60 Minutes--Year Up segment
Journalist: Morley Safer
Producer: Katy Textor
Original air date: January 26, 2014
Morley Safer interviews Year Up founder, Gerald Chertavain, about his “corporate bootcamp.” Year Up was the inspiration of Chertavain’s work as a Big Brother. Working on Wall Street and spending time with his Little Brother, Chertavain noticed a desperate need for children living in poverty to have more financial opportunities. In response, Chertavain founded this non-profit that sponsors young men and women living in poverty with opportunity to participate in Year Up, a year-long internship that trains participants in aspects of finance or technology development. Upon completion of the program, students are often hired or accepted in paid internships with large, reputable Fortune 500 businesses. Year Up has been so successful, the organization has establish other branches across the country, our nation’s capital included.
Quantitative: Flesch-Kincaid grade level--6.6 (Transcript of the segment was scored by Readability-score.com). No Lexile Level or ATOS available.
Qualitative: Although the structure of the segment is fairly linear with the language a Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score of 70.5, this piece would best align to high school level students. The content speaks directly to the likelihood of future employment, a topic of deep concern to many high school students. Furthermore, the segment implicitly addresses poverty by highlighting the success of Year Up without directly delving into the greater issues income inequality and school quality.
Content Area: English; Social Science--U.S. History; Economics; Career Education.
Curriculum Suggestions: When I watched this piece, my immediate thought was: Why don’t we have courses like the ones Year Up offers in our high schools? A teacher could create a cross-curricular Project Based Learning task where students develop their own course, one that they would like to see taught at their school, one that meets their needs as learners.
Common Core Standards: SL.11/12.1-6; RH.11/12.1-3
Additional/Digital Content:
- 60 Minutes--Year Up segment--
- Year Up website--http://www.yearup.org
Personal Thoughts: With the new CCSS very present, I believe it is important for teachers in all areas to be able to discuss careers. Too often, campuses focus on a “college-going culture.” I challenge high schools to focus on a “Career-ready culture.” With this, college promotion efforts will not be diminished since many careers require college degrees and those students that have no desire to attend college will not feel disenfranchised and disconnected from school.
*Meets the "Media Item" requirement
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