Ten years ago several business leaders, including Alex Cranberg, Charlie Gallagher, Ed McVaney, John Saeman and myself, joined together to form a non-profit organization out of a growing concern for the quality of education being offered to Colorado’s low-income communities, particularly in inner-city Denver.
More kids were dropping out than graduating; far fewer were going on to college. So the Alliance for Choice in Education was formed one decade ago this year to give choice to children who ordinarily have none.
Middle- and high-income families have educational choice: they either move to neighborhoods with good public schools or pay private school tuition. Low-income parents don’t have that luxury. Their children attend the government assigned, neighborhood school, whether it’s a good school, or not; whether the educational environment suits their child’s learning style, or not; whether that school will prepare their child for the future, or not.
For ten years ACE has provided a lifeline to these kids, offering them a chance to start anew in a private school of their choosing. The results has been consistently higher graduation rates, higher ACT scores, higher college-acceptance rates, more satisfied parents and more confident children.
After more than 6,000 scholarships totaling more than $15 million, we feel more empowered than ever to continue applying pressure to the status-quo; to continue rejecting the notion that some children can’t learn; to continue leveling the playing field for at-risk kids and providing them with an opportunity to learn in a safe and structured environment.
A decade of service is indeed a milestone that should be celebrated, but it pales in comparison to the hundreds of milestones ACE kids have reached throughout the years – the first in their family to graduate from high school; the first to attend college; the first to reject the temptations of their troubled communities and strive for something greater.
Many years ago (I won’t say how many), I was the first in my family to graduate from college. My life was forever changed by the opportunities that opened up to me. Ultimately that’s the mission of ACE – to change kid’s lives through education.
Thank you for your support these past ten years. Here’s to another great decade.
Ralph Nagel
Chairman of the Board
Alberto, a highly focused second grader, tells us that someday he wants to be a “fireman because they rescue people, or maybe a policeman who catches bad guys… and,” as he changes gears with a grin, “I have a pet scorpion.”