Ruth Lande Shuman, Founder/President of Publicolor
I've been thinking a lot about what happened in Ferguson, Baltimore and other cities around our country. The perils of poverty are clearly exacting a heavy price, one we have to confront with innovation. At Publicolor, our long-term continuum of design-based programs addresses many of the effects of poverty: single parent households, physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and the absence of afterschool programs, as well as the lack of role models, educational attainment, and goal-setting. For three days a week for four to six years before college and then even through college, Publicolor empowers struggling students with focus, determination and a sense of belonging, eliminating hopelessness and anger. We become their second family. Our unique, applied learning model give students ownership over their projects from beginning to end, helping them develop a sense of agency and ability to become their own best advocates. Having witnessed the success of Publicolor over the past 20 years, I can't help but wonder what cities like Baltimore would be like if Publicolor existed in them. We help address the deficits of poverty, level the playing field, and empower students to believe in themselves. Only by encouraging education in serious creative ways will we ensure that everyone in our country has a chance to thrive. This is what our country needs most.
New York City's public schools are marked by oppressive, prison-like interiors: the walls are peeling, cracked, and often littered with graffiti, and the hallways reek of lifelessness with their gray, beige, and off-white tones. Their students' struggles mirror these unfortunate surroundings and the subliminal message of disrespect is picked up by students and teachers alike. This pervasive underachievement was the inspiration behind Publicolor, a youth development organization which I founded in 1996 to combat the alarmingly low graduation rates in our poorest neighborhoods. Last year, more than 26,000 NYC students didn't graduate on time and more than 7,000 dropped out of school.
But at Publicolor, despite our focus on underachieving students who are a high risk of dropping out, we have 100 percent enrollment in school.
Publicolor functions under a basic principle: all children are walking potential. We begin with school environments. By changing the environment in public schools, we can change students' attitudes and reverse the impact of poverty. We achieve this by initially engaging the most at-risk students in a simple activity: painting. Once engaged, we saturate the students in educational programs three times a week for up to four to six years, leading to college and workforce preparedness.
The East New York neighborhood where Publicolor has done many projects provides a typical example of our focus: 29.3 percent of the population is living below the poverty level, and 37 percent are children under 18. 77 percent of households are SNAP (food stamps) recipients.
In the New York metro area, disconnected youth -- teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school -- equals 13.5 percent of the youth population, representing over 320,000 individuals. Youth disconnection, over time, is linked to lower wages, higher incarceration and unemployment, worse health, and less happiness as adults.
To address this, each year, Publicolor goes into under-resourced and struggling schools in our system -- schools where students have a high eligibility rate for federal free lunch, poor academic performance, behavioral issues, and a high percentage of absenteeism -- and similarly under-resourced community sites. Publicolor engages disconnected students, ages 13 to 24, with long-term, multi-day, multi-year design-based programs, civic engagement, academic support, and career readiness training. This process begins with Paint Club, where middle school students are taught to think critically and creatively about the relationship between color and their environment, and develop transferable skills on which we build in carefully sequenced programs. With staff guidance, students choose palettes for their schools and community sites, bringing them alive with vibrant, bright colors. Paint Club is just the beginning of these students' journey with Publicolor. We stay with them four to six years prior to college. And we stay with them in college! Our innovative work/study program to prevent summer learning loss is Summer Design Studio, a seven-week math and literacy immersion program taught through product design. We deliberately hold it at Pratt Institute's Brooklyn campus so that our students feel comfortable in a college setting. Almost all will be the first in their family to go to college.
Publicolor's work is grounded in research that confirms that when one changes an environment, one changes attitudes and behavior. Studies show that learning benefits from a stimulus-rich environment not dominated by gray, beige, and off-white.
Ninty-seven percent of our students graduate high school on time, whereas only 64 percent do citywide. Even more impressive, 94 percent of our high school graduates enroll in college, compared to a national average of 68.4 percent.
Since 1996, we've transformed over 400 struggling schools and under-resourced community facilities. We've impacted 969,000 students and their parents, and affected almost one million community residents. More importantly, we stay with our students through college, supporting each with a total investment of $31,542 -- an investment that catalyzes other funding sources for the students who receive an additional investment of $320,000 from their colleges and generally earn $830,000 more over their lifetime than a high school graduate.
This means Publicolor's work yields an astounding $1,150,000 for each student over time.
Publicolor has been immensely successful since its founding, but we are challenged: each year. We have 30 schools on our waiting list and turn away students on a weekly basis because of staff limitations. To increase our impact, we've adopted a five-year plan to empower more at-risk students. We plan to increase the number of schools, from 12 to 15, and community sites, from 15 to 24, that we transform annually, increase the yearly number of students in Paint Club from 900 to 1,500, and double the size of our other programs -- Color Club, Next Steps, the Scholarship Fund, and Summer Design Studio. We also plan to replicate Summer Design Studio on other campuses in the New York area and across the country. Even with our success, we still have needs. We need more corporate volunteers to paint alongside our students, donations to help us expand our programs, and partners to help us extend our reach to more disconnected youth. We are on a mission to help secure our country's future. Please join us!
A dynamic and passionate innovator, Ruth Lande Shuman is an award-winning industrial designer and Founder/President of Publicolor. Ruth has been deeply committed to community-based volunteer work for over thirty years, most notably as founding trustee of the Big Apple Circus, where she now serves as Trustee Emerita. She was also a board member of the Wiltwyck school's union-free school, a board member of the Rowena Reed Kostellow Fund at Pratt Institute, and as the Mayor's representative to the board of the Museum of Art & Design in New York City. Ruth attended the weekly executive sessions at the Aspen Institute in 2008. She also attended Harvard Business School's Executive Education Program for Non-Profit CEOs in 2007. Ruth founded Publicolor in 1996 to use color, collaboration, design, and the discipline of the commercial painting to engage at-risk students in their education, targeting the most underserved communities, most underperforming schools and most seriously disadvantaged middle and high school students. Ruth currently runs a colorful Midtown, NY staff that believes that Publicolor not only transforms buildings, they transforms lives.