Message From the President
LOST AND FOUND
Determined Detroit boys offer lessons of hope for all
Detroit is a tale of two cities.
One city— painfully described in the State of the Children Report that begins on Page 18— is a Detroit whose child well-being indicators paint a grim picture. For black and brown boys it is very dire. This Detroit is a city where too many kids attend poor-performing schools, never see a parent go off to work in the morning, and live in unhealthy and unstable neighborhoods.
The crisis of black and brown boys, though, is by no means unique to Detroit. Young men of color across the United States are more likely to fail to graduate from high school, to become involved in the criminal justice system, to fall victims in the foster-care and health-care systems, and to lag in virtually every category of child well-being indicators.
The 2010 Schott 50 State Report on Black Males in Public Education, a summary of which is on Page 8, found that the overall 2008 graduation rate for black males in the United States was only 47 percent. More recently, a report issued by the Council of the Great City Schools indicates that academic performance on other measures for black males continues to lag. Young black men drop out of high school at nearly twice the rate of white males. Black males also are far less likely than white males to meet college readiness benchmarks or enroll in college.
The other Detroit— the Detroit I love so much—is a place where vulnerable children get the love and attention they need, and with he help of many of the nonprofit organizations The Skillman Foundation funds, lead positive lives and have bright futures. That’s the Detroit writer Eddie B. Allen Jr. chronicles in the cover story.
Both portraits of Detroit are accurate but incomplete. The bleak statistics in the State of the Children report miss the encouraging examples that the cover story sheds light on. The hopeful stories of the resilient young men featured in these pages—and the important programs that support them—are less significant if our community cannot bring them to scale and dramatically improve the child well-being indicators for all Detroit kids.
At The Skillman Foundation, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in December, we are determined to help lead the effort to create the Detroit where children can thrive. We want our kids to be safe, healthy, educated, and prepared for successful lives as adults. The first ever State of the Children Report— previewed in this annual report and available in December on The Skillman Foundation and Data Driven Detroit websites—is a vital tool in measuring Detroit’s progress and the health of Detroit kids. Created by substantial grant funds from us and our friends at the Kresge Foundation, Data Driven Detroit will update the State of the Children Report annually, making it more comprehensive and sophisticated each year.
I was moved and encouraged to read the interview that begins on Page 18, with Data Driven Detroit’s Kurt Metzger, who said the thing that keeps him going—despite having to collect and analyze some heartbreaking statistics—was Detroit’s army of incredibly passionate and hardworking nonprofit professionals and volunteers who never give up the fight.
We share Kurt’s view of Detroit’s nonprofit sector, and we won’t quit either. The Foundation has a new 50th-anniversary-themed website that will launch soon. It includes our first-ever blog, which we’re calling A Rose for Detroit, in honor of our founder, Rose Skillman. Without her vision, and her husband, Robert Skillman’s resources, we couldn’t have been a voice for Detroit children the past 50 years. But like the hopeful Detroit depicted by the young men in this annual report, we’re still here. And just as those boys intend to make something of their lives, we intend to work hard with our grantees, fellow funders, and ordinary Detroiters to make Detroit a place where hope carries the day.
—Carol Goss, Skillman Foundation President & CEO