New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg Addresses State Mentoring Partnerships

Introduced by MENTOR’s President and Chief Executive Officer David Shapiro as the "Mentoring Mayor," Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke about the critical impact of myriad mentoring initiatives throughout the city of New York.

 

Bloomberg highlighted the city’s Success Mentors and the Young Men’s Initiative. Success Mentors is the largest, most comprehensive in-school mentoring program in the nation, helping more than 4,000 at-risk students. Bloomberg commented on some of the challenges New York City’s (NYC) public school students face:

 

• One out of five NYC public school students — more than 200,000 — missed a month or more of school in the 2010-2011 academic year.

• Three out of four students who are chronically absent in the sixth grade never graduate from high school.

• Of NYC children in the juvenile justice system, 79 percent have records of chronic absenteeism.

 

When mentoring was implemented into the school system through Success Mentors, the results were incredibly positive.

 

• Chronically absent students who benefitted from the program gained more than 7,000 days of attendance.

• Mentors are helping students get back on track:

          o In elementary schools, 49 percent of students with full-year mentors exited chronic absenteeism status vs. 42 percent of students without mentors. 

          o In high schools, 23 percent of students with full-year mentors exited chronic absenteeism status vs. 18 percent of students without mentors. 

 

Another critical program Bloomberg referred to was The Young Men’s Initiative, where a recent recommendations report found that all young people need an adult in their lives who guides them and challenges them while creating a sense of possibility about the future. Mentors can play this role. Successful adults who inspire young people to follow their path can be mentors. Adults from the neighborhood who pursued a different path can also play a powerful role as mentors; they are “credible messengers” whose stories are cautionary and inspirational. Young people can mentor one another.

 

Earlier in the day, New York City Chancellor Dennis Walcott commented that Bloomberg deserves resounding praise for his commitment to mentoring. 

 

MENTOR annually convenes its network of Mentoring Partnerships for the States Caucus meeting to exchange successful strategies for enhancing the field of youth mentoring. This year’s States Caucus in New York will conclude tomorrow.

 

For more information about Bloomberg’s remarks, contact Ellen Christman at echristman@mentoring.org. For more information and resources on quality youth mentoring, as well as MENTOR’s network of Mentoring Partnerships, visit www.mentoring.org.