Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. So getting us all on a
Speaker 1: better and lasting path to equality injustice, well, it means
Speaker 1: educating everyone and that Jason, as we know, needs to
Speaker 1: happen at all ages. UM Public Color gets that. Here
Speaker 1: to talk about their mission and efforts is Ruth Schuman.
Speaker 1: She is president and founder of AM. I saying it right,
Speaker 1: Public Color, Yes, okay, good, and she joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone in New York City. I just want to
Speaker 1: make sure, UM, we are so delighted to have you
Speaker 1: with us. And I do want to point out that
Speaker 1: Public Color is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropy, which is of
Speaker 1: course the charitable arm of Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg Radio. UM, Ruth,
Speaker 1: so delighted to have you here with us. I've been
Speaker 1: looking at your website, looking at some of your your efforts.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your mission though, well,
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, our mission has been to move
Speaker 1: the needle on educational inequity and economic inequality. And UM
Speaker 1: I was of twenty six years ago. I got to
Speaker 1: see UM a lot of schools, middle schools in East Harlem,
Speaker 1: and I was absolutely outraged by how prison like they
Speaker 1: all looked, looked, and felt. And I thought, it's no
Speaker 1: wonder kids are dropping out. It's no wonder teachers are
Speaker 1: burning out. It's no wonder parents don't come for parent
Speaker 1: teacher conferences. These were environments of extreme disrespect. And Um,
Speaker 1: I had just finished my master's in industrial design with
Speaker 1: his specialty in the psychological effect of color. And that's
Speaker 1: when the light bulb went on. I thought, you know
Speaker 1: what if I put a paint brush in the hands
Speaker 1: of especially disaffected students, I will get them. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'll teach them the marketable skill of commercial painting. I'll
Speaker 1: teach them strong work habits. But I'll also just by
Speaker 1: talking to them, let them know how important education is.
Speaker 1: And together we will change the way their school looks
Speaker 1: and seals. And and what happened was they developed a
Speaker 1: very strong sense of pride and ownership in their school.
Speaker 1: They started showing up much much more regularly. Anecdotally, I
Speaker 1: heard from principles that even teachers started showing up more regularly.
Speaker 1: And UM, let's see one to three schools later. My
Speaker 1: third school that I did UM in bed stye Um,
Speaker 1: which was the lowest performing school in the system that
Speaker 1: I did as a pilot project in order to win
Speaker 1: a contract with the Department of at the d OE
Speaker 1: at that school, I really I couldn't leave. I couldn't
Speaker 1: leave the kids. When we were we all I started,
Speaker 1: uh the I had a celebration to at the end
Speaker 1: of the painting the transformation, and I couldn't leave them.
Speaker 1: They were holding on, they were crying, and I thought,
Speaker 1: we've got to start another program. So back in nine seven,
Speaker 1: I started color Club, which is an acronym for Community
Speaker 1: of Leaders organizing revitalization. The whole point was to go
Speaker 1: out into the neighborhood into under resource facilities like homeless shelters,
Speaker 1: local health clinics, senior centers, community centers with these kids
Speaker 1: so they were still with me. And and then that
Speaker 1: developed more and more into weekly career and college prep
Speaker 1: workshops and then tutoring. We offered tutoring three times a week,
Speaker 1: and of course painting on Saturdays. And then the students
Speaker 1: were getting older. So now what so I started Next Steps,
Speaker 1: which is college and career prep. And I want you
Speaker 1: to know that Bloomberg. Bloomberg volunteered with us at the
Speaker 1: very first school that we painted as a result of
Speaker 1: having gotten a contract with the do OE, which was
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson in East New York. That was back in
Speaker 1: like nineteen. That was maybe incredible. And Bloomberg employees have
Speaker 1: painted with us every single year, multiple times, and I
Speaker 1: mean they're incredible. I've always said that our volunteers are
Speaker 1: the lifeblood of our organization, and um, I'm I'm just
Speaker 1: thrilled that they're still with us this many years later. Well,
Speaker 1: it is definitely, as you know, Ruth, and you know,
Speaker 1: as a New York Bureau chief, you know, I'm very
Speaker 1: proud of what we do here in New York. You know,
Speaker 1: it is so baked into our culture, and it obviously
Speaker 1: comes from our boss, Mike Bloomberg, as you know, who
Speaker 1: I believe we should also point out I was believe,
Speaker 1: I believe was involved in in an event earlier this week.
Speaker 1: I do want to ask you before we before we
Speaker 1: do some news. You know, given that you come at
Speaker 1: this from from a very you know, scientific background. Is
Speaker 1: that you studied this and you study design. As you say,
Speaker 1: what is it, you know, just in in a minute
Speaker 1: or so, what is it about color that has that effect?
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by that by that point that you made. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not just color. You really have to know something
Speaker 1: about color, so you can't just put up any color.
Speaker 1: So it's it's understands like music, you can't just play
Speaker 1: any notes. You've got to know what you're doing. But
Speaker 1: if you know what you're doing, color, color effects attitudes
Speaker 1: and behavior totally period. Yes, and that is research documents
Speaker 1: that right think about they've done that with waiting rooms
Speaker 1: and hospitals or even in prisons, Like it's just they
Speaker 1: talk about the impact of what this can can do
Speaker 1: for people. It's huge, right, absolutely, And and so we
Speaker 1: use we paint energy, joy, inspiration, visual beauty safety. Would
Speaker 1: you believe in every study that we've done of our work,
Speaker 1: students and teachers overwhelmingly reports feeling safer in a public
Speaker 1: colored school, there's no gruciti. The kids become the painters
Speaker 1: and become my anti Graufciti posse. Right, there must be
Speaker 1: there must be like just a feeling of being proud
Speaker 1: of the work, right and one and an of ownership
Speaker 1: like this is our space. Listen, Ruth, hang on a second,
Speaker 1: because we want to continue our conversation. We have to
Speaker 1: do a little bit of news here, but we are
Speaker 1: definitely going to come back and continue with Ruth Landy
Speaker 1: um Shuman. She is the president and founder of Public Color,
Speaker 1: and we're talking to her from New York City. I
Speaker 1: I love these kinds of missions, Jason, I have, Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: and and what's so interesting is to hear the evolution
Speaker 1: of it, you know, sort of what's underneath it, and
Speaker 1: also to sort of as she clearly has sort of
Speaker 1: followed the past and they have followed her, these students.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a remarkable story to say the lad
Speaker 1: and goes back to you know, I think about the
Speaker 1: Posse Foundation, this idea of creating a group in a
Speaker 1: community and you stay with them. It's just really wonderful.
Speaker 1: Let's continue our conversation with Ruth Landy Schuman. She is
Speaker 1: the founder of president of Public Color. Jonius on the
Speaker 1: phone from New York City, And as we pointed out earlier,
Speaker 1: Public Color has received grants for their work from Blueberg Philanthropies,
Speaker 1: and as Ruth was very nice to point out earlier
Speaker 1: in our conversation, it has been a frequent and popular
Speaker 1: destination for our best of Blueberg are Bob volunteers Carol
Speaker 1: so happy to be a part of the family in
Speaker 1: many ways. So, you know, Ruth, I do wonder you
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking about at this moment here in
Speaker 1: You have been involved in in social justice for a
Speaker 1: long time now, and you've seen it up close. You've
Speaker 1: seen the education educational component of this. What are we
Speaker 1: doing right? What do we need to do better? Oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, that we're not doing much right. I'm really
Speaker 1: sorry to say that. Um, there are Okay, I'll phrase
Speaker 1: it a little bit differently. There are some principles in
Speaker 1: public schools who are truly unsung heroes. They are doing
Speaker 1: something extraordinary and they're making sure that low income students
Speaker 1: are getting a really high level education. But they're not
Speaker 1: enough of them. There are so not enough of them.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm I'm actually glad that there are protests now, peaceful.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that there are peaceful protests bringing people's attention
Speaker 1: to the fact that we've been living with way too
Speaker 1: much educational inequity for way too long, and and that,
Speaker 1: by the way, leads to economic inequality and one of
Speaker 1: the beautiful you know, So in the end, you're you're
Speaker 1: perpetuating stereotype you're perpetuating poverty, you're not moving the needle.
Speaker 1: And and I am so proud of the fact that,
Speaker 1: from very early on, we've been teaching our students strong
Speaker 1: and transferable work habits, work habits that they can use
Speaker 1: in school and work habits that they can use in
Speaker 1: the workplace. We're also teaching them, we're teaching them also values.
Speaker 1: Many many of my students come from broken homes, live
Speaker 1: in single parent households. I'd say, right now, easily, if
Speaker 1: not more, report food insecurity. I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: expect what do you how do you expect a youngster
Speaker 1: to do well in school? When they go to bed hungry,
Speaker 1: they can't sleep. You can't sleep when you're hungry, you
Speaker 1: can't get a good night's sleep, and and and then
Speaker 1: you then they go to go off to goal where
Speaker 1: again I'm sorry to say, but I'm going to say
Speaker 1: it anyway, where a lot of the meals are not
Speaker 1: what the kids want to eat. And you know, the
Speaker 1: school should be doing a better job. You. It's very
Speaker 1: easy to serve healthy, nutritious, delicious meals. I do it
Speaker 1: all the time. And we have a cookbook. We have
Speaker 1: a cookbook of public color and every recipe is less
Speaker 1: than ten dollars and you're feeding four to six people.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, there's so we have a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do. Well, that's it starts in the schools.
Speaker 1: I really believe it starts in the school Well that's
Speaker 1: interesting too, because you know, as a country, we spend
Speaker 1: a lot on public education, and yet here we are.
Speaker 1: So so what's the first step is it? I mean,
Speaker 1: do we do we have the right people in education
Speaker 1: at all institutions at this point? Or is it do
Speaker 1: we not have the right people for the where's the
Speaker 1: where's the disconnect from what you're seeing? I honestly, I
Speaker 1: really don't know. I think I think that first of all,
Speaker 1: it starts with environment. Putting teachers and students in schools
Speaker 1: that look like prisons is so counterproductive. I do not
Speaker 1: understand it. I mean, if we could public color every
Speaker 1: single school, believe me, I would. I mean, paint dignity,
Speaker 1: paint respect, paint underscores the joy of learning through environment.
Speaker 1: Environments send so many subliminal messages. So it starts with that.
Speaker 1: Then our teaching colleges are are I would love to
Speaker 1: see our teaching colleges emphasized project based learning. It is
Speaker 1: such a real way to engage students. My children went
Speaker 1: to a private school and they learned through project based learning.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you something. I went to
Speaker 1: a public school in Montreal. I if I had an
Speaker 1: envious bone in my body, it would be of the
Speaker 1: education they received. I was taught to memorize. Everything was
Speaker 1: by rote. Yes, not my kids. They were taught to discover.
Speaker 1: They were taught to challenge authority. It's changed a lot,
Speaker 1: but you're right, it's not necessarily in order in all education.
Speaker 1: We could talk for hours and hopefully we can have
Speaker 1: you back uh in the future, but good luck, and
Speaker 1: it was so wonderful to hear about all the work
Speaker 1: that you guys are doing at Public Color. Ruth Landy
Speaker 1: Human she is founder and president of Public Color, joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone in New York City, and do
Speaker 1: check out their website public color dot org and you
Speaker 1: can find out more about the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: Very cool stuff. And of course, as we said, there's
Speaker 1: accorded by Bloomberg Philanthropy, the charitable arm of Bloomberg Oup,
Speaker 1: owner of Bloomberg Radio