Step Up Savannah’s

Annual Meeting & Breakfast

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Torrance

Step Up Savannah’s

Annual Meeting & Breakfast

October 2, 2015

David DodsonPresident, MDC

Building an Infrastructure of Opportunity in Savannah

The American Dream

How many of you believe that where a person starts in life shouldn’t determine

where they end up?

At the root of the uncertainty lies a pervasive doubt: whether the nation can sustain the American Dream of each generation moving up and doing better than previous generations.

Complex Landscape, Common ChallengeLack of Mobility: The South stands out

Source: Equality of Opportunity Project data

Today we will consider:•What are the current patterns of economic mobility in the South and in Savannah, and what levers can provide economic uplift broadly?

•Who in this region is stuck with limited economic opportunity, and who is on the path to success?

•How can young people growing up in this region access opportunity and participate in future prosperity?

Growth and Low MobilityThe paradox of the metro South, 100 Largest Metros

Sources: Forbes, Equality of Opportunity Project, Trulia, Brookings, and U.S. Census Bureau

Forbes Best for Business

Mobility Poverty Rate

Increase in Poverty

Since 2000

Raleigh, NC 1 94 12.0% 96.8%

Nashville, TN

6 78 14.0% 66.7%

Charlotte, NC

7 98 14.0% 97.4%

Dallas, TX 8 55 14.4% 64.4%

Atlanta, GA 9 96 14.5% 89.9%

Memphis, TN

84 100 19.6% 31.8%

Stuck in PlaceAnnual growth rate of real income across the family income distribution, national

Source: Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers

Upward Mobility

“Inequality would not be a problem if upward mobility were strong in America.”

--Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor

Median Household Income by Race and Ethnicity, 2013

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Five-Year Averages

All Households Black or African American

Hispanic or Latino origin (of any race)

White alone, not Hispanic or Latino

$49,535

$33,879

$44,045

$58,678

$49,179

$36,055 $36,926

$57,654 $52,176

$34,560

$41,107

$57,431

Savannah Georgia United States

Economic Mobility in SavannahWhere children born in each quintile of the income distribution end up as adults

Source: Equality of Opportunity Project

Par q1 Par q2 Par q3 Par q4 Par q50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

33%26% 20% 16% 14%

37%

32%

26%19%

16%

17%

22%

23%

22%

17%

8%13%

17%

22%

23%

4% 8% 14%20%

31%

Child q5Child q4Child q3Child q2Child q1

Income Mobility, by EducationChances of moving up or down the family income ladder

Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts

Upward Mobility

What is your family’s mobility story?

The Path to Possibility

If individual mobility rests on a combination of personal drive, deliberately supportive institutional practices, community supports, and the eradication of structural barriers, how can we make sure all of those factors are operating in the lives of the young people who start out furthest from opportunity?

24

Based in part on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation model

PreparationObtain secondary

skills and motivation for postsecondary

success

ConnectionUnderstand

application process and financial aid

EntryEnroll, obtain

financial aid, pass assessments, and

complete orientation

ProgressComplete courses and accumulate

credits

CompletionComplete course of

study and attain credential

EmploymentObtain a living wage

job with opportunities for career

advancement

Preventing Loss, Creating MomentumA systems view

For Every 100 9th GradersEstimated educational completion and persistence, 2010

Source: NCHEMS Information Center estimate using data from Tom Mortenson—Public high school graduation rates and College- going rates of students directly from HS, ACT Institutional Survey—Freshmen to sophomore retention rates, NCES-IPEDS Graduation Rate Survey—Graduation Rates.

Affluence and CompletionFamily economic status influences educational attainment

Source: New York Times graphic using Department of Education data

Source: Urban Institute and Southern Education Foundation

Barriers to BelongingConcentrated poverty and concentrated affluence in schools, 2013

• In Chatham County, 53 percent of students from low-income families are in high-poverty schools.

• Only 13 percent of students not from low-income families are.

Barriers to BelongingRace and the concentration of poverty in schools, 2013

Source: Urban Institute and Southern Education Foundation

• In Chatham County, 55 percent of black students are in high-poverty schools. Only 11 percent of white students are.

Barriers to BelongingOverall economic segregation index

Source: Martin Prosperity Institute

Barriers to BelongingPercentage of the population under the poverty lineliving in high-poverty neighborhoods

Source: The Century Foundation using U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data

Total White Black Hispanic

15.1

6.3

30.4

21.2

10.3

4.1

18.6

13.811.9

6.5

21.7

13.214.4

7.5

25.2

17.4

1990 2000 2005-2009 2009-2013

Clustering and Fragmenting

• Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort: We’re increasingly living in “balkanised communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible.”

• Bonding, bridging, and linking capital

• Amb. James Joseph: Smaller communities of “meaning and memory”

Based in part on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation model

PreparationObtain secondary

skills and motivation for postsecondary

success

ConnectionUnderstand

application process and financial aid

EntryEnroll, obtain

financial aid, pass assessments, and

complete orientation

ProgressComplete courses and accumulate

credits

CompletionComplete course of

study and attain credential

EmploymentObtain a living wage

job with opportunities for career

advancement

Transportation

Career & Academic

Counseling

Living Wage Employment

Policies

Work Support

s

Cultural Messages & Media

Representations

Preventing Loss, Creating MomentumCommunity Systems Context

Institutional & Public Policies

• It is the systems and supports needed to boost young people to higher rungs on the ladder of economic and personal advancement.

• It includes employers, education systems, community-based organizations, policy makers, civic and neighborhood leaders, philanthropy, and young people themselves

• It engages them all to foster a common strategic vision of aims and outcomes for education and training systems

What is the Infrastructure of Opportunity?

• It takes advantage of local assets and addresses the community’s distinctive challenges

• It should be as pervasive and reliable as the physical infrastructure of roads and water lines

What is the Infrastructure of Opportunity?

ChallengeHigh-growth city with talent pipeline that is disconnected from local labor force, leaving local youth on the sidelines of opportunity

ResponseMade in Durham: an employer-led strategy to align local resources, link data systems, and create secondary to postsecondary career pathways with seamless, work-based learning opportunities with the support of private philanthropy, employer capital, and public funding

Durham, NC

ChallengeAddressing stalled mobility and rising suburban poverty so that all young people have the skills to enter and compete in the region’s dynamic economy

ResponsePublic and private partnerships at the neighborhood, institutional, and metro-wide level—like Project L.I.F.T. and Charlotte Works—to improve young people’s social and physical connections to the resources and skills necessary for civic participation and economic success

Charlotte, NC

ChallengePreparing Houston’s young people—particularly disconnected youth—to connect with employment opportunities in a booming economy driven by the energy and knowledge sectors—and doing it on a massive scale, in both geography and number

ResponseSavvy investment of private and federal dollars to innovate in education and employment systems, with major national and local philanthropic investment in secondary and postsecondary reforms; UpSkill Houston is an example

Houston, TX

“When you in sit in council for the welfare of the people, you counsel for the welfare of that seventh generation to come. They should be foremost in your mind, not even your generation, not even yourself, but those that are unborn. So that when their time comes here they may enjoy the same thing that you are enjoying now.”

--Oren Lyons

The Seventh Generation Ethos

“To be of use,” Marge Piercy

The people I love the bestjump into work head firstwithout dallying in the shallowsand swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.They seem to become natives of that element,the black sleek heads of sealsbouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submergein the task, who go into the fields to harvestand work in a row and pass the bags along,who are not parlor generals and field desertersbut move in a common rhythmwhen the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.But the thing worth doing well donehas a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.Greek amphoras for wine or oil,Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museumsbut you know they were made to be used.The pitcher cries for water to carryand a person for work that is real.

To be of use

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

--Marge Piercy

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307 West Main StreetDurham, NC 27701-3215

Phone: 919.381.5802Fax: 919.381.5805

www.mdcinc.org www.stateofthesouth.org