The Possibilities Are Great
From The Decree, Volume I, Issue I
Craig Livermore
Executive Director, NJ LEEP, Inc.
There is much to be done. The NJ LEEP mission has received a great deal of support thus far from the legal, academic, educational and political arenas in New Jersey. We are extremely grateful for this. Students, families and educational leaders in East Orange, Jersey City and Newark have also exhibited a great deal of enthusiasm for our programming. This reveals the desire of all these constituents for empowering educational opportunity. The response we have so far received has been very encouraging.
We are training ten committed law students to teach a law-related curriculum in five schools in Newark and East Orange beginning in February, and there are many more schools who wish to partner with us. By mid-February the NJ LEEP staff will have guest-taught a legal lesson to 1000 students in twenty different schools to recruit for our Summer Law Institute 2007. We will receive 500 pre-applications and 200 written applications for the thirty positions in our first Summer Law Institute class.
Yes—we have indeed been blessed by the communal show of support. But we also know that initial enthusiasm does not necessarily translate into the long-term objectively verifiable results that are the core of our mission. We must thus now commit ourselves to the every-day work which is the basis for all transformative education.
We believe there is a moral imperative for our society to face the glaring inequalities in educational outcomes between urban youth and those in private and suburban public schools. We are emboldened in this belief by the fact that many of you have voiced as similar commitment. NJ LEEP believes itself to be a part of a much larger movement of high quality urban educational outcomes based upon a multi-dimensional pedagogical model and a commitment to help student build the skills, habits and character they need to succeed.
I recently attended a constitutional law debate at Brooklyn Law School in which my former high school students at Legal Outreach made appellate-style arguments in front of practicing attorneys based upon the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The chills were palpable throughout my body as 15 and 16 year old kids from the “hood” made perspicacious and quick-reasoned arguments in a very complicated area of law which had all of us attorneys present working hard to keep up. That is power!. . .That is the ability to change one’s life and to change the world. Analytical ability, persuasive writing and persuasive speech will grant these students access to the channels of leadership which will bring new voices to the our nation’s pipeline of leadership.
This is the challenge and possibility ahead of us. We ask you all–we need you all–to join us in this mission. There is a great deal of power lying dormant in the urban youth of New Jersey. With your help, we can teach students in Newark, East Orange, Jersey City, and beyond how to access the transformative power that has always been within them.
