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Front Porch Charlotte

Advocacy resources for educating our children

About this project

Dec. 30, 2014

Happy New Year!

Front Porch Charlotte is my New Year’s Resolution. It’s a website that I’ve thought about for years. A place where people go to learn, to get excited, to meditate or to just share thoughts and ideas. Sort of a CALL TO ACTION on behalf of our children. I hope to achieve that goal.

FrontArt960Why front porch? From birth to age 12, I grew up in Charlotte’s First Ward neighborhood. I lived in a three-room shotgun house with a front porch and swing. A tin roof, faded, peeling paint, a small dirt front yard. We even had a side yard garden and a woodyard in the back. I’ll talk about those later on.

Almost every house in my neighborhood had a tiny front porch and this is where, while growing up, most of us got our first lessons in life. Sitting at the knee of an adult, I learned life lessons. I learned about hard work, about caring, about right and wrong. I learned about consequences when I failed to follow the rule.

I learned to get up when knocked down and to have good manners. This is also where I learned to play my cornet, rented for $6 per month from Howren Music Company. The lessons learned on that porch are still with me today.

I want this website to serve up lessons with each article, each new addition. It will focus on children and especially issues around public education. It will be about excellence and equity.

Arthur Griffin Jr.

FrontArt960

The first work on the project was accomplished by longtime Charlottean and internationally known artist Tommie Robinson, in the summer of 2014. Arthur Griffin Jr. commissioned Robinson to create the pen-and-ink drawing shown on this page and throughout the website.

Growing up, I learned life lessons on the front porch. Today’s front porch has moved to the Internet. I want this site to focus on children, public education and efforts to ensure that every child becomes a well-educated, mature, motivated adult.

– Arthur Griffin

The 3AM Blog

Observations that may or may not bear up under the light of day, as posted at any time of the day by those involved in this site.

Past, present, or…

1/30/17: Children represent 23% of the present U.S. population and 100% of our collective future.

How will we respond?

1-29-17: “We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact we haven’t so far.”

– Ronald Edmonds (May 24, 1935- July 15, 1983)

Opportunities abound

12-28-16: At its Oct. 25 meeting the CMS Board of Education approved a bunch of construction contracts, mostly for heating and air conditioning work. They are listed here in descending order of percentage participation by minority, women and small business enterprises.

  • 34.74% Providence High HVAC Controls
  • 1.5% Harding High chiller
  • 0% Cornelius Elementary chiller
  • 0% J.T. Williams HVAC controls
  • 0% Myers Park High chiller
  • 0% Pawtucket Elementary roof

Is there anything wrong with this picture?

Break the cycle

8-21-15: Who gets the leg up from pre-K programs? In 2013 about half of the children of adults with graduate or professional degrees were enrolled. But only about a quarter of the children of adults with less than a high school education were enrolled. Let’s break the cycle right there! Data from The Condition of Education 2015.

Thoughts?

Comments welcome. And send us material for site. Click here.

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