Painting to Address Educational Inequity

the phone in New York City. I just want to make sure, UM, we are so delighted to have you with us. And I do want to point out that Public Color is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropy, which is of course the charitable arm of Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg Radio. UM, Ruth, so delighted to have you here with us. I've been looking at your website, looking at some of your your efforts. Tell us a little bit about your mission though, well, from the very beginning, our mission has been to move

the needle on educational inequity and economic inequality. And UM I was of twenty six years ago. I got to see UM a lot of schools, middle schools in East Harlem, and I was absolutely outraged by how prison like they all looked, looked, and felt. And I thought, it's no wonder kids are dropping out. It's no wonder teachers are burning out. It's no wonder parents don't come for parent

teacher conferences. These were environments of extreme disrespect. And Um, I had just finished my master's in industrial design with his specialty in the psychological effect of color. And that's when the light bulb went on. I thought, you know what if I put a paint brush in the hands of especially disaffected students, I will get them. First of all, I'll teach them the marketable skill of commercial painting. I'll

teach them strong work habits. But I'll also just by talking to them, let them know how important education is. And together we will change the way their school looks and seals. And and what happened was they developed a very strong sense of pride and ownership in their school. They started showing up much much more regularly. Anecdotally, I heard from principles that even teachers started showing up more regularly.

And UM, let's see one to three schools later. My third school that I did UM in bed stye Um, which was the lowest performing school in the system that I did as a pilot project in order to win a contract with the Department of at the d OE at that school, I really I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave the kids. When we were we all I started, uh the I had a celebration to at the end of the painting the transformation, and I couldn't leave them. They were holding on, they were crying, and I thought,

we've got to start another program. So back in nine seven, I started color Club, which is an acronym for Community of Leaders organizing revitalization. The whole point was to go out into the neighborhood into under resource facilities like homeless shelters, local health clinics, senior centers, community centers with these kids so they were still with me. And and then that developed more and more into weekly career and college prep

workshops and then tutoring. We offered tutoring three times a week, and of course painting on Saturdays. And then the students were getting older. So now what so I started Next Steps, which is college and career prep. And I want you to know that Bloomberg. Bloomberg volunteered with us at the very first school that we painted as a result of having gotten a contract with the do OE, which was Thomas Jefferson in East New York. That was back in

like nineteen. That was maybe incredible. And Bloomberg employees have painted with us every single year, multiple times, and I mean they're incredible. I've always said that our volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization, and um, I'm I'm just thrilled that they're still with us this many years later. Well, it is definitely, as you know, Ruth, and you know, as a New York Bureau chief, you know, I'm very

proud of what we do here in New York. You know, it is so baked into our culture, and it obviously comes from our boss, Mike Bloomberg, as you know, who I believe we should also point out I was believe, I believe was involved in in an event earlier this week. I do want to ask you before we before we do some news. You know, given that you come at this from from a very you know, scientific background. Is

that you studied this and you study design. As you say, what is it, you know, just in in a minute or so, what is it about color that has that effect? I'm fascinated by that by that point that you made. Okay, it's not just color. You really have to know something about color, so you can't just put up any color. So it's it's understands like music, you can't just play any notes. You've got to know what you're doing. But if you know what you're doing, color, color effects attitudes

and behavior totally period. Yes, and that is research documents that right think about they've done that with waiting rooms and hospitals or even in prisons, Like it's just they talk about the impact of what this can can do for people. It's huge, right, absolutely, And and so we use we paint energy, joy, inspiration, visual beauty safety. Would you believe in every study that we've done of our work, students and teachers overwhelmingly reports feeling safer in a public

colored school, there's no gruciti. The kids become the painters and become my anti Graufciti posse. Right, there must be there must be like just a feeling of being proud of the work, right and one and an of ownership like this is our space. Listen, Ruth, hang on a second, because we want to continue our conversation. We have to do a little bit of news here, but we are definitely going to come back and continue with Ruth Landy um Shuman. She is the president and founder of Public Color,

and we're talking to her from New York City. I I love these kinds of missions, Jason, I have, Yeah, totally, and and what's so interesting is to hear the evolution of it, you know, sort of what's underneath it, and also to sort of as she clearly has sort of followed the past and they have followed her, these students. It's a it's a remarkable story to say the lad and goes back to you know, I think about the Posse Foundation, this idea of creating a group in a

community and you stay with them. It's just really wonderful. Let's continue our conversation with Ruth Landy Schuman. She is

the founder of president of Public Color. Jonius on the phone from New York City, And as we pointed out earlier, Public Color has received grants for their work from Blueberg Philanthropies, and as Ruth was very nice to point out earlier in our conversation, it has been a frequent and popular destination for our best of Blueberg are Bob volunteers Carol so happy to be a part of the family in

many ways. So, you know, Ruth, I do wonder you know what you're thinking about at this moment here in You have been involved in in social justice for a long time now, and you've seen it up close. You've seen the education educational component of this. What are we doing right? What do we need to do better? Oh, my goodness, that we're not doing much right. I'm really sorry to say that. Um, there are Okay, I'll phrase it a little bit differently. There are some principles in

public schools who are truly unsung heroes. They are doing something extraordinary and they're making sure that low income students are getting a really high level education. But they're not enough of them. There are so not enough of them. And I'm I'm I'm actually glad that there are protests now, peaceful.

I'm glad that there are peaceful protests bringing people's attention to the fact that we've been living with way too much educational inequity for way too long, and and that, by the way, leads to economic inequality and one of the beautiful you know, So in the end, you're you're perpetuating stereotype you're perpetuating poverty, you're not moving the needle.

And and I am so proud of the fact that, from very early on, we've been teaching our students strong and transferable work habits, work habits that they can use in school and work habits that they can use in the workplace. We're also teaching them, we're teaching them also values. Many many of my students come from broken homes, live in single parent households. I'd say, right now, easily, if not more, report food insecurity. I mean, how do you expect what do you how do you expect a youngster

to do well in school? When they go to bed hungry, they can't sleep. You can't sleep when you're hungry, you can't get a good night's sleep, and and and then you then they go to go off to goal where again I'm sorry to say, but I'm going to say it anyway, where a lot of the meals are not what the kids want to eat. And you know, the school should be doing a better job. You. It's very easy to serve healthy, nutritious, delicious meals. I do it

all the time. And we have a cookbook. We have a cookbook of public color and every recipe is less than ten dollars and you're feeding four to six people. So I don't know, there's so we have a lot of work to do. Well, that's it starts in the schools. I really believe it starts in the school Well that's interesting too, because you know, as a country, we spend a lot on public education, and yet here we are. So so what's the first step is it? I mean, do we do we have the right people in education

at all institutions at this point? Or is it do we not have the right people for the where's the where's the disconnect from what you're seeing? I honestly, I really don't know. I think I think that first of all, it starts with environment. Putting teachers and students in schools that look like prisons is so counterproductive. I do not understand it. I mean, if we could public color every

single school, believe me, I would. I mean, paint dignity, paint respect, paint underscores the joy of learning through environment. Environments send so many subliminal messages. So it starts with that. Then our teaching colleges are are I would love to see our teaching colleges emphasized project based learning. It is such a real way to engage students. My children went to a private school and they learned through project based learning. And I'm going to tell you something. I went to

a public school in Montreal. I if I had an envious bone in my body, it would be of the education they received. I was taught to memorize. Everything was by rote. Yes, not my kids. They were taught to discover. They were taught to challenge authority. It's changed a lot, but you're right, it's not necessarily in order in all education. We could talk for hours and hopefully we can have you back uh in the future, but good luck, and it was so wonderful to hear about all the work

that you guys are doing at Public Color. Ruth Landy Human she is founder and president of Public Color, joining us on the phone in New York City, and do check out their website public color dot org and you can find out more about the work that they're doing. Very cool stuff. And of course, as we said, there's accorded by Bloomberg Philanthropy, the charitable arm of Bloomberg Oup, owner of Bloomberg Radio