[President Barack Obama, students during "My Brother's Keeper" event. AP Photo.]
In an op-ed for NJ.com, ACEsConnection member Father Jeff Putthoff says that if President Barack Obama wants his "My Brother's Keeper" initiative to work, he'd best get the latest brain science. Here's part of the beginning:
If you had just been knocked unconscious on the football field by a 300-pound linebacker, causing you to break a leg, and someone threw $200 million at you to get up and walk, could you? Of course not. And that’s exactly why My Brother’s Keeper, President Obama’s newest initiative aimed at helping young African-American and minority youth in urban settings become productive working-class citizens, will fail, despite its $200 million price tag.
...Among the areas of focus in the president’s new program are “early childhood development and school readiness; parenting and parent engagement; literacy by third grade; and school discipline reform.”
...Can you name one similar program that has transformed a neighborhood? Don’t waste your time researching it — there aren’t any. If these programs worked, there wouldn’t be a continuous rise in violent crime and high school dropout rates in our poorest cities.
...President Obama asks, “There are a lot of kids out there who need help, who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. Is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?”
The answer is a resounding “YES!” But we must begin by addressing the root of what’s preventing them from being productive members of society in the first place: trauma.
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