[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 18647-18648]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  ON THE INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO EDUCATIONAL EQUITY MADE BY JAMES 
                                KETELSEN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CAROLYN McCARTHY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 11, 2008

  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise in honor of James 
Ketelsen, the founder of Project GRAD, an education reform model that 
is transforming the hopes of tens of thousands of students and families 
across the country. Mr. Ketelsen has announced his intention of 
resigning as chair of the Project GRAD USA board of directors, and will 
become chair emeritus later this fall.
  Mr. Ketelsen is the former CEO and chairman of Tenneco. Under Mr. 
Ketelsen's leadership, in 1988 Tenneco began to fund a 4-year 
scholarship program for eligible graduates of Davis High School, at the 
time Houston's lowest-performing high school. By 1992, the number of 
Davis graduates entering college had more than quadrupled. Still, Mr. 
Ketelsen was not satisfied because high school graduation rates and 
college matriculation rates continued to fall short of his 
expectations. He knew, given the right investments and the right 
commitment, that Davis students--and all students from economically 
disadvantaged communities--were capable of much more. As Mr. Ketelsen 
is inclined to insist, ``It's not the kids!'' Armed with that belief, 
Mr. Ketelsen has dedicated the last two decades to making an enormous 
difference for America's highest needs students.
  I have been a longtime supporter of Project GRAD in Congress and was 
pleased to be able to get a provision into the recently-enacted Higher 
Education Opportunity Act to expand Project GRAD so that more low-
income

[[Page 18648]]

and minority students can attend college and earn degrees. Today, 
Project GRAD has expanded to 13 communities and reaches more than 
120,000 students and families from California to New York, Alaska to 
Georgia. In the longest-served group of schools, GRAD scholars are 
completing college at a rate 92 percent above the national average for 
students from similar demographic backgrounds. A statistically 
significant sample of GRAD scholarship recipients who have completed 
college shows that the proportion who graduated with majors in science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics--concentrations of dire need 
for the national economy and national security--exceeded the national 
average for minority students by 71 percent. In the coming academic 
year, more than 7,500 students will be in college, funded by a Project 
GRAD scholarship. GRAD has already sent high school graduates to more 
than 100 institutions of higher education, including many of the most 
highly selective colleges and universities in the Nation. At the 
beginning of high school, many Project GRAD students would never have 
dreamed of attending Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cornell, Emory, Georgetown, 
Rice, Texas, Virginia, or Amherst, yet because of Mr. Ketelsen's 
vision, determination, and remarkable leadership, Project GRAD has 
altogether altered those expectations.
  I am honored to know James Ketelsen personally and I am grateful for 
the tenacity and passion with which he has served America's children 
and families. I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing the 
gratitude of the U.S. Congress for the extensive contributions to 
education and our society that he made during his lifetime.

                          ____________________