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Compassion in Action ReportsReal Choices for Educational Improvement: How Faith-Based and Community Organizations Help Bridge the Achievement GapPreface In January 2007, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives launched a series of monthly Compassion in Action Roundtable meetings to highlight organizations, programs, and policies addressing critical social needs. The Roundtables convene and facilitate discussion among policymakers, government officials, philanthropists, and faith-based and community service providers around targeted issues. The events reveal the President’s Faith-Based and Community Initiative as a broad-based, community-centered reform agenda; showcase innovative projects and promising practices; and draw attention to government efforts to expand and support the work of faith-based and community organizations actively engaged in serving their neighbors and communities. The following report offers an overview of the August 21, 2007, Compassion in Action Roundtable, entitled Real Choices for Educational Improvement: How Faith-Based and Community Organizations Help Bridge the Achievement Gap. Please note the statistical information presented throughout the report reflects data available up to the time of Roundtable, and excludes any data collected after August 2007.Introduction
On August 21, 2007, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) hosted a Compassion in Action Roundtable, entitled Real Choices for Educational Improvement: How Faith-Based and Community Organizations Help Bridge the Achievement Gap. OFBCI Director Jay Hein told the Roundtable audience there is no more important issue than education, explaining: “When graduation in a New York City high school is a 50/50 proposition, [when] one-third of our students, now, roughly speaking, drop out of high school, that is not good for these individuals. That is terrible for the families and their community, and [for] our nation, that hopes to be a competitive and healthy nation. And so we get to put a stake in the ground today and we get to say [that is] unacceptable.” The Roundtable explored two key elements of President Bush’s 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): school choice and supplemental educational services (SES). Hein noted, “The heart of the President’s education reform agenda…is that we must ensure that every single child in America receives a better education. And two of the leading ideas that the President and the Secretary and education leaders within the Administration have advanced to close that education gap is the power of the idea of choice and the power of the idea of supplemental educational services to catch those who are trapped in failing systems.” Under NCLB, students who attend Title I-supported schools in need of improvement for 2 years or more, or that have been identified for corrective action or restructuring, are given the option to attend schools within the district that have made adequate yearly progress (AYP). These students are also eligible to receive SES tutoring, which is provided outside of the regular school day to help improve students’ achievement in reading, language arts, and math. Each local education agency (LEA) with Title I schools must provide SES to children from low-income families attending those schools. Parents of eligible students may obtain these services for their children free of charge from a State-approved SES provider of their choice. The State-approved SES providers may include nonprofit entities, such as faith-based and community organizations, for-profit entities, LEAs, public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and public or private institutions of higher education. SES can provide critical support needed to help students achieve grade-level standards and enable schools to make AYP under NCLB. Roundtable participants, including officials from the U.S. Department of Education (ED), approved SES providers, educators, and public and private school officials, discussed NCLB’s impact on their efforts to improve the quality of education in communities throughout America. Bishop William Lori of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has been involved with NCLB and related education reform initiatives on a variety of levels. The diocese provides SES to students in public schools that have not attained AYP. In the 2006-07 school year, diocesan Catholic school teachers provided tutorial services for 25 to 50 students. Bishop Lori told the Roundtable, “The program has many advantages. I think those who are tutored really benefit from the personal attention given them by our teachers, and I believe this is a genuine service for our public schools.” Among the program’s disadvantages, Bishop Lori noted, is that the diocese is sometimes asked to pay the cost up front before it seeks reimbursement. While the diocese must plan to accommodate all students who apply and are projected to attend, it receives payment only for those who in fact attended. Lori added that, “On balance, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and I see this SES program as a model, albeit a modest example, of how Catholic schools and public schools can help one another.” The diocese operates the only inner-city Catholic high school in Connecticut, Kolbe Cathedral, where 100 percent of the 2006 graduating class went to college, and six elementary schools serving about 1,500 students. In the entire diocese, 40 Catholic schools serve about 12,000 students and their families. Bishop Lori remarked, “When I arrived in 2001, I found the enrollment was declining in most Catholic schools in the diocese, but the drop off was particularly alarming in the inner-city schools. One pastor told me that if I didn’t ‘do something’ we would lose them all and I wasn’t about to do that. So I drew on the example of my old boss and mentor, Cardinal James Hickey, who was Archbishop of Washington from 1980 until 2001. Faced with the same problem on a bigger scale in the early ‘90s, His Eminence rejected advice to consolidate struggling [Washington, D.C.] schools and instead launched the Center City Consortium under the dynamic leadership of Mary Anne Stanton. With the leadership of the Cardinal and the backing of donors, she founded a mini-system within the larger system geared to the special needs of the center city and its children. She focused on the basics of education, on the condition of the buildings, on the quality of the schools’ leadership; she rousted up donors from every part of the [D.C.] metropolitan area and garnered the support both of former [D.C.] Mayor Anthony Williams and also the [U.S.] Congress, which included the Consortium in a school choice provision that President Bush signed into law. Now the legislative future of that initiative is at best endangered.”” Inspired by Cardinal Hickey’s model, Bishop Lori targeted six Bridgeport schools that struggled with failing finances, low enrollment, aging buildings, and the “burn-out that can easily affect inner-city educators.” After building an experienced team of educators and administrators in 2003, Bishop Lori created a system within a system similar to Washington, D.C.’s Center City Consortium. Within a few short years, the system reorganized all diocesan schools and saw enrollment losses stop. Bishop Lori said of the success, “We are poised, we believe, for a general renaissance of Catholic education in the Diocese of Bridgeport.” The renaissance would not have happened without a board of prominent business leaders, educators, marketers, parents, and benefactors, recruited by Bishop Lori to oversee the six failing Bridgeport schools. The board instituted innovative programming to increase enrollment while simultaneously decreasing tuition. Bishop Lori said the board chair, Larry Bossidy, determined the $3500 tuition cost was too expensive for many parents who were at, or below, the poverty line. To offset this financial burden, the board elected to cut tuition to $2500 per year, even though it actually costs $5200 to educate a child in a diocesan school. To make up the difference in cost, Bishop Lori explained, “The Cathedral Cluster relies on the wonderful support our urban schools have received from the Inner-City Foundation for Charity and Education since 1992 – without which these schools would have closed in the 1990s. Several other foundations continue to assist, including the Calder Foundation, the Pitt Foundation, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, and others. We are also beginning to garner support from G.E., Pitney Bowes, and other corporations headquartered in Fairfield County. G.E. support is being received in conjunction with a cooperative relationship that is beginning to form between the Cluster and the Bridgeport Public Schools.” In addition, the board recommended the formation of a Patrons Program, whereby major benefactors make a multi-year commitment to buy computer equipment, improve school libraries, provide new sports equipment, and provide maintenance and repairs to school buildings and facilities. The board also launched the Angel Aid Scholarship program which asks benefactors to ‘earn their wings’ by giving a $5000 scholarship to sponsor one or more students. In spite of these efforts, the six urban schools still operate at a deficit, which is ultimately assumed by the diocese. Bishop Lori said the diocese does not receive much help from the State of Connecticut, which provides “far less services to private schools than other states, like New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Kentucky.” One area in which Bishop Lori hopes to see improvement is with the implementation of tuition tax credits “to enhance the corporate support of our schools that’s just beginning to happen.” Bishop Lori added, “We feel that tax credits and any arrangement whereby the dollar follows the student would help us greatly, so long as it covers the true cost of educating the student. We should not ignore how many parents, especially minority parents, support some form of assistance that gives them the opportunity to choose where their children will attend school.” Most diocesan students test at or above grade level in reading and math, as measured by the Iowa Mastery Test. Bishop Lori said that rising test scores and a closing achievement gap are due, in part, “to the new energy and training of principals and teachers.” He continued, “Part of it is due to a strategic plan to involve parents as much as possible in the education of their children, and part of it is due to greater attention given to curricula and to programs that creatively address the learning deficits many urban youngsters bring to the classroom. And a large part of it is due to the learning atmosphere which is created, in no small measure, by the religious values that prevail in those six small but mighty little schools, which are made up of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Muslims, and children who come from no particular religious background at all. And most of the credit has to go to the kids who are eager to learn, sensing that opportunity is knocking.” Bishop Lori thanked Roundtable organizers and participants “for the opportunity to express support for governmental initiatives that lead both to greater partnering between public and private schools as well as to greater educational choices for parents and their children.” Panel I : Bridging the Achievement Gap Through Supplemental Educational Services The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) is an entrepreneurial arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The Office makes strategic investments in innovative educational practices through two dozen discretionary grant programs and coordinates the public school choice and SES provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by NCLB. According to Morgan Brown, assistant deputy secretary of OII, faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) are instrumental in the Department’s efforts to promote and provide various NCLB services. Brown explained that while nationwide only one-fifth of students eligible for SES are taking advantage of the free services, “we have found that in communities where FBCOs are involved, either in the outreach side helping families know about these different options, these tutoring options, and helping them to easily enroll and access those options, but even more importantly, as tutor providers themselves, where we see that happening in the community we see much better implementation and higher percentage rates of eligible students participating in the tutoring option under NCLB.” Once a family chooses a State-approved SES provider, the provider, the school, and the district meet with the parents to agree on performance goals for the child and a schedule for services. States, in cooperation with districts, monitor the quality of SES providers. States develop and apply objective criteria to evaluate providers and monitor the quality of services. If a provider has not helped students improve achievement for two or more years, States are required to remove that provider from the list. Districts are required to provide States with information to help monitor the performance of State-approved providers. Families can monitor their child’s performance against performance goals set with the provider, the school, and the district. The SES program was designed to provide critical support needed to help low-income students achieve grade-level math and reading standards and enable schools to make adequate yearly progress under NCLB. An added benefit of the program is that it creates a community of hope that Matt Harris, co-founder and chief executive officer of Project IMPACT, a California faith-based organization, believes is an indispensable part of his program’s success. Harris told the Roundtable, “Hope is something that requires integration of support systems around these kids. In other words, SES, and what we have discovered with the SES program…is that it stands not alone, but with the cooperation of the networking of community wrapping itself around it as a safety net. What we also find is that if hope is deferred, if hope collapses, it is because of the collapse of support systems. It is the collapse of family; it is the collapse of school; the collapse of church, lacking the capacity to respond to these kids. And what we are discovering is that education is an aspect of the total success of these lives. So, when our SES program goes into the community, the reason that our program can have success is because we are linking our arms with other community providers.” This network enables Project IMPACT tutors to recognize and bring resources to students whose needs extend beyond the reach of the SES program. “The one thing that has been great about the SES program is that it lends itself so well to the idea of community working together. And the one thing that we realized when working with our kids, particularly with at-risk kids, is that if you sit down and you tutor with a child you will eventually begin to run into, and bump into, other problems that require other support systems in place. So, what it has done for us is that it has helped us to get to know the community. It has helped us to provide other services. And so our denomination, I am part of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, our denomination, it caught fire with them because we began to see that there were people within our churches that were not being mobilized. And that the church was a sleeping giant sitting in our community.” Within this community, Harris was able to recruit and train retired administrators, educators, and other professionals to become SES tutors. Harris said they worked closely with the school district, presenting themselves as a partner rather than an adversary. This approach was critical because for small organizations, particularly those looking for money, being viewed as a competitor in the community “can be lethal,” according to Harris. Project IMPACT has been successful because it works in partnership with local coalitions, faith-organizations, and other SES providers, recognizing the fact that “a child must exist, a child does exist, in a much broader sense of community.” In 2005, Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service was approved an as SES provider by the Maryland State Department of Education. Eileen Dowd, the company’s founder and executive director, told the Roundtable her program tries to create “an intimate, close family setting,” wherein one teacher is matched with three students. “When they would come in, it was like they were coming home to us. We had them wash their hands. We gave them a snack. We then had table-talk time with the teachers and their kids. How was your day? How did things go? This enabled the teacher to kind of gauge what kind of group setting we were going to have as we were going over the math and the reading,” Dowd explained. Although the State is only charged for the hourly tutoring services, Dowd felt it was important to offer her students more, drawing from “the compassion that we have as a faith-based company.” Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service not only delivers compassion, it delivers results. In three years, the company has grown from serving 161 students in one school to enrolling over 1200 students in seven schools. Five of the seven schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the second year in a row and were removed from the Maryland State Department of Education “School in Improvement” list. Dowd attributes this success to a combination of persistence and innovation. She described, “We were given the go-ahead by the principal [in the first school] to talk to the parents. We would go after school, before school, in the parking lots, we made homemade cookies, we would have brought homemade juice if it would have helped. We had a shoestring budget- you don’t get paid until you serve the children. So, we were really on a shoestring budget [using] homemade flyers. We just said, give us a try. It is free to you-- just give us a try. And it worked.” Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service actively teaches students in Prince George’s, Harford, and Baltimore Counties in Maryland. To better serve students in heavily Latino communities, Dowd hired Spanish-speaking teachers and created “Team Espanol.” The team wrote flyers in Spanish and spoke to non-English speaking parents to promote SES and increase participation. As further incentive, Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service offered an hour of free English lessons to parents accompanying their children as part of its larger recruitment strategy. In closing, Mrs. Dowd said, “Bottom line, we have served a lot of kids with compassion; the fruits of the Holy Spirit--joy, peace, [and] goodness. We praise them and we encourage them. We get them [the parents] to sign up…and then we get to do our job and we do it well.” Office of Non-Public Education The Office of Non-Public Education (ONPE) functions within the U.S. Department of Education (ED) as a liaison between the non-public school community and ED. The Office works to foster maximum participation of non-public school students and teachers in Federal education programs and initiatives by representing ED to the non-public school community. ONPE also offers internal advice and guidance to the Department on all matters affecting non-public education and communicates with national, State, and local education agencies and associations on non-public education topics. Jack Klenk, ONPE director, told the Roundtable that 2 years ago, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings appealed to private school educators to get involved with SES, noting that thousands of students in every community would benefit from the skills and knowledge of private school teachers. Klenk explained that the SES program was designed to protect an organization’s religious identity within the context of strict constitutional guidelines, making it possible for all non-public educators, faith-based or secular, to participate in the program. Klenk said educators who have “that love and that commitment, and that skill” can motivate students in a way that produces results, and ONPE encourages their involvement when possible. To answer concerns raised by the private school community, the ED Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and ONPE released a pamphlet detailing the SES program guidelines and application requirements. Klenk explained, “We have been trying to provide help to private schools that want to know whether this is a good thing for them. We don’t want to be pushy and say that you have to do it, but we do say if you want to do it we think there will be some real advantages on both sides, but we will also try and help you work through the difficulties.” As part of its outreach to SES providers, ONPE provides technical assistance, conducts presentations at conferences and workshops, distributes brochures and publications, and submits Listserv messages. ONPE also consults with the private school community on the participation of students and teachers in ED programs and initiatives.Panel II: Briding the Achievement Gap Through School Choice As a result of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, if a child attends a Title I school that has been designated by the State as unsafe or in need of improvement, parents can choose to send the child to another public school. While terms vary from State to State, school districts must let parents know each year if their child is eligible to transfer to another school, and districts must give parents at least two transfer schools from which to choose. Additionally, districts must pay for students' transportation costs, giving priority to low-income, low-achieving students if there are not enough funds available to pay for all students. Washington, D.C.Charles Hokanson is the president of the Alliance for School Choice, a national organization based in Washington, D.C. that supports the design, implementation, expansion, and protection of targeted K-12 grade school choice programs. Alliance for School Choice works to create opportunities for systemic and sustainable educational reform that puts parents in charge of their children’s education. Hokanson explained how his organization has advanced school choice across the country: “Most of the activity that is out there in school choice these days, most of the innovation, is coming at the State level, at the local level, and [through] our funding. And our organization is very involved at the national, State, and local level at developing a group of allies who work together to pass legislation, both in the form of vouchers or opportunity scholarships, sometimes statewide, sometimes for targeted groups such as students with disabilities…foster kids, [and] students of military veterans. There is a wide range of interest that we are getting out there--lots of innovation going on and creative thinking about how we can better serve students who are disadvantaged in the urban cities and elsewhere around the country.” In addition to its support of school vouchers, opportunity scholarships, and special needs scholarships, Alliance for School Choice promotes corporate and individual scholarship tax credit programs. These programs allow corporations and individuals to receive a tax credit for donations made to scholarship granting organizations that provide private school choice opportunities to low-income or otherwise disadvantaged children. Hokanson said this type of multi-sector funding creates a “great opportunity for faith-based organizations to get involved in terms of starting schools [and] getting involved in improving aspects of their community.” In 2006, 136,000 children participated in school choice programs, which were supported by $466 million in public funds from the State and Federal government. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Destiny High School is part of Christian Faith Fellowship Church (CFFC), which has served the spiritual, social, physical, and emotional needs of the African American community in Milwaukee for more than 18 years. Founded in 1989, this faith-based organization has grown to serve more than 7,000 parishioners from throughout the city of Milwaukee. It is now the largest church of color in Wisconsin and a leader in bringing a unique faith-based and values-driven perspective to the delivery of services to high-need/low-resource families. As part of its human services program, Destiny High School was designed to empower students so they can achieve academic excellence and ultimately fulfill their life destiny. The school offers college and career/vocational preparation, and is part of the Milwaukee public school district’s voucher program. Steven Robertson, executive director of Destiny High School, told the Roundtable, “We wanted it [Destiny High School] to be a thoroughly Christian school…to integrate our values and our core beliefs…. We are a private Christian high school…[and] we believe that God has a purpose and a plan for everybody’s life and we want to help the young person figure out where they are at right now and where they are going and help when they get there.” Spruce Hill Christian School/City Center Academy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Spruce Hill Christian School and City Center Academy (SHCS/CCA) provides K-12 private education to students in the inner-city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. SHCS/CCA admits students without regard to family income, with nearly 60 percent of its students receiving substantial financial aid through various scholarship programs. School headmaster Dr. Cohen said the school’s tuition is subsidized, in part, by corporate tax credits implemented under NCLB. Dr. Cohen explained, “Five years ago when the education-proven tax credit came along, this was a huge blessing to our school because we had a new source to pursue these kinds of scholarships. We were able to raise large amounts of money from wonderful corporations like Herr Foods…and Stillman Volvo, and little companies here and there, some sending $70, some sending $70,000, but their business taxes, instead of going to Harrisburg, end up at Spruce Hill in the form of scholarships for children who otherwise would be forced to attend a school that would not educate them properly. So it has been a great program.” The academic program at the elementary level is combined with strategic initiatives to address and overcome the obstacles to learning that challenge many city schools. The high school program offers a challenging college preparatory curriculum and has a strong record of student college placement. Recent national recognition has included acceptance to “Schools That Can,” a national network of high-performing inner-city schools. Dr. Cohen said parents with children in failed public schools and without the financial resources to relocate to a better school district are left with no choice but to pursue a private education for their children. Yet for many parents, the private school tuition cost becomes an invariable issue. Dr. Cohen noted that his school receives 700-900 admissions phone calls for the 20 available seats at SHCS/CCA. The first question asked by those callers is regarding the tuition. “The question is really like this,” Dr. Cohn explained, “‘Seth can I afford your school and keep a roof over my families head? Can I afford your school and provide food for my children? Can I provide heating in the winter? Because PGW will shut me down in February if I don’t pay.’ So we get these calls. Can I provide the decent education? Ten years ago when I started at Spruce, we made the decision we were going to enroll a child…regardless of their ability to pay. It was just going to be as simple as that. And it would require us to raise a lot of money—we are just going to raise money to make this happen. And when you compare it to the lives of the children it is really inconsequential. I cannot tell you what its like to sit across from a grandmother of two who has applied to your school facing a $9,000 tuition for two children and I let her know that we can make this happen. It will cost her $400 a year, $40 a month, [and] the rest of the scholarship has been taken care of.” To keep tuition affordable, Dr. Cohen said private schools need to have a business plan and access to funds, whether through school choice programs, tax credit programs, or philanthropic contributions. Dr. Cohen added, “You just can’t do it on $2,000 dollars a child, because you have to run an extraordinary school to meet the needs of children who have been under-educated for sometimes years and years.” Panel III: School Choice Innovation Spotlight: D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program
The Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), America’s first Federally funded school-choice program, was authorized for 5 years through congressional passage of the D.C. Choice Incentive Act of 2003. The Act included a $40 million education reform package that allocated funding to D.C. public schools, public charter schools, and the scholarship program. Each scholarship student receives up to $7,500 per year for tuition, transportation, and academic fees at one of 58 participating D.C. non-public schools. The Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF) was given the responsibility to design, launch, and implement the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) through a competitive grant process led by the U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with the office of then Mayor Anthony Williams. WSF began implementation in early April 2004 and has offered Opportunity Scholarships to D.C. K-12 students for 4 school years (the fourth year began in August 2007). To be eligible for participation in the OSP, students must be from very low-income families (a household income of no more than 185 percent of poverty). The law gives priority to students attending D.C. “schools in need of improvement” as defined by NCLB. The Federal legislation also mandates a rigorous independent control-treatment evaluation, with standardized tests for all students and surveys of parents, students, and principals. More than 1,800 students enrolled at non-public schools for the 2006-2007 school year through the OSP. The program’s initial 5 year authorization included a requirement for a rigorous evaluation, which is currently underway. Research has found that the program is serving very low-income families (average family income of $21,100 for a family of four), parents are satisfied, and they are more involved in their child’s education. The following Roundtable panelists provided an overview of their involvement with the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Black Alliance for Educational Options, Inc., Washington, D.C. Chapter The Washington, D.C. Chapter of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, Inc. (DCBAEO) is a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to actively support parental choice. DCBAEO provides information about education issues to the community by holding workshops, community meetings, and programs designed to give parents the tools they need to make sure their children receive the best education possible. In 2003, Virginia Walden-Ford, president of DCBAEO, organized a group of parents who supported the proposed school voucher program for the District of Columbia. Every day for 11 months, Walden-Ford said she took groups of parents to Capitol Hill and organized roughly 3,000 parents who “offered to do whatever was necessary to make something happen for their children who were in schools that were failing them.” As a result of her efforts and the efforts of other school choice advocates, Congress passed the D.C. Choice Incentive Act of 2003. “It was really successful and parents in D.C. became empowered; they became true advocates for their children,” Walden-Ford recalled. In preparation for the Act’s 2008 reauthorization, Walden Ford said, “Again we are organizing parents, we are identifying parents, we are building our army and we will win. We are on the right side and we will win.” Working alongside the Washington Scholarship Fund, DCBAEO has committed its resources and energy to ensure that low-income children who have been failed by the public school system will continue to have the resources necessary to attend private, charter, and improved public schools and receive the quality of education they deserve. D.C. Children First is a newly formed non-profit organization chaired by former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams and a group of local business, community, and former elected leaders. D.C. Children First, while incorporated, has not been officially launched, but will be working to achieve the reauthorization of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships Program (DCOSP) as a part of an effort to ensure the continuation of Federal monies for scholarships, D.C. public charter schools, and D.C. public schools. Sally J. Sachar is the chief of staff and secretary of D.C. Children First and the former president and CEO of the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF). Sachar said that while working for WSF at the beginning of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, their campaign was committed to forming partnerships with all willing partners. Sachar explained, “Some of our mission funders said ‘don’t you dare get into doing things that you are not good at. There are other people in the community that can do those things.’ That is where we immediately lined up with Virginia [Virginia Walden-Ford, president of D.C. BAEO], obviously with the schools, the Greater Washington Urban League. In part, because we were trying to change the conversation in Washington, we sought partners who have never been involved in choice, but who were committed to education and to youth. And we very prominently featured their involvement in the program.” Sachar said the qualities that epitomize DCOSP are resilience and “an unabated belief that what we were doing was the right thing.” Working on behalf of a Democratic mayor and the Bush Administration, WSF tried to remain as apolitical as possible, creating a bipartisan coalition that would ideally transcend party lines. Sachar warned that if the program were to become politicized it would inevitably fail. She concluded, “The one challenge that this program has is it is not about academic achievement; it is not about parent satisfaction, it is not about motivation [or] determination on part of a single person involved. It is about politics. If this program is not given a chance to ripen as the one in Milwaukee has been, it is going to be for one reason and that is politics. So, what we all have to do is what Virginia [Walden-Ford] said, which is to have our families be the voice, the kids, the educators, the people who are interacting with our families day in and day out because, for them, it is absolutely not about politics. So, that is what we are going to try and do. If we lose it is not going to be on content.” The Center City Consortium (the Consortium) is a group of 12 inner-city Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. The Consortium was established in 1997 under the direction of James Cardinal Hickey, Archbishop of Washington, to stabilize and revitalize Catholic schools located in the city’s neediest neighborhoods. United under a common academic and administrative model the Consortium serves a high percentage of minority and low-income children, many of whom participate in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships Program (DCOSP). Chris Kelly, executive director of the Consortium and assistant superintendent of the Archdiocese of Washington, coordinated the implementation of the DCOSP within the Archdiocese. He was first involved with the Consortium at its inception in 1997 when he was principal at Assumption School. It was there that he worked with the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF), which provided private scholarships to students at Assumption and other Consortium schools. Because of his history with WSF, Kelly explained that when WSF was chosen to design and implement the DCOSP in 2004, “I was comfortable with their organization and…knew they could handle the management and operation piece to this. I was also confident and comfortable with our organization and the fact that we could assimilate these students into our schools and to make this program work….I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Washington Scholarship Fund existed and the Center City Consortium existed when this program [DCOSP] was implemented, because I firmly believe that it never could have happened if those two organizations weren’t working together.” Kelly described the implementation of DCOSP as “a struggle,” noting the large number of students who had to go through the initial lottery process and who were eventually placed. The Consortium serves a majority of OSP students, ranging from 477 students in fiscal year 2004-2005 to 789 in 2006-2007. With implementation well underway, the Consortium Board decided to control the cost of tuition, freezing it at $3500. Although this figure does not reflect the actual cost of educating each child, it is the amount to which they are held, allowing them to collect only $3500 per OSP student. Kelly said, “As a catch-22, we were trapped by our own efforts to serve these people. We were still able to do it. We made a commitment to find the funding, but for every child that we took in we have to find additional funding. So, it [OSP] wasn’t an answer in the financial sense. It was an answer for a number of these children in these communities because it gave them an option that they didn’t have before.” When people ask Kelly if the academic and social environment has been compromised by the assimilation of OSP students within the Consortium, he cites an increase in reading, math, and language art scores since its inception. He added, “Our schools are still the same schools that they were before. I think sometimes people fear that you have to change who you are for a program like this. We haven’t changed a thing. We’ve just been able to serve more students.” Finally, Kelly recommended that if OSP were expanded to other urban areas, it should be done more slowly and with a greater focus on the financial issues facing each school. “It has got to be linked to what it costs to educate a child, rather than keeping your tuition artificially low. You shouldn’t be penalized for serving communities that way.” Real Choices for Educational Improvement: How Faith-Based and Community Organizations Help Bridge the Achievement Gap August 2007 3:00 – 3:05 Welcome and Introduction: Jay F. Hein, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives 3:05 – 3:20 Innovation in Education Bishop William Lori, Diocese of Bridgeport 3:20 – 3:55 Panel I: Bridging the Achievement Gap through Supplemental Educational Services 3:55 – 4:20 Panel II: Bridging the Achievement Gap through School Choice 4:20 – 4:55 Panel III: School Choice Innovation Spotlight: DC Opportunity Scholarship Program 4:55 – 5:00 Wrap-Up Moderated by Jay F. Hein Appendix B: Federal Efforts to Bridge the Achievement Gap Corporation for National and Community Service One of five initiatives in the Corporation for National and Community Service’s 2006-2010 Strategic Plan is to ensure a brighter future for all of America’s youth. Through the Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve Programs, the Corporation partners with State education agencies, school districts, and local faith- and community-based organizations (FBCOs) to administer service-learning and mentoring programs for students during and after school. Each year, Learn and Serve America engages 1.3 million K-12 and higher education students in an adaptable curriculum that allows participants to research and implement their own community service projects. Learn and Serve grants and technical assistance are provided for teachers, administrators, and staff of faith- and community-based institutions to operate service-learning programs in partnership with local schools. Twenty-seven percent of these programs are located in schools where at least fifty percent of the students are eligible for the National School Lunch Program, while a growing body of research, including the Corporation’s Youth Helping America series of studies, indicates that effective service-learning improves literacy and math proficiency, increases school attendance, and develops students’ personal and social responsibility. In Fiscal Year 2006, Senior Corps and AmeriCorps volunteers worked with the Corporation’s public, nonprofit, and faith and community-based grantees to provide mentors to 400,000 children and youth, including 16,000 children of prisoners and 360,000 youth from disadvantaged circumstances. As a member of the 2007 Federal Mentoring Council, the Corporation will continue to leverage the resources of both the Federal government and its faith and community stakeholders in an effort to provide mentoring services to more than 100,000 children of prisoners and engage 2.2 million at-risk youth in community service by 2010. For more information on the Corporation for National and Community Service, visit: www.nationalservice.gov. U.S. Department of Agriculture The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recognizes the important role that faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) play in helping to better serve those in need. Through our partnership and grant opportunities, USDA welcomes FBCOs as important partners in domestic food and nutrition programs, international food aid programs, and rural development opportunities. Several USDA grant programs work with FBCOs to support and enhance local education providers, including the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). The mission of FNS is to increase food security and reduce hunger in partnership with cooperating organizations by providing children and low-income people with access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education in a manner that supports American agriculture and inspires public confidence. FNS’s domestic nutrition assistance programs serve one in five Americans over the course of a year. The following are just a few of the FNS programs that work with local education programs and community organizations to provide food and nutrition to children: The Child and Adult Care Food Program serves nutritious meals and snacks to eligible children and adults who are enrolled for care at participating child care centers, day care homes, and adult day care centers. The program also provides meals to children who reside in homeless shelters and snacks to youths who participate in afterschool care programs. The Summer Food Service Program ensures that children in low-income areas continue to have access to nutritious meals during long school vacations when they do not have access to school lunch or breakfast. FBCOs that conduct regularly scheduled programs for children from areas in which poor economic conditions exist are especially encouraged to apply to participate in the program. The National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program provide nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 26 million children each school day. In addition, the Afterschool Snack Program, run through the National School Lunch Program, reimburses organizations for snacks served to children through 18 years of age in afterschool educational and enrichment programs. After school snacks give children a nutritional boost and draw them into supervised activities that are safe, fun, and filled with learning opportunities. To learn more about FNS programs that benefit children in need, visit: http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/fbco/children.htm. To learn more on how faith-based and community organizations can partner with USDA, visit: http://www.usda.gov/fbci/. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce, promotes the progress of science and the useful arts by securing patents for inventors. The USPTO believes in inspiring creativity in youth and supports educational programs that encourage future generations of inventors. Camp Invention Club Invention The National Inventors Hall of Fame was started in 1973 by the USPTO to recognize the men and women whose life’s work has truly changed the world. The USPTO is a close working partner with the National Inventors Hall of Fame, sponsoring events, programs, and activities recognize inventors and inspire students to create and respect intellectual property. For more information on the Camp Invention or Club Invention programs, visit www.invent.org, or call 800-968-4332. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the United States government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. Each year, HHS administers more grant dollars than all other federal agencies combined—distributing 60 percent of all federal dollars awarded. With programs covering a wide spectrum of activities, there are many opportunities for States, local governments, and faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) to partner with HHS. The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCP) Runaway and Homeless Youth Programs The Transitional Living Program provides stable, safe living accommodations, basic life skills, career counseling, educational training, and physical and mental health support services to youth ages 16 through 21 who are homeless for a continuous period, generally not exceeding 18 months. Minors may remain in the program for an additional 180 days or until their 18th birthday, whichever comes first. The Street Outreach Program provides educational and preventive services to runaway, homeless, and street youth who have been subject to, or are at risk of, sexual exploitation or abuse. The program establishes and builds relationships between street youth and program outreach staff to help youths find safe and appropriate alternative living arrangement. Support services include treatment, counseling, information and referral services, individual assessment, crisis intervention, and follow up support. For more information please visit: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb. The Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) The Demonstration Program funds intermediary organizations that provide training, technical assistance, and capacity-building sub-awards to smaller FBCOs. The Targeted Capacity-Building Program funds FBCOs with one-time awards to increase their capacity to serve targeted social service priority areas. The Communities Empowering Youth seeks to build the capacity of faith-based and community groups working to combat gang activity and youth violence. For more information on CCF visit: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccf. Protecting children remains one of the highest priorities for the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). President George W. Bush stated, “Protecting our children is our solemn responsibility. It’s what we must do. When a child’s life or innocence is taken it is a terrible loss -- it’s an act of unforgivable cruelty. Our society has a duty to protect our children from exploitation and danger.” Resources for Youth Safety through the DOJ:
For more information, visit www.usdoj.gov/fbci/. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is committed to preparing individuals to enter the 21st century workplace. America’s economy is growing and national unemployment is low, but many young people are struggling to stay in school and obtain the skills that are required to succeed in the workplace. The Labor Department’s Youth Vision, developed over two years ago, is designed to address the problems created by the large number of youth leaving high school without a diploma. Recent reports and media stories highlight to the general public what DOL has known for some time: too many youth are leaving high school without a diploma, unprepared for the demands of the 21st century workplace. This is an issue that impacts regional economies and the need for improving both the graduation rates and re-connecting out-of-school youth to education as a means of developing deep talent pools of young workers who can help drive the regions economic growth. Recognizing this critical need, the Youth Vision emphasizes the development of academically rigorous alternative education programs that connect out-of-school youth with secondary and post-secondary educational opportunities and high-growth employment opportunities. Faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) serve several roles in helping to re-connect out-of-school youth with quality alternative education. Through various activities at the community level, FBCOs are a primary recruitment source for alternative education programs. In many cases, FBCOs provide alternative learning environments that offer the support structures such as child care, mentoring, and substance abuse services that enable former out of school youth to succeed in an academic environment. FBCOs also play important leadership roles in building both the political and public will necessary to drive high school reform in ways that focus attention on youth who are at-risk of dropping out and youth who have already dropped out. The following programs are examples of DOL initiatives that address high school reform with a focus on youth that have dropped out or are at-risk of dropping out. Multiple Education Pathway Blueprints YouthBuild School District Grants Morgan Brown On July 6, 2006, Morgan Brown was appointed as the assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education. The office supports innovations in education, helps to make strategic investments in promising educational practices, oversees the Family Policy Compliance Office, and serves as the Department’s liaison and resource to the nonpublic education community. As assistant deputy secretary, Brown coordinates the implementation of the public school choice and supplemental educational services provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). He oversees the administration of 28 grant programs related to school choice, teacher quality, technology, and education improvement, and leads the Department’s efforts in the areas of parental options, information, and rights. Prior to his appointment, Brown served for three years as the director of the Division of School Choice and Innovation at the Minnesota Department of Education. There, he managed the administration of 25 programs related to school choice, nonpublic school options, supplemental educational services, voluntary integration, American Indian education, and postsecondary scholarships. For six years, Brown worked for several Minnesota organizations, promoting education reform and providing outreach to families regarding their educational options. Brown’s positions included senior fellow for education policy at the Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis, director of the St. Paul-based Partnership for Choice in Education, and senior community affairs officer for the Twin Cities Financial (TCF) Foundation. From 1992 to 1997, Brown worked in Washington, D.C. for U.S. Senator Rod Grams as a legislative assistant and for U.S. Congressman Jim Ramstad as a legislative assistant and legislative director. Seth Cohen Dr. Seth Cohen is Headmaster of Spruce Hill Christian School (SHCS) and City Center Academy (CCA)—two schools which have recently merged to form a new K-12 institution in Philadelphia. Prior to the merger, Dr. Cohen successfully lead SHCS, an urban campus with predominantly minority students, to financial stability and academic improvement. He lives only a few blocks from the school with his wife, Anne, and their six children. Dr. Cohen is a graduate of Stony Brook School in New York and Wheaton College in Illinois. He has a master’s degree from Dowling College in Oakdale, New York and recently completed his Ed. D. from Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Cohen also services on the board of the Association of Christian Schools International. Eileen Dowd Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Eileen Dowd began her career in 1974 as a certified teacher in the Cleveland Public Schools, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). In 1984, Mrs. Dowd began the Center for Child Care Alternatives, Ltd. to provide assessments, field studies, and marketing for corporations, associations, and Federal institutions wanting to establish full-service employee child care centers (infants through first grade) for the children of working parents. After selling the company to a Fortune 500 service, Mrs. Dowd became senior vice president of Marketing and Business Development for the child care division in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC. In 1994, Mrs. Dowd founded Harbor International L.L.C., a consulting firm serving clients in the fields of child care, education, and small business development. In 2002, Mrs. Dowd created a faith-based tutoring company called Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service. Mrs. Dowd, in this endeavor, has the opportunity to fully pursue her life-long passion: serving at-risk, low-income children and their families. The company was awarded SES (Supplemental Educational Services) status in January of 2005 by Maryland’s State Department of Education. In three years, the company has grown from serving 161 students to enrolling over 1200 in school year 2006-2007. A consummate educator, Eileen continues to teach as the need arises, selflessly serving the children she loves. Mrs. Dowd’s Teaching Service actively teaches students in Prince George’s, Harford and Baltimore Counties in Maryland. She oversees the company and its directors, particularly focusing on strategic planning, client management, business development, marketing, and responsible sustainable growth. Virginia Gentles Virginia Gentles is the Associate Assistant Deputy Secretary for Parental Rights for the Office of Innovation and Improvement. In her role, she oversees the Office of Non-Public Education and the Family Policy Compliance Office and works on the Innovations in Education series produced by the office. Prior to joining the Department, Ms. Gentles served as the Executive Director of Florida’s Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice, where she oversaw the state’s charter, virtual and private schools. She lived in Canada before returning to her home state of Florida, first working for the Ontario Ministry of Education and then directing the Children First: School Choice Trust scholarship program for the Fraser Institute. Ms. Gentles started her career as a legislative and budget assistant for the U.S. House of Representatives. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University and a Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Matt Harris Dr. Matthew R. Harris is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Project IMPACT. Sixteen years ago he recognized a need for people of principle to get involved in saving the lives of our youth and their families. Through diligence and persistence, he succeeded in creating a national organization responsible for changing thousands of lives and reconciling individuals, families and neighborhoods. He is sought after by community leaders, elected officials, agencies, churches, cities and towns across the U.S. for his ability to bring diverse people together to work in teams. He excels at empowering people for change. Dr. Harris built Project IMPACT from an idea to a nationally recognized model service provider, acclaimed by two U.S. Senators and the President of the United States. Prior to founding Project IMPACT, Dr. Harris was pastor of the First Christian Church of Lynwood, California, serving the Lynwood, Watts/South Central areas of Los Angeles where he recognized a profound need for the church to develop its capacity to help reduce youth and domestic violence. Jay Hein Jay F. Hein was named Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives on August 3, 2006. In this role, Mr. Hein works to implement President Bush’s compassion agenda by engaging public-private partnerships with faith- and community-based social service organizations across the U.S. and around the globe. Prior to his position at the White House, Mr. Hein was the founding president of the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, an international public policy research firm headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. In this capacity, he directed the Institute’s research portfolio focusing on a range of community-based policies such as welfare-to-work, access to postsecondary education, affordable health care, and crime prevention. Mr. Hein also served as vice president and chief executive officer of the Foundation for American Renewal, established by Ambassador Daniel R. Coats to provide financial grants and other support to community-based organizations while educating the general public on effective compassion principles and practices. Previously, Mr. Hein was executive director of Civil Society Programs at Hudson Institute, which included the organization’s Welfare Policy Center, its Faith in Communities Initiative, and programs centered on community-based healthcare reform. Mr. Hein also served as director of Hudson’s field office in Madison, Wisconsin, where he conducted hands-on research and analysis in support of the State’s welfare reforms. He also served in the Wisconsin State government as a policy director, where he helped design and implement Wisconsin’s groundbreaking welfare replacement program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Hein worked in a range of leadership roles within Illinois State government, including the Illinois Department of Public Aid; Illinois Secretary of State’s Office; and Illinois State Library, where he contributed to the initial planning of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Mr. Hein received a B.A. from Eureka College, where he was an inaugural member of the Ronald W. Reagan Fellowship program, and earned a Master’s degree in Political Studies at the University of Illinois-Springfield. Charles Hokanson Charles R. Hokanson, Jr. serves as president of the Alliance for School Choice. Prior to joining the Alliance, Charles served in senior leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Education, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and as chief of staff in both the Office of the General Counsel and the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development. Charles also previously served as a professional staff member to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, finance director and research fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and associate at Steptoe & Johnson LLP. He received his A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa) and A.M from Stanford University, his M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Chris Kelly Chris Kelly has been teaching or administrating in the Archdiocese of Washington for twenty years. He was the principal at Assumption Catholic School when it became one of the eight original schools in the Center City Consortium in 1997. He coordinated the implementation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program with the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Washington. In July of 2006, he became executive director of the Center City Consortium and is assistant superintendent of the Archdiocese of Washington. For the 2007-2008 school year, the Center City Consortium will consist of twelve Catholic schools serving approximately 800 DC Opportunity Scholarship children. Jack Klenk Jack Klenk is director of the Office of Non-Public Education (ONPE), within the Office of Innovation and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. ONPE is the liaison to the nonpublic school community for the U.S. Department of Education. Jack has worked on issues affecting nonpublic education and school choice for 25 years at the Department, in various capacities. Before coming to ONPE, he directed the Center for Choice in Education, the Issues Analysis Staff, and the Planning and Evaluation Service in the Department; and he also served in the White House Office of Policy Development. Bishop William Lori The Most Reverend William Edward Lori was installed as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT, on March 19, 2001. Born in Louisville, KY, in 1951, Bishop Lori earned a bachelor’s degree from the Seminary of Saint Pius X in Erlanger, KY, in 1973, and a Master’s from Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD, in 1977. In 1982, Bishop Lori received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.) from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Bishop Lori is chairman of the board of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, and of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. In 2005, he was appointed supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus. He is president of the Inner-City Foundation for Charity & Education. Since 2001, Bishop Lori has been a member of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities and the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). In 2002, President Bush invited Bishop Lori to join the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation. As Bishop of Bridgeport, Bishop Lori has launched new initiatives to revitalize and expand Catholic Charities and Catholic Education. Catholic Charities, the largest private social services provider in the region, provides 700,000 meals each year to the needy, and has embarked on new programs to assist immigrants and build affordable housing. Changes in the governance, funding, and curricula for the 39 Diocesan Catholic Schools, which educate more than 13,000 children each year, will enhance the high level of academic achievement and faith-based education, making the dream of Catholic education a reality for every child. Bishop Lori is a tireless advocate of the culture of life and the dignity of the human person. In 2004, he dedicated “Villa Maria Guadalupe” in Stamford, CT. The property was purchased by the Knights of Columbus, who invited the Sisters of Life, a religious community dedicated to protecting and advancing the sacredness of all human life, to offer pro-life retreats for individuals and families. Steven Robertson Steven Robertson serves as the executive director of Christian Faith Fellowship Church’s (CFFC) Youth Programs and executive director of CFFC’s affiliate Good Hope Economic Development Corporation. Pastor Robertson is an experienced youth services professional with over 20 years of relevant experience, including 14 years of TRIO program experience, as well as managing CFFC’s Department of Education funded Carol M. White Physical Education Program initiative, SES No Child Left Behind Program for CFFC, Destiny High School and Destiny Youth Plaza (which includes a family resource center, health center, recreation center, skating rink, gym, arcade, café, dance studio, auditorium, recording studio, job training placement center, etc). He holds a Baccalaureate in Communications from Marquette University and is an alumnus of Upward Bound and Student Support Services (SSS). Pastor Steve is currently the executive director of Destiny Youth Plaza and the executive director of Destiny High School. Sally Sachar Sally J. Sachar currently is working with a group of Washington, D.C., community, business and education leaders toward the creation of a new organization, D.C. Children First. Chaired by former D.C. Mayor, Anthony Williams, the organization is dedicated to giving every child in the District every chance to get a quality education by increasing investments and expanding opportunities in the city’s public and public charter schools, and offering scholarships to low income students to attend private schools. Specifically D.C. Children First will seek to ensure the continued funding of the federal investments in K-12 D.C. Scholarships, and D.C. public and private charter schools – a three-sector strategy that was approved by Congress in 2004. Previously, Sally served as president and CEO of the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF), a 501(c)(3) organization located in Washington, D.C. Over the past 25 years, Sachar has held numerous leadership positions in the nonprofit and public sectors, all focused on improving the lives of children and families. During her tenure at WSF, the organization nearly doubled the number of students it serves, increased revenues dedicated to those students and their support by five-fold, dramatically diversified their funding base, expanded and bolstered the board of directors, and created entirely new systems for managing the organization’s programs, communications and marketing, media relations, and fiscal operation. In addition, Sally led the launch of the nation’s first Federally funded K-12 scholarship initiative for low income students. Previously, Sally was the deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, a national bipartisan nonprofit headquartered in Washington, D.C. and focused on improving the well-being of children, youth and families by reducing the rate of teen pregnancy in the United States. Prior to joining the Campaign, Sally was a vice president at the Council for Excellence in Government where she directed two major programs dedicated to helping government improve its performance through results oriented leadership and management and to building public confidence and participation in government. Sally served the Clinton-Gore Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) under Secretary Robert B. Reich. At DOL, Sally was instrumental in developing and gaining passage of the School to Work Opportunities Act, a joint venture of the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education. Virginia Walden-Ford A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Virginia Walden-Ford was raised by William Harry Fowler and Marion Virginia Fowler Armstrong who were both public school educators. She came to Washington, D.C., in 1977 and worked at Sister Cities International, Inc., a nonprofit organization that works with international exchange programs. In 1991, she opened Wee Luv Child Development Center and served as the executive director until 1996. Virginia served as community outreach director/media specialist for Friends of Choice in Urban Schools (FOCUS), an advocacy organization supporting the growing Washington, D.C., charter school movement. She worked as a volunteer with the Center for Education Reform in their parent outreach campaign in l997and worked with the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise as Parent Outreach Coordinator and organized parents to support school choice and the D.C. Scholarship Act in 1998. Virginia is a national board member and a founding member of The Black Alliance for Educational Options, Inc. and is President of the Washington, D.C., chapter (DCBAEO). She also serves as a board member of the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School and executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, Inc. (DCPSC). Founded in 1998, DCPSC is a clearinghouse organization for parents in Washington, D.C., The mission of DCPSC is to organize and educate parents in order to empower them to make the appropriate educational decisions for their children. Virginia’s community involvement began as a result of her own personal experiences. As a single parent, she raised three children in Washington, D.C. Two of her children finished high school in the District successfully, but with her third child she was faced with deteriorating public schools and violent times. After obtaining a private scholarship for her son to attend Archbishop Carroll High School, she became an outspoken advocate for school choice. She believes passionately that all children should have the chance to obtain a quality education and that parents should be able to choose and send their children to the schools that best meet their needs. She is the author of Voices, Choices, and Second Chances: How to Win the Battle to Bring Opportunity Scholarships to Your State. Based on the dramatic story and ultimately successful campaign of D.C. Parents for School Choice, this book teaches parents how to fight to free children and their families from failing schools.
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