Pro-quality Music Video from Crane High Students

Very impressive!

The music video below looks like something from a record-label's studio, but it was created and produced by 12 students at Crane Tech Prep High School in Chicago's West Haven neighborhood. The project was a joint effort between the students; their teacher "Gravity," owner of OOO Multimedium; After School Matters; and the Near West Side Community Development Corp.



"The idea was to do everything super high quality so that these kids could see themselves in a different light," said Gravity in an interview with Near West outreach coordinator Darvolis Robinson.

"We recorded the song, got a mix on the song, shot the video and got the edit all in just under TWO WEEKS! Amazing! We are talking about 12 kids (3 singers & 8 lyricists) who had very minimal or no prior studio experience and nailed all of the vocals in one session! I have been in the entertainment business for quite some time and trust me when I tell you that is nothing short of amazing!"

The video shows what can be accomplished when expectations are set high rather than low.

"When I told people of what I was planning to do with this class," said Gravity, "they all thought it was a fabulous idea until I told them I was doing it at Crane! I couldn’t believe that people were writing off an entire student body based on hearsay or bad press! I originally grew up in Harlem N.Y. and I remember how it felt for people to prejudge me and what I had to offer. Sadly I still deal with being prejudged today as an adult, but now I have the power and means to prove those people wrong all of the time. I decided to treat these kids the same way I so often wished and still wish to be treated, and give them the power to change people’s perspective of who they are and what they have to offer!"

Congrats to the students for a fine piece of work, and thanks to Near West for passing on the information.

Channing Reddit, Social Justice Class of 09, One of Eight to Win Roosevelt Scholarship

Yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times reported that eight students from The School of Social Justice, one of four small schools within Little Village Lawndale High School, had been awarded full four-year scholarships worth $80,000 to Roosevelt University. Channing Reddit, singing a duet in the photo above as part of a play honoring Black History Month, was among them. Channing, an accomplished singer and pianist, told me he plans to major in music education. He has already spent a fair amount of time at Roosevelt, from orientation when he first arrived as a freshman to a writing course he took on campus last summer, staying overnight.

As an 8th-grader at Mason Elementary in North Lawndale, Channing originally thought he would apply to Curie High School. Having sung and played piano in church since he was very young, he liked Curie's music program and strong academic reputation. But when he heard there was a new high school opening nearby, he was so intrigued he changed his mind. “It was brand-new. I wanted to be in the history of the school as one of the first graduates,” he said.

Channing's 8th-grade dream came true last Friday night. When he and his classmates crossed the stage, they made history as members of the first graduating class of Little Village Lawndale High School. Hunger striker Manuelita Garcia, who helped push the Chicago Board of Education to make good on their promise to build a new high school in Little Village, spoke during their commencement ceremony.

Students coming to Little Village Lawndale choose which of the four small schools they wish to attend: Social Justice, MAS (Multicultural Arts School), Infinity Math & Science Academy, or World Language Academy. Soon after Channing chose Social Justice, he discovered that Roosevelt University had pledged to award scholarships covering tuition, room and board to any student in Social Justice's first two graduating classes with at least a 3.0 GPA and an ACT score of 20. “From the very beginning I knew I was going to do that." Always an honors student, ”I knew it would be easy for me to meet the requirement," he said. He graduated with a 4.0 and earned the 20 after just one retake.

Though Channing says it was easy for him, statistics say it's generally pretty tough for young African-American men like him to make it through both high school and college. Recent research shows that for every 100 African American boys who start ninth grade in Chicago's public high schools, only about 11 will hold a bachelor's degree ten years later.

Not only has Channing made huge strides in beating those odds, he's helped his peers along the way. He has a circle of friends who, like him, are African American young men on track to graduate from high school, some of whom joined him for lunch or stopped by his table while I interviewed him earlier this year. “I'm always helping all of them when they need help with their work.”

Channing added that Social Justice has made a big difference in his friends' likelihood of graduating. If they had gone to a different school, he said, it was unlikely they would all have made it with him. “Other schools seem like they don't care about their students that much. This one does.”

UPDATED 6/10: I received word from Katherine Hogan, English department chair at Social Justice, that of the original 85 students who entered as freshmen, 66 graduated last Friday night, and 50 of them have been accepted to postsecondary programs. Hogan says six more students are expected to graduate in August.

Full disclosure: I taught briefly at Social Justice High School back in 2006 and had the privilege of meeting Channing when he was in my advisory (homeroom). We had not kept in touch until I talked with him this spring about his postgraduate plans.

One day late, sports web site goes live

Darn it! If you're going to set a deadline for something, and then go public with your plan as I did in an earlier post, it's nice to actually meet the deadline. Which I did not.

Even so, the new web site for Neighborhood Sports Chicago went live this morning, just one day behind schedule.

The site already includes a whole lot of information on how organizations are using sports for youth development and community development. In the next four weeks it will provide regular updates on preparations for the Spring Into Sports extravaganza from April 4 to 11. That's during the Chicago Public Schools spring break, and hundreds of kids each day are expected to participate in competitions, demonstrations and open swim at the four host venues: Crane Technical Prep High School, Englewood High School (not confirmed), Little Village Lawndale High School and Orr Academy High School.

This is the real thing when it comes to youth programming: very impressive work by the hosting organizations and partners. We hope the web site will bring attention to this work that engages youth while creating stronger individuals and stronger neighborhoods.