - or even all of the MMT endowment -- to take care of the tens of thousands of neglected, starving, foster, homeless, abused, underage children who suffer disproportionately beyond our imagination.

Any society that treats its children the way we treat our children is doomed to fail regardless of the myriad "charitable" investments that our tax-payors, tax-exempt foundations, corporations, and charitable residents make in part to advance their own financial or social position.

Contemporary philanthropy is outdated. The IRS needs to stop allowing charities to amass so much tax-exempt wealth that is mostly diluted across many investment initiatives such that a foundation like MMT needs to solicit ideas for how to spend what amounts to slightly more than double its executive director's current total compensation.

Oregon’s teenage unemployment is the 3rd highest in the nation at over 31% - a new post-World War II high. The numbers are even worse for low-income and kids of color with some populations facing unemployment above 70%. But not having a job is only part of the problem. Too many teens do not have the skills employers need and in 10 years the Portland area alone will need 50,000 new workers.

Working during the teenage years (16-19) is more than just a paycheck. If you talk to any Oregonian over 45 you are likely to hear about those summers spent picking berries- the early morning bus, the afternoon heat, the lifelong lessons from working hard. Research shows that kids who work are more likely to stay in school and graduate. They better understand the connection between earning and learning, provide more value to employers, and earn more money over the course of their lives.

Last summer, for the first time in 10 years, the federal government made a modest investment in summer jobs for kids. Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than 4,000 low-income Oregon kids got jobs. They earned over $5.5 million and generated almost $8 million in economic impact. A study conducted by Oregon State University of 24 Oregon Counties showed that each dollar Oregon spent in wages for youth last summer resulted in an economic impact of $1.46, and that Oregon’s youth tended to spend their dollars locally, supporting local businesses, themselves and their families, paying off debt and saving for the future.
Connecting these jobs to growth industries, career related learning requirements, credit recovery and remedial/enrichment activities would promote academic and economic success. Existing statewide infrastructure as well as government and private sector investment make this a tremendous partnership and leverage opportunity for MMT.

Soccer is often characterized as the “players’ game,” as its structure emphasizes continuous and sinuous flow with minimal stoppages. Within this game environment, the coach has little opportunity to manage the action. Hence, it is the players’ responsibility to creatively solve their own problems as peers and to do so collectively as a team, all the while under intense competitive pressure and during the swift pace of play. It is often said that the coach’s work comes in training and practice, where-as the game is the players’ time.

When youth soccer operates according to this philosophy, the playful experience of collectively solving problems within a non-hierarchical team format can be an experiential training ground for becoming productive and responsible citizens of a democratic nation. This is in counterpoint to other youth experiences where frequent referral to micro-managing adult supervisors instills a lingering pattern of expectation that problems will be solved by a hierarchical authority figure.

The Do the Math Initiative will use the increasing popularity of youth soccer (number of registered youth soccer players growing each year) and the game structure and philosophy of soccer as a portal to attract youth to receive collateral training in the Ford Institute Leadership Program, with training conducted by Rural Development Initiatives. Emulation of the Dutch-originated and Spain-celebrated “Total Futbol” will enhance the development of leadership within each player, vs. a more common hierarchical, charismatic style of leadership. This Total-Futbol “everyone is a leader’ training and experience will further embed behavior patterns conducive to healthy democracies.

From its close affiliation with soccer, this Initiative will bring to the Ford Institute Leadership Program a drive to include “diversity training and/or cultural competency” in its training curriculum. This is based in the fact that soccer is a global sport and, by definition, is diverse. This will help prepare our children for the increasingly diverse world as the population demographic numbers continue to change—hence, just “do the math” to determine if this Initiative has value.

Building upon the capacity of soccer to attract and focus the attention of our youth, the Do the Math Initiative will also offer soccer-based math curricula. This will use soccer experiences and formats to portray and explain math principles and problems. Further, this Initiative will look to develop soccer video games that provide virtual training on leadership, diversity, mathematics and problem solving.

This Initiative could also explore the potential of developing a public/private partnership between youth soccer and K-12 schools for soccer participation to serve as a component of a young student’s Physical Education requirement.

Teaching youth to save for important elements in their life (sports, education, arts, entrepreneurship) and matching their savings through an Individual Development Account saving plan provides empowering opportunities for youth to change their future. IDA’s teach the concept of saving for the future but also invest in Oregon since participants who meet their savings goal spend the funds in their local communities.
Youth who have little access to support, such as foster youth, low income or homeless teens, may be pessimistic about their future. This would add hope and set them on a positive path. For those youth who have no access to money they could ‘earn’ their match with community service. This engenders a sense of giving to the community and improves optimism.
There are IDA programs for adults but offing matched savings to youth will actively develop positive habits that should carry through a lifetime.

After moving to Oregon recently my wife and I had a tough time finding room in a good daycare, such as one with NAEYC accreditation. Talking to site directors and I concluded that the staff were motivated, but the facilities prevent efficient operation, they can be too small for the number of students required, are not divided into classrooms, and/or lack room for children to run indoors or outdoors. I would like to see a loan program created charging interest at the rate of inflation to offer construction or other improvement loans to improve existing daycare facilities. My wife and I are not familiar with daycare operations and do not work in that industry, but I think by working the site directors for excellent daycare centers you would quickly get a feel for what type of program would be feasible. This would let parents work with much more peace of mind and improve the experience of children at a critical period of learning and growth.