[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 8, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4651-S4652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE RELEVANCE AND IMPORTANCE OF NATIONAL SERVICE
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have the
following statement by Patrick Corvington, chief executive officer of
the Corporation for National and Community Service, printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Patrick Corvington, CEO, Corporation for National and Community Service
In School and On Track
City Year National Leadership Summit on Service and Education
(Los Angeles, CA, May 18, 2010)
Thank you, Michael for that gracious introduction. And
thank you for the opportunity to join with City Year as well
as the Entertainment Industry Foundation as we shine a
spotlight on the essential role of national service in
solving America's drop-out crisis.
I want to begin by congratulating Michael and City Year for
your visionary leadership in this work. We often hear many
stories about young college roommates starting new companies
from their dorm rooms and becoming billionaires. Michael and
Alan had a different idea. In 1988, these two Harvard Law
School roommates enriched us all by acting on their belief in
the power of citizen service by creating City Year.
And now as a key member of the AmeriCorps network, City
Year and its growing cadre of diverse and talented corps
members has become a model for service in America. Thank you,
Michael for this gift to the nation.
I also want to thank Lisa Paulsen, President and CEO of the
Entertainment Industry Foundation for co-sponsoring this
summit and for adding the drop-out crisis to your growing
portfolio of service campaigns. Lisa has been a good friend
to me and to the Corporation. Last year, under her
leadership, EIF launched iParticipate. As part of that
effort, last October, more than 100 TV shows focused their
programming and storylines on service. EIF has also been a
supporter of City Year, ServiceNation and a number of other
service organizations. Thank you, Lisa, for inviting
Hollywood into our service family.
As many of you know, I was confirmed as CEO of the
Corporation for National and Community Service on February
18th, so today marks my third month on the job. I've been out
on the road to see the impact that our programs, members and
partners are having across the country.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in San Antonio delivering the
commencement address at the University of Texas and had the
pleasure of seeing the Diplomas Now collaborative in action
during a visit to McAuliffe Middle School. One of the most
illuminating aspects of that visit was when the school
principal told me that City Year and Communities in Schools
had been working in McAuliffe for some time. But it was when
they chose to partner and focus single-mindedly on helping
students that he began to see remarkable progress.
Los Angeles is also a place where Diplomas Now is making a
real difference. Early results from two of LA's toughest
middle schools--Leicthy and Hollenbeck--show remarkable
progress: a 40 percent decrease in students failing math and
a 43 percent decrease in students failing English.
I remember coming to this country as an immigrant and
hearing from my high school counselor, as he looked across
the table with earnest concern, that I wasn't college
material and that I should go to trade school--I ended up
going to night school and working my way through college.
After seeing Diplomas Now in action, I wonder how different
my journey would have been had I been surrounded by young
people in red jackets who were more interested in seeing me
succeed than in telling me that I couldn't.
Your red jackets have become a symbol of hope for a whole
generation of young people who might otherwise be shackled
with the chains of low expectations.
It is fitting that this summit has brought us here to Los
Angeles--a city of many community challenges but also of
tremendous assets and wealth. A place where diversity and
disparity live side by side.
City Year is changing lives here in LA, in Chicago,
Philadelphia, New Orleans and throughout this nation. The
results you are achieving show us we have the power to beat
back the drop-out crisis, and that service has a central role
to play in this effort. Education is the engine that drives
our nation's progress. But more than that, it is the gateway
to a life of purpose and meaning.
In this global economy, education will be the fault line
between success and failure, not only for our young people,
but for our country.
Ben Franklin said, ``An investment in knowledge always pays
the best dividends.''
There is nothing more critical to the future of this nation
than making sure that every school . . . in every community .
. . is equipped to give every young person in America the
knowledge and the skills . . . to build lives of meaning . .
. and to compete and win in the global economy.
But make no mistake--this is an unforgiving competition--
one in which there are no excuses for failure and few second
chances.
Since our inception, education has been one of our top
priorities at the Corporation.
[[Page S4652]]
We understand that closing the achievement gap and reducing
the drop-out rate requires not only government action, but
also the involvement of families and communities. In the past
15 years, we have supported a number of education programs
throughout the country.
For example, right here in Los Angeles, through their work
with the National Farm Workers Service Center, AmeriCorps
members are achieving remarkable results. They are raising
reading and math scores for children of families living 60
percent below the poverty line. Families that are too often
overlooked and left behind.
I believe one of the significant challenges we face in
service today is how we build communities from the inside out
while also ensuring that they have access to the best
national resource like City Year. That is where success lies.
We cannot continue to believe that we can change lives,
change communities but leave them out of the change process.
We need to do a better job of aligning our resources in
communities, engage stake holders, and demonstrate the power
of service.
You know, many of us think of ourselves as organizers--
movement builders. If we are to use the rhetoric of grass
roots organizing, then it should be grass roots and it should
be organized.
Only by bringing together national leaders and communities
can we demonstrate the power of service in solving problems.
I saw this very thing yesterday when I visited Hope for the
Homeless here in L.A. This program is changing the face of
AmeriCorps. They have recruited AmeriCorps members who have
lived the very lives they are trying to change.
Sitting before me in their blue shirts, they talked about
leading lives of purpose, about leading lives of meaning,
about realizing what it means to have people depend on them,
believe in them.
Some have spent the better parts of their lives in prison,
others on the streets, but all in the crippling prison of
despair. But all of them--every single one of them, has been
transformed by AmeriCorps, by service.
I was struck. Not just by their stories, but also by how
similar those stories were to those I've heard from other
AmeriCorps members--from NCCC members in Colorado, from VISTA
Volunteers in West Virginia, and from City Year members in
Texas.
No matter where they come from, no matter what their
experience--blue shirts or red jackets, the transformation is
real, it is tangible, it is profound.
Transformation is not easy. If it were, we'd have it done
by now. It takes courage. The courage to cross boundaries,
the courage to reach out of our comfort zones, most of all
the courage of humility. But if the AmeriCorps members at
Hope for the Homeless have the courage to change their lives,
and the City Year Corps members have the courage to go into
some of the toughest schools in the toughest communities,
then surely we have the courage to be bold.
That's really why all of us are here today. This is not
about feeling good and good intentions--it is about the kind
of future we are creating for ourselves, our children.
This is an exciting time to be in what I like to call the
solutions business. We now have a President and a First Lady
who understand something we've known for a very long time--
service is not secondary to solving the drop-out crisis and
other pressing problems--it is essential to solving them.
President Obama has issued a challenge that every American
become engaged in some way in their community.
Every American, everyone, has a role, and service can
illuminate that path, can help people find themselves in the
solution.
Last year, with the help of many of you in this room, the
President signed into law the Serve America Act, the most
sweeping expansion of national service in a generation.
The Act challenges us to do a better job of demonstrating
and measuring our effectiveness in solving problems.
Undergirding that mandate are four major goals: First, to
fulfill the promise to make service a solution for big
national problems. Second, to expand opportunities for more
Americans of all ages and backgrounds to serve. With new and
diverse voices come new and innovative ways to approach and
solve problems. So we need to embrace innovation by expanding
proven programs and seeding promising emerging ones and
finally we need to build the capacity of individuals,
organizations and communities by giving them the tools they
need to succeed.
City Year, with its laser focus on solving the drop-out
crisis is a case-study in the fulfillment of all these goals.
You are making service a solution. You are expanding
opportunities for young people from diverse communities to
serve.
And you're building the capacity of teachers,
administrators and communities to turnaround failing schools
but most of all you are giving students who need it most, the
help they need to succeed. The entire service community has
much to learn from you.
While Congress has expanded our mandate and given us more
resources, the American people now expect us to use this
opportunity to take service to the next level.
That means more of a focus on measuring outcomes to ensure
that our efforts are making a difference.
At the end of the day, it won't mean a thing if we increase
the number of volunteers and a million kids are still
dropping out of school. It won't mean a thing if 15 million
people are still out of work. It won't mean a thing if our
communities continue to decline.
For too long, too many of us have been satisfied with
saying that ``we tried.'' That's no longer good enough. We
must not only try, we must succeed. But the only way we will
be successful, the only way we will win, is if we have the
courage to plant a stake in the ground, draw a line in the
sand and say that we are willing to be measured, to be
judged, to be held to account.
At a time of great need, Americans are responding to
President Obama's challenge.
But, to fulfill this new vision for service, we need a
stronger investment from every sector. We don't only need
more volunteers; we need them focused, like City Year, on
solving specific problems. We don't just need more volunteer
hours; we need to make sure those hours add up to results.
In order to do this, we need full funding of the
President's budget request for the Corporation and its
programs. The President's 2011 budget request of $1.4 billion
will strengthen our nation's civil society, foster innovation
and civic engagement, and engage more than 6 million
Americans in solving problems through service. If we make
these needed investments. If we face the future with the
courage to change. Then, and only then, will we fulfill our
commitment to the American people.
So, let me say again, thank you to City Year for showing us
the way. Thank you to the young AmeriCorps and City Year
members who go into classrooms everyday to mentor, teach, and
inspire struggling students. And thank you to everyone in
this room who is a part of making service a solution.
The great American educator, Mary McLeod Bethune once said,
``We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have
the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may
direct their power towards good ends.''
What I've seen City Year do in classrooms throughout this
country is give young people the hope for a better tomorrow .
. . the support they need to overcome the odds . . . the
strength and the courage to dream big dreams. And so, I want
to say to Michael and the City Year corps members here today,
when someone asks you 20 years from now where did you stand
when more than half of young people in some of our largest
cities were not finishing high school . . . Where did you
stand when more than 12 million children were living in
poverty . . . where did you stand when we were struggling to
lift up students whose dreams were crumbling as fast as the
schools around them . . . you can proudly say, I stood with
City Year. I stood with AmeriCorps. I stood with service.
Thank you.
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