Fast Pack 2000

Since the '60s, I've been saying to myself, "If I can create the same conditions that Mr. Ross created in his art room, then I'll be able to get the same results." Mr. Ross had food and clay and coffee and affection and decency in that room. He created magic in a room in an inner-city high school. And he saved my life.

Now, 25 years later, here's what I've done: I hired one of Frank Lloyd Wright's students to design a building in a funky, crime-ridden, old industrial park in the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh. And in that building, I provide local high-school students and adults with art education. My building has a fountain in front of it. Why? One of the Carnegie museums has a fountain in front of it because the people who built that museum thought that visitors deserved a fountain. (I know this because I'm on the board of the museums.) So I had my designer put a fountain in front of my building because I think that welfare mothers and steel workers deserve a fountain too.

The only thing wrong with poor people is that they don't have any money, which is a curable condition. I round up kids -- 400 of them in grades 8 through 12, half of them white, half of them black. I teach them clay or photography or computer imaging, and three years later, 80% are in college, and that's happened 10 years in a row. I don't teach them academics; I teach them attitude. Because you can't teach these kids algebra if they don't want to live. How do you get them to want to live? You show them affection and aesthetics and enthusiasm. Then you say to them, "Do you want to live like this -- with people celebrating your talent? Then you've got to go to school. You've got to get good grades." And they do.

Gil Bashe

My reaction to everything that you've told us is that what you're doing is spectacular -- but it isn't good enough. Here's what I mean. You can go from city to city in the United States and find people who are creating powerful institutions that deal with kids and poverty. St. Louis, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, and other cities across the country have these programs. But that's not enough. You tell us that it could take 30 years or more to return hope to our inner cities. But we don't have 30 years! It's got to happen in 5 years. So the question is "How do we get programs like yours into 100 cities within 5 years?" We need to figure out how to get that done, because the problem is growing faster than the solution.

Steve McCallion

One of the biggest challenges that we face is to break the lock of the existing interest groups that tie up the established systems. Whether they're teachers, school administrators, or other groups, powerful established interests spend billions of dollars to deliver the kind of education system that we currently have. We've got to find a way to end run those groups and, at the same time, to reach the critical masses. Until we can do both, changing the system in any fundamental way is going to be very difficult.

Chris Meyer

When you look at the problem of education in inner cities, it strikes me that a lot of tactical solutions are out there. Many companies are adopting a school, funding a program, sharing some of their resources. But despite those efforts, there's still a lot of hopelessness. What Bill is doing is taking the next step. He's offering the hope that there's actually a strategic solution to an overwhelming problem. If his approach works in Pittsburgh, that's great. If he opens a center in San Francisco, and it's successful there too, that's even better. If he can start a center in a third city, then we'll really start to gain momentum -- and that's what people are looking for: a place to put their hope.

Brook Manville

To me, this discussion leads to one question: Can this solution scale? Can it scale in a world where public resources and public dialogue are far from the field of discussion? I look at what Bill is doing, and then I look at the billions and billions of dollars that are going into absolute sinkholes. And I wonder how a project like Bill's can achieve national scale when so much political discussion and public debate is focused on cutting taxes and on eliminating capital-gains taxes -- political causes that are diametrically opposed to solving the problems of education and unemployment.

Bill Weiss

I start with the premise that Bill Strickland is the most fabulous CEO I've met in years. The way in which he leverages the infrastructure that's around him is absolutely brilliant. He's magnificent at the art of organized serendipity. That leads me to my second premise: The way to scale programs like Bill's is to create a public corporation. Use the free market to create a capital base that would allow the Bill Stricklands of the world to grow at their own rate, not at a rate that's dictated by the government or by grants. This man has a world-class corporation in his soul, and he needs investors to provide him with the capital to take it out of his soul and into the country.