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Students: What Can Philly do to Transform Outcomes for Young Men of Color?

March 9, 2015 Category: Method

The 2015 Public Policy Case Competition comes out of President Obama’s call to advance the “My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge,”an effort to encourage communities to implement a coherent cradle-to-college and career strategy aimed at improving life outcomes for all young people to ensure that all youth can achieve their full potential, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or the circumstances into which they are born. Philadelphia was an early adopter of the Community Challenge.

The case prompt is: “What can the City of Philadelphia do to best improve outcomes for boys and young men of color?”

The Philadelphia Public Policy Case Competition was created as a way for college students to engage directly with public policy at the city level. Students are asked to design a proposal for an initiative, legislation, policy or event which is both realistic and impactful to the City of Philadelphia.

The winners of the 2014 Policy Case Competition were Elizabeth Farwell and Alounso Gilzene, who are students in Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Their proposal, “Peer Mentor Academic Academy,” addressed the question: “What can the City of Philadelphia do to prevent the greatest number of students from dropping out of high school?”

“Peer Mentor Academy” proposes training high school juniors and seniors to mentor freshmen. The mentors would earn course credit in return for helping the ninth graders in problem-solving, note-taking, accepting consequences and studying.

Teams must consist of two to five members which may be any combination of current  undergraduate and graduate students from any combination of schools. The deadline for Submissions is Friday, March 27, 11:59 p.m.

The Mayor’s Office of Policy Planning and Coordination and the Philadelphia “My Brother’s Keeper” Project Manager will select four finalists from the submitted proposals. The Spring 2015 Competition is jointly sponsored by Drexel University and Campus Philly. The four finalists will present before a panel of distinguished judges in City Hall on Friday, April 17, which will be followed by a reception announcing the winning team.

From our Partners

  • Ronnie L. Bloom, Executive Director of the Stoneleigh Foundation;
  • Crystal Brown, Senior Director in the Office of Cabinet Affairs at the White House;
  • John Chin, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation;
  • Dr. Deborah Diamond, President of Campus Philly;
  • Cynthia Figueroa, President and CEO of Congreso; and
  • Russell Davis, youth advocate and participant in Philadelphia’s My Brother’s Keeper Youth Stakeholder Meeting

A copy of the prompt and submission criteria are available at the  City of Philadelphia Public Policy Case Competition Instructions Spring 2015.

Image via the Office of Mayor Michael A. Nutter

Project

My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge

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