CER Press Release
Washington, DC
August 26th, 2013
“Thirty years after A Nation at Risk, schools have improved only in some areas and for some children. We must do better and make it about ALL children. It’s time for a real campaign.”
-Jeanne Allen, founder and president, The Center for Education Reform (CER)
The Center for Education Reform (CER), the nation’s leading advocate for substantive and lasting school reform, today announced in concert with the start of the 2013-14 School Year that it will launch a new effort to grow awareness and support of the need of real education reform among the 280 million people whose lives are still untouched by that reform’s promise and reality.
The Campaign for Education Reform™ comes just weeks before CER celebrates its 20th Anniversary with an October 9 gala and the succession shortly thereafter of a new generation of leadership for the organization.
In announcing the new effort, CER Vice President of External Affairs Kara Kerwin, who will succeed Jeanne Allen as CER President, November 1, outlined the basis for the campaign. “While 300 million Americans today could benefit from direct participation in the development and activation of the core fundamentals of school reform, only 20 million – children and adults – are currently affected by various choice programs, the digital learning effort, real substantive efforts to ensure teacher quality, and the few district and state–based accountability efforts that exist,” said Kerwin. “The letters C.E.R. will take on new additional meaning in our 21st year – as the Campaign for Education Reform™ will reach the millions more whose future success depends on being directly engaged in throwing out the status quo and adopting solid education reform.”
The Campaign, which will be formally released as part of the Center’s 20-year celebration and subsequent succession will address the needs of the general public, bring pressure to bear on policymakers and galvanize American communities that are frequently ignored in today’s school reform debate. Efforts will include:
• A new national effort and survey to understand and address America’s attitudes toward reform;
• The release of a new Parent Power Index© that rates states on their access by parents to avenues of real education reform. The Parent Power Index© is shared with and used by millions of parents across the nation;
• A report card of progress on Governors and forecasts for the future; and
• Online history lessons for reformers and access to proprietary documents relating to the development of ed reform, through Education Reform University at www.staging.edreform.com.
Recent events accelerated the need for the campaign, according to CER President Allen. The US Justice Department suit against the Louisiana scholarship program, challenges to improved charter laws, and union opposition to standards and teacher evaluations are all threats to real progress for America’s schools.
The Center will catalogue in detail as part of the campaign for the public the nearly 20 million currently involved or directly impacted by school reform efforts. As of today, that figure includes nearly 3 million K-12 students who have access to charter schools and other school choice programs, online and blended learning, reform-minded school district options, new educator and leadership programs, and all adults involved in promoting such efforts – from leading to teaching to managing to legislating to funding.
“Until those numbers are 50 million students having access to quality options, and 50 states with charter school and other positive school choice laws, we will persist,” said Kerwin. “That’s why CER has consistently and will now with new tools consistently educate each new generation of parents about the condition of education in their states, communities and schools; the opportunities that exist for improvement and change; and the myriad of solutions that are succeeding in arresting the decline in education achievement.”
In the 2013-14 school year, CER will again utilize all forms of online and traditional media, engaging parents and interested citizens in becoming more informed, more active participants in the national conversation. While the organization’s tools are always very practical in their use and intent, they are also based on what CER calls the “first principles” of reform. These principles, described in detail in Ed Reform U and other sections of the CER web site, have proven useful to policymakers and reformers who are often barraged by random ideas masked in reform notions but which really are nothing more than a head feint to continue the status quo.
“As students and parents immerse themselves in the back-to-school season and their many aspirations for the new school year, it’s clear from the data, the policies and the politics surrounding education reform that far too many children who arrive with great hopes on the first day of school may never see their dreams turn into reality,” said Allen. “We resolve to make those hopes and dreams of success in school and life real for millions more.”
Additional program details and efforts are forthcoming.
Jeanne Allen: Remembering Education Equity at the March
The commemoration of the March on Washington (Aug 28,1963) this weekend is cause to remember that while struggles in economic and educational equity did and do exist, there were people who for years had been working to integrate schools, even before the Brown v Board of Education ruling in 1954.
One such person was DC Archbishop and later Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle who led the integration of Catholic schools here before any mandate caused him to do so. O’Boyle believed that “we are all God’s children regardless of race.” That principle today may live in most hearts but is sadly not always put to practice. Despite the clear superiority of equality as a principle that should guide the manner in which we educate children, our governments’ leaders in all but a handful of communities and states still assign children unequally to schools based on their zip code. While many religious and spiritual leaders joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr in calling for equality and indeed were like Archbishop O’Boyle welcoming all races to school together, too many of our current civil rights leaders reject publicly supported school choice programs that involve the same religious entities that once freed children. Many work to change their hearts and minds. We must do that, and more. To that end I share excerpts from D C’s Archbishop O’Boyle’s opening prayer on August 28, 1963 at the historic March on Washington:
“Bless this nation and all its people. May the warmth of Your love replace the coldness that springs from prejudice and bitterness. Send in our midst the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of all to the great truth that all men are equal in Your sight. Let us understand that simple justice demands that the rights of all be honored by every man…May we move forward without bitterness even when confronted with prejudice and discrimination…and live together as brothers in dignity, justice, charity and peace.”
Amen.