Giving Back: How You And The Entertainment Community Can Help Struggling Families

Today, as HuffPost and AOL unite to launch the Huffington Post Media Group, we're celebrating by making a statement about the importance of giving back and helping others.

Led by HuffPost Impact –- The Huffington Post's section devoted to service, causes, and volunteering -- every HuffPost section is featuring a group or individual who is taking action and inspiring others during these challenging times. Like the rest of the world, our hearts and minds are also focused on Japan, and we've created a resource page for everyone wishing to support the emergency relief efforts.

And we're thrilled to announce that Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, is joining the Huffington Post Media Group as Strategic Adviser For Social Impact. Stone will help the company to create innovative social impact and cause-based initiatives.

AOL/Huffington Post Media Group has also issued a 30-day Service Challenge to every one of its employees worldwide, encouraging them to give their time to non-profits in their local communities and organizing volunteer events in 16 cities.

We hope you'll join us in utilizing the power of online journalism to help people get involved, work together, and bring about real change.

* * * * *

John Legend is one entertainer using his celebrity for a great cause. His Show Me Campaign uses education reform to break the poverty cycle. The charity takes its name from Legend's song "Show Me" (listen below) and has advocated for equal access to quality education and higher education rates in struggling school systems since 2007.

You can donate to the cause here.

Legend is a Huffington Post blogger who wrote about the nation's failing schools and how we might start to fix them in a post last year:

Many of our schools are literally and figuratively crumbling. They aren't providing American children with the quality education that is the fundamental right of every citizen.

So what do we do? Give up? Move to Finland (#1 across the board)? Canada (#2 in reading and science)? Shrug our shoulders and blame the kids and their parents? No, we can't afford to do that. Ensuring that ALL American children can access a quality education is the civil rights issue of our time. We cannot stand idly by and allow this institutionalized inequality to continue.

Legend also sits on the boards of Teach for America, The Education Equality Project and the Harlem Village Academies, high-performing NYC charter schools that Mayor Bloomberg has called "a model of excellence." Donate to the Show Me Campaign here.

LISTEN:

Comments

[changing]

03:43 PM on 04/05/2011

HP promoting union busting, teacher firing, and separate and unequal education for kids. Boy how far you have sunk. I'll volunteer with my local PTA thank you and leave the corporate obligarchs and arrogant no nothings like Legend to their just desserts.

[JusdaTruth]

08:54 AM on 04/17/2011

Changing I agree with your post. Legend is laughable to me. However because he is a celebrity some people actually believe what he says about education. In my opinion he is a teacher basher, and a teacher union basher. If he had any accurate empirical proof that his privatizing, simplistic views worked, I could respect his so called "reform" views. Just being angry that minority children don't get the same education chances that suburban kids do is no justification for attacking public educators with "fuzzy logic" and slogans like "kids first",
What about lowering class sizes?

[Linda GR]

12:56 AM on 03/28/2011

So John Legend sits on the board of Teach for America, an organization that is supposed to be dedicated to making a difference in education. This is an organization that recruits smart college grads, gives them a few weeks of training, then puts them into hard-to-serve classrooms. It strikes me as strange that some Americans think that they can solve the problems of education by introducing teachers with less teacher education! In Ontario, fresh college grads only get to volunteer to help in classrooms. That volunteering might get them into a full year teacher education program. No fast tracking here.

[laborgrunt]

01:30 AM on 03/15/2011

John Legend should stick to singing....

[JusdaTruth]

08:56 AM on 04/17/2011

Amen.

[cjaco]

10:49 PM on 03/14/2011

And yet another well-intentioned, ignorant mouthpiece for the oligarchs who fund his rise to fame, knowing that market-based reforms are the civil rights issue of our time, even though he's never spent time in an inner-city school, let alone the inner-city. If the man were a wee bit educated, then perhaps he'd know how to do research - or at least follow the money.

[Swedenworks]

09:49 PM on 03/14/2011

He's a Mouthpiece for the union busters. No thanks. The politicians know what is needed to fix broken schools but they'd rather bust unions instead.

[julieJgoldengay]

09:25 PM on 03/14/2011

I remember Shouting...
When out Cafeteria became an Auditorium.
"Get the good chairs, they're Musicians."

[julieJgoldengay]

09:54 PM on 03/14/2011

And...when the Musicians asked the kids to name Composers...
The American kids named two: "Beethoven and Brahms."
The kids from the former Soviet Union,
Named the rest. All of the Rest.

[julieJgoldengay]

09:48 AM on 03/15/2011

My favorite student...
Was Sergie, from Odessa.
He counted Coltrane,
As a great American Composer.

[jukesgrrl]

08:45 PM on 03/14/2011

I've never been a fan of Legend's, but I strongly applaud his using his fame and fortune to help our schools. I hope many in the music community join him.

[expanse]

04:04 PM on 03/14/2011

I don't believe in the way John Legend wants to fix schools. He doesn't understand the true problem and doesn't have a realistic fix. Those charters are a joke because they have highly motivated parents and students involved. Take the bottom 20% and get the same results then I will listen.

[kilthistle]

03:52 PM on 03/14/2011

1) No K-12 class larger than 10 students, individualized and innovative learning plans for every student
2) All property tax revenue paid into a national pool to be shared equally, inadequate school buildings are brought up to standard, or abandoned and new building built with federal money
3) Year round school with staggered vacations, 3 two week breaks (or 2 two weeks and 1 four week) of course all kids in the same family are on the same break schedule
4) Starting pay for teachers, $100,000.
5) Participating in art, music and P.E. (sports) are all mandatory and fully funded, free to students.
6) Everyone gets evaluated, students, teachers, parents, administrators and taxpayers, not solely by standardized tests but mostly by reviews. Evaluation reviews would be conducted by peers, the instructors and the instructed, and community members and businesses that are concerned with having the highest quality education: not those shortsighted few who think cutting taxes is the answer to everything.

Think this sounds expensive? Spend it on schools or you will spend it on prisons. And, just how can we remain a "superpower" without the best educated children in the world? We face the greatest challenges the world has ever known, sending our kids into the future without a real education is a crime against humanity.

[expanse]

04:08 PM on 03/14/2011

I agree with everything except #3. Year round school has been shown a costly failure. It doesn't work. Also, I have a friend who is a teacher and she says so many of her students MUST work in the summer to pay for cars or college or help out at home. These students can work more consistent hours in the summers so they can cut back some during the school year. So many students can't stay for tutorials because they must work after school. In fact, the local high school starts earlier so they can dismiss earlier because so many students were skipping the last periods so they could put in an 8 hour shift at work. Long summer vacations are still very needed for too many students.

[kilthistle]

07:21 PM on 03/14/2011

I understand your points, but I do not think K through 12 students should work at all, their job is school, to train their minds to achieve the best possible future for themselves. Participating in sports or music is a better use for their brain than flipping burgers. I need them to be prepared to get living wage middle class jobs, or better, so they can pay my Social Security benefits.

This of course hinges on the idea that any student who meets the entrance requirements should go to college for free and pay the rest of us back after graduation by working for minimal pay for 3 years. We don't need more teens to flip more burgers at more fast food joints in more strip malls, we do need college grads basically "interning," in their field, working their way up.

to be continued...

[kilthistle]

07:22 PM on 03/14/2011

part two... As for teens who must work to help out at home or to buy a car, this is a by-product of the destruction of the middle class. I wish we could find a better way to deal with these problems than child labor. In Missouri they are trying to repeal child labor laws! This would be an unmitigated disaster, and an essential part of the Republican plan to sabotage public schools. 12 year olds working in sweatshops instead of going to school, that's what Republicans would really love, and it is the end of every middle class parent's dream to have their child do better than they did.

I can not stress this point hard enough. The solution to the problems incurred by families who can not make ends meet, is to pay the parents more, not to make the kids work.

[jukesgrrl]

08:47 PM on 03/14/2011

"Spend it on schools or you will spend it on prisons." Excellent observation.

[kilthistle]

09:12 PM on 03/14/2011

Wow! I haven't thought about Southside Johnny in years. Saw them many times in Chicago during the 70's and 80's.

[Francois Bergeron]

03:47 PM on 03/14/2011

I think class size is the absolute most important thing.
I just talked to a swedish friend and I asked her if the classes were large in Sweden. She said, yeah.. about 20 students.
When I told her we were 45 in my high school class, she thought I was joking.

[zLala]

03:22 PM on 03/14/2011

Cause if John Legend can't do it...no one can! j/k

[Changeling]

03:21 PM on 03/14/2011

Schools are broken because people don't want to pay for them.

[Francois Bergeron]

03:48 PM on 03/14/2011

gophers don't want to pay for them...

[MeasleeMillion]

04:27 PM on 03/14/2011

No,

Schools are broken because a well educated populace capable of critical thinking is more difficult to persuade and dupe.

The only question left to ask in this debt-ridden monetary system that allows a private institution (the fed reserve) to hold americans hostage with paper notes is.....

MUST EVERYTHING IN THIS COUNTRY BE ABOUT MONEY?!!!!

[Changeling]

11:15 AM on 03/15/2011

No.

Schools are broken because no one wants to pay for them. Even as a child many many moons ago I remember it was almost a given that tax increases to fund schools would fail. The only times they passed were when it was literally a case of "Pass or the school's close."

Because they don't want teachers. They want babysitters. And when a teacher's salary usually comes down to $1 an hour per child in the overstuffed classroom? That's a pretty good deal. Try finding formal childcare at that price.

They whine that textbooks are outdated. That the school is a wreck. But not $1 to fix it. "We pay enough. Just "Cut waste" and use that. Then they don't even let the teacher do their job "MY kid didn't deserve a D. Change his grade."

Even in college.

But teachers are "overpaid." They need to be "busted." Never mind that they work 60 hrs a week. Never mind that they buy school equipment for YOUR (not "your" specifically, just generally) kids out of their own pocket.

Why? Because there's not enough money for it. Because parents won't pony up for it.

But that greedy, nasty, selfish teacher with their pensions and their summers off (never mind that most WORK OTHER jobs then)

THEY should pay.

[T4]

02:50 PM on 03/14/2011

Is John going to be instituting job performance standards and firing incompetentteachers and setting up bonuse programs in core disciplines to drive success and in vilation of their union contracts. is he going to tell inner city parents, who generally have a poor work and educational record to direct their kids to suck it up and get to school. Likely answer - toboth - no - save your money and put itinto something local where you have some contrl.

[French Toast]

12:51 PM on 03/14/2011

Charter schools don't show better results. We can't afford experiments on this scale. Giving money to for-profit institutions with public money is making them a public expense anyway.

If you want to change the education system, change it. But let's not pretend like anyone is Waiting for Superman. That guy is waiting to be Lex Luthor. Make money on people's hopes and ignorance.

You think charter schools are great? Then insist on instituting their practices. Vouchers are short term and especially long term fiscal suicide.

[T4]

02:55 PM on 03/14/2011

So you are not a charter school fan for undocumented reasons.Are you then for teacher reform and getting rid of entrenched bureaucracy created by union contracts? How do you measure success - if you are not for performance standards? easy to throw rocks but tough to make real decisions. and quitefrankly when youtalkinner city schools remember the type of parent your are predominantly talking about - someone withno edicational hsitoryand sometimes no solid work history. Get to a school and volunteer and you will see thatitis the parent that drives ed success. youwill physically see that the parents who are involved with kids have bettergardes, etc. than those who don;t.

[French Toast]

07:53 PM on 03/14/2011

I documented reasons, actually. But don't let the truth get in the way of your inane rantings.

"Ar­e you then for teacher reform and getting rid of entrenched bureaucrac­y created by union contracts?"

I don't agree with your premise to begin with. I'm not for or against. I think you're lying by even pretending that's the situation.

"How do you measure success - if you are not for performanc­e standards?"

Generally those charter schools pretend to be cutting edge by throwing performance standards out the window. They teach, not teach to tests. Just like public schools used to do before the twisted Republicans made a mess of things.

"Get to a school and volunteer and you will see thatitis the parent that drives ed success."

I fail to see how that in any way is a rebuttal to any point that I actually raised and not one that you are just pulling out of your rear.

Holy crap. Learn how to hold a conversation instead of inventing one.

[JC80]

12:33 PM on 03/14/2011

GO John Legend! John is in support of great public schools across the board - urban, suburban, rural - it shouldn't matter what zip code you live in, all students deserve quality public education in every city in America and unfortunately that is not the current reality.

www.thesocialshrink.blogspot.com

[am10]

02:36 PM on 03/14/2011

Great public schools require parents who either work to make the schools great or parents who make their kids do their homework.

[Francois Bergeron]

03:41 PM on 03/14/2011

An extra 30 minutes at school, sitting down with nothing but homework to do would help immensely.
Parents who have 3 kids or more will not spend their entire evenings doing homework.