Eradicating Generational Poverty Through Early Childhood Intervention

Meet Ralph Smith, the 2022 GlobalMindED Inclusive Leader Award Winner for the Early Childhood Category.

Ralph Smith life’s work is to promote intentional investments to secure “more hopeful futures” for children in economically fragile, challenged and marginalized families. This is not what anyone, Smith included, would have expected during his early career as a member of the Law Faculty teaching Corporations and Securities Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania. Smith acknowledges that his career pivot was the result of “moonlighting” and serving first as Special Counsel, then as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the School District of Philadelphia, and later as a senior advisor to Philadelphia’s mayor on children and family policy. If not for these opportunities, he has no doubt he would have continued to pursue a career devoted to the business and tax issues to which, as the son of two entrepreneurs, he felt considerable affinity.

These public-sector roles inspired a deep understanding of the abomination that is generational poverty and the profound and life-altering affect early school failure has on children. “Early school failure cements generational poverty.”

In these roles, Smith led the design and implementation of the school district’s landmark voluntary desegregation plan, which expressly acknowledged and accorded highest priority to remediating longstanding and significant education deficits by investing more dollars in innovative schools and classrooms than in transportation. That priority guided his work with two highly regarded superintendents for whom he led the negotiation of some of the nation’s first education reform-driven teacher contracts, and the development of the district-wide blueprint supported by the Annenberg Challenge.

Driven by the challenges he saw, Smith became active in the nonprofit sector and entered philanthropy by joining the Annie E. Casey Foundation. At Casey from 1994–2016, he served as Director of Planning and Development, Senior Vice President and Executive Vice President. Bringing together “unusual allies” and inspiring “unlikely champions” became a hallmark of Smith's work at Casey. He led the Foundation’s strategic engagement in supporting fathers in their critical role in children’s lives; in mobilizing communities to be change agents in improving outcomes for vulnerable children and families; and in promoting the “re-entry” reforms that assist the formerly incarcerated to become productive citizens.

Smith’s current role is as managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a North American initiative. Their?mission is to “disrupt generational poverty”?by mobilizing communities to promote early school success by closing the reading proficiency gap between children in economically challenged families and their more affluent peers. The CGLR Network, “a coalition of the willing,” now includes over 350 communities, representing 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and two provinces in Canada — sponsored by 5,200 local organizations and supported by more than 500 state and local funders (including over 200 United Ways).

Smith said, “Left unchecked, early school failure will undermine completely our efforts to end the cycle of poverty, close the achievement gap and reduce high school dropout rates. Far fewer of the next generation will be prepared to compete in a global economy, succeed as parents or participate as citizens in a democracy. What crystallizes the moral imperative to act is the awareness and belief that acting can make a difference.”

Smith is the founding director of both the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children’s Network, and a national leader of the Responsible Fatherhood movement. His recent and current governing and/or advisory boards include: Alliance for Early Success, Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence, Ready To Learn Initiative (CBP/PBS), Fluent SEEDS, Planet Word Museum, Reading Recovery Council, Too Small to Fail, Playful Learning Landscapes, BookNook, Geisel-Seuss Enterprises, Leapfrog Enterprises and Nobel Learning.

Among Smith’s recent honors are the Fred Rogers Leadership in Philanthropy Award from Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families and the Jane Addams Distinguished Leadership Award from the United Neighborhood Centers of America.

Meet Ralph Smith in Denver June 22 at the Inclusive Leader Awards dinner and at the GlobalMindED conference as part of a Problem-Solving Lab led by Isabelle Hau:?The Children are Not All Right: Solving Early Childhood Barriers to Equity June 23rd from 10:10-12:00