Friday, October 21, 2005
Regionalism. Baby mamas. The achievement gap and poverty.
Those are just some of the subjects that have caught the interest of PolicyBridge. In the future, the fledgling regional think tank hopes to illuminate many of the social trends and public policies shaping the black community of Northeast Ohio.
"We're going to offer a perspective that's not out there," said Timothy Goler, the group's president. He's 39, an urban planner and executive director of the community service group 100 Black Men of Greater Cleveland.
For several years, Goler said, he and other young black professionals, like Randell McShepard and Mark Batson - PolicyBridge's secretary and treasurer, respectively - have discussed the seemingly intractable problems afflicting the black community.
They concluded there were plenty of groups with programs but little scholarly analysis of the problems the programs needed to address.
"We need somebody looking at public policy," Goler said.
With the support from the Cleveland Foundation, PolicyBridge incorporated in April and recently unveiled its Web site. It plans to sponsor research studies and public forums, starting Nov. 2, when it will bring to the City Club Roland Fryer, a young Harvard economist doing pioneering research on the black achievement gap.
Learn more at www.policy- bridge.org.
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