{"id":587328,"date":"2018-06-03T00:02:40","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T06:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=587328"},"modified":"2018-06-03T08:56:05","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T14:56:05","slug":"birth-of-the-brain-bag-a-conversation-with-quint-studer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/birth-of-the-brain-bag-a-conversation-with-quint-studer\/","title":{"rendered":"Birth of the &#8216;brain bag:&#8217; A conversation with Quint Studer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_587334\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-587334\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Studer-Quint-771x642.jpg\" alt=\"Quint Studer\" width=\"771\" height=\"642\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Studer-Quint-771x642.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Studer-Quint-336x280.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Studer-Quint-768x640.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Studer-Quint.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Studer Community Institute<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quint Studer<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Quint Studer came to Pensacola, Florida, from Chicago about 20 years ago to turn around a troubled hospital. He ended up turning around the whole town. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Culturally, Pensacola is less Florida than it is Alabama: It\u2019s the buckle of the Bible Belt, a beautiful and deeply conservative place that is also among the poorest in the state.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article is part of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0year-long journalistic investigation into child well-being in New Mexico. Read the series, Raising New Mexico,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Related<\/h3>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/florida-city-nurtures-babies-with-brain-bags-for-parents-can-nm-do-the-same\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Florida city nurtures babies with &#8216;Brain Bags&#8217; for parents. Can NM do the same?<\/a><br \/>\n\u2022\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/journalist-sees-florida-hometown-impacted-by-child-well-being-initiatives\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Journalist sees Florida hometown impacted by child well-being initiatives<\/a><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p><em>Studer \u2013 who isn\u2019t afraid to talk about racism and its contribution to poverty &#8212; parlayed his corporate turnaround success into a consulting group that sold three years ago for $300 million. By his own measure, he has invested about $100 million in reviving a moribund downtown and supporting small businesses.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>He transformed himself into one of the city\u2019s most influential businessmen and philanthropists, donating more than $1 million to a new YMCA downtown and $5 million to found a new $85 million children\u2019s hospital that bears his name.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Studer\u2019s latest passion in Pensacola \u2013 and longest-term project, he says \u2013 is child well-being. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Q: To understand poverty in Pensacola, you started a journalism nonprofit to flesh out the metrics and study solutions. What did you find?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Studer: Our high school graduation rate in 2014 was 66 percent. Immediately, people blame the public school teachers. Well, that is wrong. I would have said the same thing three years ago: We need to fix our public education system. But then this number popped up that said only 66 percent of our children were ready for kindergarten. So, we started saying, \u201cIs there a correlation or is that just something that happened?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We started digging. We ended up at the University of Chicago, with Thirty Million Words and Dana Suskind. We brought Dana down and I sat there and listened to her the whole day. She said some things that triggered me. If 85 percent of the brain is developed by age 3, even voluntary prekindergarten is too late. So you have got to go zero to 3. If you go zero to 3, what is the key indicator? Well, it\u2019s words and conversational words with the baby.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And that\u2019s where the Brain Bags come in?<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Studer: You want to walk in with mom and get her feeling comfortable. Giving her something is a way to open the door. You explain, \u2018We\u2019re giving this to you,\u2019 and then you\u2019re talking about the power she has to build her child\u2019s brain. It\u2019s easy to think it\u2019s genetic, but it\u2019s not. You can build a brain.<\/p>\n<p>I worked in a hospital. New parents are very interested in everything, but we\u2019ve never covered brain development. The long-term way to deal with poverty is to get kids ready for kindergarten. Even the University of Chicago considers that as an economic indicator now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q: Why moms?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Studer: The reality is that in the pockets of poverty many children are being raised by a mom. So we go to mom because that is what it is. Hopefully we get dads, too. Once you get the mom going they can never <em>not<\/em> do it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q: What are your goals going forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Studer: Short-term, we\u2019ve got to grow small businesses and move wages. Long-term, it\u2019s the kindergarten readiness. I didn\u2019t make it up, but the best time to invest was 20 years ago; the second-best time is today. We\u2019re afraid to do that because we are looking for quick results. I tell people, \u2018This is a 15- to 20-year project.\u2019 But it\u2019s a worthwhile project if you ever want to stop the generational poverty that we live in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quint Studer came to Pensacola, Florida, from Chicago about 20 years ago to turn around a troubled hospital. He ended up turning around the whole town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":587334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[234,146],"class_list":["post-587328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-poverty","series-raising-new-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}