My Brother’s Keeper: Year One

My Brother’s Keeper: Year One

Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring. “That’s what ‘My Brother’s Keeper’ is all about. Helping more of our young people stay on track. Providing support they need to think more broadly about their future. Building on what works – when it works, in critical life-changing moments.” President Barack Obama, February 27, 2014.

On February 27, 2014, President Barack Obama issued a call to action that served as the launching pad for My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), an initiative focused on closing the opportunity gap and removing the barriers that prevent young people from reaching their full potential. MBK was founded on the premise that every child should have an opportunity to reach his or her full potential regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. Meeting this goal requires our nation to have a steadfast commitment to providing all children with the tools they need to succeed. It also requires an understanding of the impact that past discriminatory policies have had on our nation’s families and children of color as well as the progress that has been made to ensure that all children, including children of color, receive the supports needed across their life course to reach their full potential.

As background, the Presidential Memorandum “Creating and Expanding Ladders of Opportunity for Boys and Young Men of Color” establishes both MBK and a federal interagency task force charged with providing a 90-day report on a) the impact of federal policies, regulations, and programs on enhancing positive outcomes for young people; b) the development of an administration-wide online presence for delivering data on successful and promising interventions; and c) an outreach strategy highlighting the administration’s efforts on the initiative. In addition, the report was to include recommendations for sustainable federal government involvement and partnerships with the private sector and philanthropic community. Perhaps not surprisingly, these partnerships resulted in early commitments of $200 million that have since grown to more than $300 million in grants and in-kind services. Funds include investments in safe and effective schools, mentoring programs, juvenile justice reforms, school redesign, and efforts such as the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) “Be Someone Who Matters to Someone Who Matters” mentoring program.

My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge

In September 2014, a little more than 6 months following the Presidential Memorandum establishing MBK, President Obama issued a challenge to mayors, tribal leaders, and county executives to become “MBK Communities.” To date, nearly 200 communities in 43 states and the District of Columbia have accepted the challenge. The challenge requires communities to take up at least two of the six challenge goals shown below and commit to implementing evidence-based interventions in an attempt to “move the needle” on selected goal areas. In accepting the challenge, each community agrees to measure performance within selected goal areas and to engage with MBK technical assistance providers on the identification and implementation of interventions best suited for the local context.

The six goals of the challenge are as follows:

• Ensuring all children enter school cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally ready.
• Ensuring all children read at grade level by third grade.
• Ensuring all youth graduate from high school.
• Ensuring all youth complete postsecondary education or training.
• Ensuring all youth out of school are employed.
• Ensuring all youth remain safe from violent crime.

Upon accepting the challenge, mayors, tribal leaders, and county executives agreed to convene Local Action Summits to engage the broader community in the selection of MBK goals (within 45 days), conduct policy reviews to determine viable courses of action (within 120 days), and begin implementing an action plan with clearly defined milestones and a monitoring schedule (within 180 days). Technical assistance on the design and implementation of action plans has been and will continue to be provided by the National Convening Council, led by Joe Echevarria (retired Chief Executive Officer of Deloitte Consulting) and Earvin “Magic” Johnson (NBA Hall of Famer and entrepreneur), and other private and philanthropic organizations.

Selected Highlights at the One-Year Mark

February 2015 marked the first anniversary of the launch of MBK. In that first year, the federal task force worked tirelessly to implement the recommendations from the 90-day report. Below is a selected list of those implementation achievements. For a more detailed list, I encourage you to read the task force’s “One-Year Progress Report to the President.”

• Entering School Ready to Learn
• Birth to Five: Watch Me Thrive — U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education (ED). An effort focused on providing parents and child care providers with universal development and behavioral screening and other resources to support access to services and care at the earliest stages of child development.
• Policy Statement: Suspension Practices — HHS and ED. The release of a policy statement to state and early childhood programs with recommendations to prevent and eventually eliminate the practice of expulsion and suspension in early learning settings.

• Graduating From High School Ready for College and Career
• School Turnaround AmeriCorps — ED and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Working with ED in disadvantaged communities, AmeriCorps members work with students in the lowest-performing schools to keep them on track to graduate. Their focus is on attendance, increasing educational achievement, and a number of related college preparedness activities.
• Enforcing Federal Civil Rights Laws: School Discipline — ED. ED’s Office for Civil Rights has reached agreements with school districts across the county to address discriminatory discipline and vigorously enforce federal civil rights laws to ensure that students are not inequitably disciplined based on their race, national origin, disability, or gender.

• Successfully Entering the Workplace
• Support for Summer Youth Employment — HHS and U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Issuance of new guidance to remove barriers to employment to include a joint letter providing an overview of various public and private strategies and services available to support summer youth jobs.
• American Apprenticeship Initiative — DOL and HUD. DOL announced the $100 million American Apprenticeship grant solicitation encouraging applicants to demonstrate strategies to employ and train underrepresented populations through apprenticeship. HUD and DOL have partnered to promote registered apprenticeship opportunities for participants in HUD’s Section 3 program and DOL’s YouthBuild Program.

• Reducing Violence and Providing a Second Chance
• The Nation Forum on Youth Violence Prevention — U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Fifteen cities are now part of a network of communities and federal agencies working together, sharing information, and building local capacity to prevent and combat youth violence. Each participating city has developed or enhanced comprehensive plans to prevent youth and gang violence and to incorporate data-driven strategies.
• The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice — DOJ. Recently launched, this initiative is a multifaceted effort drawing on research, technical assistance, and innovative strategies to help repair and strengthen the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.