The Gift of Education

Tells the story of how two philanthropists promised each of the 112 graduating sixth graders at Belmont Elementary, a school in one of Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods, a fully paid college education to the institution of their choice.

At the June 17, 1987 sixth-grade graduation ceremony at Belmont Elementary, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia, philanthropists George and Diane Weiss promised each student a fully paid college education to the institution of their choice upon the students’ graduation from high school. The Gift of Education describes this chance-of-a-lifetime gift and the pressure to use it. It details and analyzes the experiences of twelve students from the original class—six who graduated from high school and completed some postsecondary education and six who did not finish high school. Their stories illustrate how children, when properly challenged and supported, can succeed, that philanthropy alone cannot address the severe conditions that millions of poor children experience daily, and that government investment in inner-city education and communities has been woefully inadequate.

“This is a sobering book … This case study underscores the nearly insurmountable challenges facing children who grow up in America’s inner cities. Equally discouraging, however, is the revelation of the futility of even the most well-intentioned attempts to improve the life-chances of poor children through education. For the Belmont 112, the presumptive ‘gift’ of education was as much a further complication in their lives as it was an opportunity … Educators or not, this book should be required reading for every citizen.” — Teachers College Record

“We learn from the Belmont 112 and from Norman Newberg that young people who have endured too much still dream, hope, yearn. Most long for an educator who will listen, extend a hand, take a walk, excuse mistakes and open doors … [Newberg] asks us to think through the promise, the State, privatization and ‘gifts’; he dares us to imagine what could be in a nation eating so many of our young. The Belmont 112 also ask us, from their college classrooms, corporate jobs, hairbraiding salons in their living rooms, the streets and from prison, to respond with urgency to the structural crime scene we call ‘poverty’ in America.” — From the Foreword by Michelle Fine

Norman A. Newberg is Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and Executive Director of the Say Yes to Education program.