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K–12 Philadelphia sees results in College of Education after-school programs By Melissa W. Kaye
Penn State Delaware County Information Sciences and Technology student Eaton Morrison (far right) teaches Philadelphia School District youth how to repair and use computers as part of the Penn State Educational Partnership Program. At the end of the class, students can take computers home with them. Levinson estate endows PEPP scholarship By Loretta Brandon   During their lifetimes, Jim and Lynn Levinson were avid and generous supporters of the Penn State Educational Partnership Program (PEPP), an after-school academic and social enhancement program in three Erie inner-city schools. Through her estate, Lynn Levinson has given a gift of $109,500 to endow the Jim and Lynn Levinson Memorial Scholarship for PEPP. James C. Levinson was a 1950 graduate of Penn State in business administration.   Diane Daniels, director of the PEPP program, said that the Levinsons’ gift will provide scholarship assistance for Erie School District students who have completed PEPP and plan to attend Penn State Behrend. In a structured setting with teachers, tutors and community mentors, PEPP provides the opportunity for at-risk students to develop leadership skills and improve academically to be better prepared to pursue postsecondary education or training.   Since its inception in 1991, PEPP has enriched the lives of nearly 3,000 students in grades six through 12. Through a School-to-Work grant, PEPP has established three career centers, and more than 70 percent of PEPP graduates have enrolled in college. The program also has received financial and mentoring support from more than 25 companies and private donors in the Erie area.	In the College of Education’s Penn State Educational Partnership Program (PEPP), which provides after-school tutoring, mentoring and role modeling, success may be measured in the form of high school or college students returning to help in the community where they were once tutored.   “We like to recycle our students,” Elmore Hunter, program manager of PEPP in Philadelphia, said. “We want them to come back and tutor.” But that yardstick can be tricky in a city like Philadelphia: It’s difficult following children who have 60 high schools to choose from. And Philadelphia, which started its partnership with the Penn State Delaware County campus in 1997, is “the neophyte of the system,” Hunter said. “We don’t have a track record.”   Now, with a few years of experience under its belt, Philadelphia is starting to see some results in the form of returning students.   “The students are excited coming back,” Hunter said. “It keeps them involved in the program, and they’re giving back to the community.”   Success comes with additional rewards: City kids here are enjoying exciting new computer classes taught by Penn State Delaware County’s Information Sciences and Technology (IST) students.   The success is not surprising, given the history of PEPP. The program started at the Penn State McKeesport and Berks campuses in the late 1980s in an effort to provide educational programs for students from fifth and sixth to 12th grades. (In addition to Penn State student tutors, high school teens and volunteers also assist at some of the schools.) Since the program’s inception, educational enhancement opportunities have grown, said Wanda Colón, manager of PEPP at the Penn State Berks campus.   “From that initial program, we’ve grown into something more than a homework center,” Colón said. “We do everything from community service to more outreach activities on campus” in the form of field trips and guest speakers. “We give them access to higher education faculty and an environment for a smoother transition to college.” She estimates that in Reading, where there is only one high school, each year there are at least one or two Penn State freshman who return to tutor at community schools.   Who participates in PEPP? The schools handpick the youth as those who could benefit from tutoring.   “They’re identified by the school as average to above average,” said Darrell Thomas, statewide director of PEPP. Added Hunter, “We have kids who may not be A or B students, but they are kids who are trying to do the right thing and have their sights set on some form of postsecondary education.”   And that’s the type of student that thrives in the program. “PEPP provides a wonderful opportunity for Penn State to nurture academic excellence at the elementary and secondary levels,” Dr. Patricia A. Nelson, associate dean for Outreach, Cooperative Extension, Technology and International Programs in the College of Education, said.   An additional educational element the children enjoy is the incorporation of the College of Agricultural Sciences’ Head, Heart, Hands and Health 4-H   program, which encourages lab work in school. That program has been added to PEPP in Philadelphia and includes such activities as growing plants and hatching chickens.   “When kids come out of the classroom,” Hunter said, “the question is how do you make that textbook come to life? What better way is there to see science than to build a rocket? 4-H adds hands-on experience to PEPP—kids are interested in that.”   As for the Penn State tutors, it can be equally rewarding, especially for those considering a career in education.   “We want education students to become immersed with teaching when they are young,” Hunter said. “They have to know early on whether or not they like kids. PEPP is a testing ground, an opportunity to see what education is like.”   Penn State Delaware County students, who receive training before they go into the classroom, work at five different schools in Philadelphia (in addition to one in Delaware County).   Dr. Patricia VanLeuvan, assistant professor of education at Penn State Delaware County, reported that some of her education students like the program so much they often go beyond the field work already required of them in order to do PEPP work. “[Students appreciate it because they] feel like they are part of the teaching experience, rather than sitting back and observing and waiting in the wings,” she said.   Getting such attention is important to youth in Philadelphia, which is undergoing a school-reform movement. Test scores have been low, and the school district has identified about 25 schools that need after-school programs to boost academic performance. Three of the schools in which PEPP is involved, Barry Elementary School, Vaux Middle School and Gratz High School, are included in that list. While hard data is not yet available to show whether PEPP has made a difference in those school’s test scores, Hunter reported that students who started the program as fifth- and sixth-graders a few years ago are testing well today.   “The fact that students are falling behind academically in Philadelphia provides an opportunity for PEPP. We do tutoring in math, science and other core academic subjects. That’s what the schools are looking for,” Hunter said. “But what really makes PEPP stand out is our enrichment activities,” referring to activities such as 4-H and field trips. “The only way students can learn to write is to write. We provide more of a holistic approach to education, and that’s what education is missing.”   Philadelphia kids also are learning practical technology skills in a new class with information sciences and technology PEPP tutors. With computers donated by charitable organizations, the IST majors are teaching the youth how to repair and use computers. There’s a bonus: At the end of the program, the kids get to keep the computers.   “[The youth] learn through hands-on experience,” Dr. Frederick Loomis, associate professor of IST, said. Plus, “it’s a wonderful way of getting students involved in service work in the community. They’re extending their expertise to solve community problems.”   Penn State Delaware County IST student Eaton Morrison agreed. “This is an era where information is free. Now I’ve got the opportunity to tell people they can grasp onto that knowledge.”   Morrison said he was surprised at how quickly his class learned last year in a pilot program at FitzSimons Middle School.   “Some of the kids had some basic software skills when we started, nothing technical,” he said. “We took the computers apart and put them in front of the kids. We told them if they could put the computers together, they could have them.” In addition to enticing the students with computers, the tutors provided incentives to learn by showing them classified ads for computer tech jobs with a starting pay of $17 an hour. “They actually put the computers together,” Morrison reported.   Morrison also cited one student who, when the class first started, seemed uninterested. “One kid was belligerent in class; he gave us a hard time. So I assumed that he wasn’t listening. But one day, he grabbed me and asked me for help with a computer he had put together by himself. He had been listening the whole time. He told me that he started to fix family members’ computers for pay. I think he realized that he was doing something important.”   This year, the program expanded to include three more schools: Vaux Middle School and Gratz High School in Philadelphia, as well as Bell Avenue Middle School in Delaware County.   The computer student is a prime example of how Penn State Educational Partnership Program participants can benefit.   Hunter summed it up, saying, “The name of Penn State is impressive. It carries weight for parents, and you see the child going to school more. A behavioral change may be gradual, but kids become proud to be a part of the program.” An outreach program of the College of Education