Graduation Rates Press Release
November 3, 2003

In July of 2003, the Plain Dealer published a series of articles called “Children Left Behind.” The series compared Cleveland to nine other cities on several quality-of-life indicators for children and found that Cleveland ranked last in virtually every category.

In an effort to delve more deeply into the issues, and attempt to arrive at solutions for the problems facing Northeast Ohio youth, the Plain Dealer and WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN ideastream have partnered to create Tomorrow’s Promise – Helping Children Left Behind.

The initial broadcast in the series Tomorrow’s Promise – Helping Children Left Behind, will focus on high school graduation rates. The program will air Thursday, November 20 at 8 p.m. on WVIZ/PBS. (Repeating Sunday, November 23 at 3 p.m.). Radio will be airing this on Tuesday, November 25 at 8 p.m.

Taking a proactive, community responsive, and forward looking approach, ideastream and the Plain Dealer identified three goals and objectives for the Tomorrow’s Promise series: to increase awareness of the challenges facing young people in Northeast Ohio; encourage community dialogue focusing on these challenges and plausible solutions; and to support a public process to establish specific goals for improving the lives of children in Northeast Ohio.

The Tomorrow’s Promise project, presented in cooperation with the Federation for Community Planning, will include newspaper articles, television and radio programming and a series of town hall meetings. Themes examined during the series will include teenage pregnancy, environment health, early childhood development and juvenile crime.

The problems identified in the original research conducted by the Plain Dealer are daunting, indeed:

• Students in Cleveland are far more likely to drop out of high school than those in Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
• A larger share of Cleveland children lives in poverty than in Detroit or Cincinnati.
• Kids are poisoned by lead more frequently than youngsters in Chicago and Baltimore.
• And teen girls in Cleveland have babies at a higher rate than girls in St. Louis and Pittsburgh.

And these problems are not confined to the Cleveland city limits. The Plain Dealer analysis found that children in many greater Cleveland suburbs are not doing as well as those in similar communities around the state.

The Tomorrow’s Promise project was officially launched in October of 2003 with a series of town hall meetings to engage the community graduation rates in Northeast Ohio. The town hall meetings, organized by the Federation for Community Planning and sponsored by the Plain Dealer and WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN ideastream, were held on October 28th at John F. Kennedy High School in Cleveland and October 30, at Lorain Admiral High School. Articles and editorials have appeared in the Plain Dealer. Additional editorial coverage will follow. Subsequent programming on WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN ideastream will include:

• Public service announcements encouraging attendance at town hall and other meetings and events
• Radio news coverage of the meetings and events
• Special news stories will be generated, exploring the issues addressed in the series, complementing the fuller-format programming on radio and television. Issues and solutions identified during community forums will be addressed.

Renita Jablonski, a reporter/producer at 90.3 WCPN and WVIZ/PBS ideastream, will host the programs. Joe Frolik, Associate Editor at the Plain Dealer will moderate the panel discussions.

Serving Northeast Ohio, ideastream is a public service, multiple-media organization with a mission to strengthen our communities by providing distinctive, thought-provoking programs and services that enlighten, inspire, educate and entertain. The joint media organization was formed by public broadcasting stations WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN in July of 2001.