Closing the income gap through education in New Haven.
By Betsy Yagla, New Haven Advocate, June 05, 2008

Christopher Griffin has three younger brothers and a single mother whose work situation didn't allow her to spend much time with her kids. In high school, Griffin, who's now 21, got a job as a mentor at Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership (LEAP).

Griffin's now studying culinary arts at Gateway Community College in New Haven, and will be an assistant site coordinator this summer for LEAP, working with younger kids for whom he'll be a role model. LEAP has "taught me to be more open and to speak my mind," Griffin says. "It also gave me great networking skills," he says, and plenty of responsibility that he's lived up to.

Like Griffin, 100 percent of LEAP's students graduate high school (compared to New Haven's district-wide 77 percent), and 93 percent go on to higher education, says executive director Mercedes Soto. In a state with such high income disparities and a large achievement gap, groups like LEAP are doing their part to close those gaps. LEAP is one of New Haven's success stories, giving children in poverty structured and positive experiences.

Across the state, nonprofits are reaching out to the state's youth, in an attempt to keep them on track and off the streets, and in the long-term to help bridge the gap in income. It's well known that college-educated and high school graduates earn more than people who didn't finish. Dropouts earn only 37 cents for every dollar earned by high school graduates, according to a Princeton study. Dropouts' health is also worse than that of graduates, probably because dropouts' jobs are less likely to provide health insurance.

Other studies have shown a correlation between more education and lower crime rates. Connecticut has one of the country's largest achievement gaps, with minority students' grades and test scores lagging far behind those of white students. So it's no coincidence that, according to a 2004 study, we're saddled with the second-highest incarceration rate for Hispanic male teens and the third-highest for African American male teens in the nation. It now costs us more to house and feed our swelling prison population than it does to fund state colleges. In 2007, for the first time ever, Connecticut spent more on corrections ($611 million) than higher education ($601 million). Better opportunities for Connecticut's youth could turn those numbers around.

"We see a connection in having a just and a prosperous society all connect back to having great public schools," says Alex Johnston, executive director of the statewide Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN).

ConnCAN's been studying Connecticut schools' success stories to better advise others on how to make improvements. The successful schools, Johnston says "can't change the short-term social circumstances of their students, but they can make up for challenges in kids' lives. It may be as banal as helping kids get their uniforms clean. It may also be providing a whole extra level of support and counseling around college choices." College counseling is beginning as early as middle school in some areas, Johnston says.

"The best investment we can make for changing poverty and other social justice issues in the long term is to improve our public schools," he adds.