Mayor Nutter will give his first Education Policy Address tomorrow (Thursday Sept. 11, 6:00 p.m., South Philly High). He has outlined two lofty goals: to cut in half Philadelphia’s 45% drop-out rate within 5-7 years and to double the amount of Philadelphians with four year degrees over the next 5-10 years.

These are great goals that families, parents, students, and community members who are advocating and organizing to improve public education can get behind. It is encouraging to see that the mayor is taking on these issues proactively, setting goals, and working with District officials and other elected officials to assert the role of the city in improving public education.

And with such lofty goals as these, it is clear that the mayor will need the support and therefore the buy-in not only of district leadership and elected officials, but of those most directly effected by the crisis in our public education system, the very same people I mentioned above. There are 167,000 public school students in our city, 55,000 of whom are high school students.

If we can trust that Mayor’s goals are not just about what looks good on his watch but what is truly in the best interests of students, parents, and families, then he and other district officials must recognize that these thousands of students and the families they represent must not merely be acted upon through policies and programs, but must themselves become the change agents who are driving the process. In recognizing this I would like to speak on some of the dynamics that arise when young people organize and advocate on their own behalf around public school issues. The points below reflect conversations I have had with youth leaders speaking candidly about the enormous obstacles that they face making their voices heard to elected officials and other leaders, transforming themselves from victims to change agents, reclaiming their education, and taking a stand for self-determination.

When I was a senior in high school, some sort of strange, misplaced ambition made me want to get a job, or maybe go to college, in Washington DC. I think I sent in a resume to Fattah and Brady, and investigated a couple nonprofits. But, my little bubble burst pretty quickly when I realized that all of the available jobs were unpaid.

I was raised in a happy, relaxed middle-class family, with all the privileges that followed. But, there was zero chance that my family could afford to pay for me to live in Washington for a summer without making money. Instead, I stayed in Philly and worked at a Rec Department camp at Awbury Arboretum.

My experience with DC was not unique, nor has much changed. If progressive kids want to work for an org in DC at some point in college, they better be able to support themselves, because they probably are not getting paid. And so, the kids who work in DC, including the ones that stay involved, are not exactly representative of progressive people around the Country. (The conservative movement, of course, makes sure their young people are taken care of, many times paying young people, providing housing, etc.) The story, though not quite as stark, has a lot of lessons for Philly, as well, where many progressive organizations, with little money themselves, expect young people to work for free.

For a while, there was a lot of optimism that progressives understood how underfunded youth programs and unpaid internships hurt our cause. Big donors seemed to realize how badly we were underfunding youth organizing, and started to put funds towards it. But, as Alex and Mike Connery note, much of that is gone, and even organizations trying to mobilize young voters for the 2008 election are being starved for funds, as Obama's campaign sends signals that everything must go through them.

Thankfully, on at least a small scale, the Center for Progressive Leadership, an organization with many Philly ties, is filling a piece of the void. No, they aren’t magically fixing all that ails the progressive movement, but they are taking about 40 young people- mostly women and people of color- from around the Country, and setting them up in DC in… paid! positions.

CPL's New Leaders Program helps diverse college students and other young leaders get paid internships and entry-level positions at progressive organizations in order to help jump-start life-long careers in progressive politics.

CPL’s 2008 New Leaders come from over 25 different states and have worked on issues on their campuses and in their communities ranging from immigration reform to interfaith dialogue to access to higher education to LGBT equality to environmental justice.

It sounds like a pretty cool program, and you can check out the stories of each person at the CPL website. CPL is an organization with a lot of ties to Philly and PA. I know a bunch of readers of this blog actually went through their training. And, they just hired… Haile Johnston as their PA chief. So, they are not exactly strangers around here.

Of course, their program is focused in DC. And, it would be nice to have that same sort of thing here, right- helping progressive young people find jobs here in Philly and SE Pa? Well, apparently that is coming, too. Stay tuned.

If you guys are curious about PUP, here's a little video an intern put together for us. This is the first part, which captures a clip from a rally we did to get a woman access to a hospital. It's the first of four parts.

Part 2 - Unemployment Compensation

Part 3 - Foreclosure Prevention

Part 4 - Workers' Campaigns

The Daily News today editorialized in favor of the demands PUP and the coalition of groups working here to prevent foreclosure made before City Council last week.The editorial board wrote:

Those people on the front lines of the issue - such as ACORN and Philadelphia Unemployment Project- seem to agree that pressure must be put on loan servicers to work more closely with local housing agencies to devise workout agreements with homeowners facing foreclosure.

Lenders and servicers can't work fast enough - or don't want to - to handle large numbers of mortgage workouts. But they need to be pressured to come to the table and work with those on the front lines to help homeowners.

Click read more for a breakdown of our demands!

On November 24th, Rep. Payton and I recorded our second edition of The Legislator and The Agitator. You can download the episode in four individual tracks here.

01-The House Democrats Bonus Scandal

(14:57)

Introduction to the November 24th, 2007 show.

Discussion of the House Democrats recent firing of major staffers around large bonuses given to legislative staff.

We'll move into the issue of Reform and Rep. Payton's freshman class of Harrisburg Legislators.

02-Costing out - will the state ever pay for schools?

(16:07)

Good Schools Pennsylvania convinced the state to do a costing out study on what it would actually cost to pay for students around the state so we can do a better job of realistically discussing how much money we need to pay for schools. It started a big conversation on YoungPhillyPolitics.com.

Tony and Brady discuss the great amount of political maneuvering around this information as well as the lack of the real initiative to find the cash. Will it happen? Can it?

Also, Brady tells about the time that he fought back against a really big bully.

It makes sense in context.

Click "Read More" for the next two tracks!