Salute, Celebrate, Innovate

November 6, 2015November 6, 2015 / Promise / Leave a comment

More than three dozen Promise programs from across the country — and other explorers hoping to join the Cities of Promise — will descend upon ground zero for the movement next week.

That’s because PromiseNet 2015 is returning to Kalamazoo, Mich., beginning Tuesday and concluding Thursday. In addition to speeches, panels and networking sessions, there will also be a gala celebration of the 10th Anniversary of The Kalamazoo Promise on Wednesday night at the Radisson Hotel downtown. (Cities of Promise is even hosting a swag swap on Tuesday night)

Our journey from New Haven, Conn., to PromiseNet will begin on Monday, which is the 5th Anniversary of the announcement of the establishment of the New Haven Promise. The picture of then-Yale President Rick Levin and then-New Haven Mayor John DeStefano was taken at that event on Nov. 9, 2010.

This movement is young, yet it is the most exciting thing happening in higher education right now. It is diverse as communities are finding new forms of funding and programming that are specific to their resources, needs and concerns.

As I’ve written before, a committed community does not need much to start a program. Taking advantage of existing resources and highlighting opportunities for scholars and families can lead to much more. We are seeing that in California with the Ontario-Montclair Promise Scholars program, which for a decade produced a college-going culture without a funder.

One of the reason the Promise movement is the most exciting thing in higher education is because it is supremely innovative. We are seeing combinations of business leaders, government officials, philanthropists and education administrators pulling together to solve problems that haven’t been resolved alone.

So our trip to Kalamazoo is a salute to all that has been accomplished and a celebration of what is yet to come.

Denver Decides If College Matters Tuesday

November 3, 2015November 4, 2015 / Promise / Leave a comment

UPDATE: Denver voters rejected the college affordability ballot measure by about eight points. Meanwhile it looks like Pueblo, Colo., will become the next City of Promise as voters passed a measure to apply an excise tax on marijuana cultivators to establish a college scholarship program.

Tuesday is election day and there isn’t that much excitement about it. Ohio’s measure to legalize marijuana is getting a good bit of attention as are tightly contested gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Louisiana. But the number of statewide measures up for consideration are at a 25-year low.

Of course, there are a number of mayoral races to be decided, including places like Charlotte, N.C.; Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Ind.; Orlando, Fla.; and Philadelphia, Pa.

But for Cities of Promise, we will be focused on Issue 2A in Denver, Colo., which could use a very small slice of city sales tax — eight cents per $100 purchase — to generate $10 million a year for college scholarships.

This measure has wide support and publicity as evidenced by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper hooping it up for Issue 2A, known as College Matters. But the Denver Post editorial board doesn’t think this should be a city responsibility basically because it never has been.

If passed by voters, the City of Denver will establish a non-profit entity to partner with philanthropy-supported scholarship organizations, which includes the Denver Scholarship Foundation. The measure will “sunset” in 10 years unless voters vote to extend it later.

The message is pretty simple — debt means students can’t contribute to the economy. Voters will choose whether or not to give a penny for every $12 they spend.

And a collective thumb’s up won’t just mean a world of difference for the city’s youth, it would also provide a model to consider for cities across the land.

And we know that the U.S. can use more Cities of Promise.

Community College: New & Free

October 29, 2015October 29, 2015 / Promise / Leave a comment

Heads Up America — the awareness campaign for President Obama’s College Promise initiative — is being celebrated on community college campuses this week.

Here at Cities of Promise, we have pulled together a list of two-year college programs which are already in place to provide tuition assistance for its local student body.

Two-year colleges have been around since 1901, when Joliet Junior College in Illinois became a public college offering two years of programming. And now, envisioning college of tomorrow, U.S. News reports that 20 percent of the student bodies at some colleges already have bachelor’s degrees and are adding important job skills for the future.

The roster is deep. Among community college attendees have been astronaut Eileen Collins, businessmen Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, George Lucas and Ross Perot, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, Emmy Award winner Jim Lehrer, baseball Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Nolan Ryan, funnymen Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal, singers Salt-N-Pepa, Faith Hill and Queen Latifah and an array of actors which include Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks and Gabrielle Union.

In explaining the history of community college, Time Magazine’s Sean Trainor recently wrote:

Clamoring for both physical and economic access to college learning at a moment when advanced education was becoming key to social mobility (sound familiar?), Americans of a populist persuasion were responsible for the egalitarian streak of the junior colleges that opened beginning in 1901.

Inexpensive, often publically funded, and open to a wider cross-section of Americans than many of their four-year counterparts, these junior colleges were celebrated as “people’s colleges.” Though a far cry from full inclusivity, these male-dominated, majority-white schools nevertheless catered to a broader swath of working-class Americans than nearly any other contemporary educational institution.

Cities of Promise stands in support of our nation’s community colleges and the Heads Up America movement.

Show Me Smoke?

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 / Promise / Leave a comment

It’s been on the ballot before, but the folks in the State of Missouri have voted to keep the tax on cigarette among the lowest in the land, but next fall there will be yet another measure aimed at raising the price of a pack of smokes by a quarter or more.

“The politics are trending toward increasing it,” said Peverill Squire, a political scientist at the University of Missouri. “The question is by how much.”

And — as detailed by Scott Canon of the Kansas City Star — one of the initiatives lining up to benefit from an increased tax is the Missouri Promise campaign, which is backed by the state’s higher education community. University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe has endorsed a $1-a-pack increase for scholarships, which would still leave the state well below the national average on cigarette taxation. That type of increase would raise more than $300 million in year one (and might stop people from smoking, which would benefit the state in healthcare costs).

On the other side of the state, the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has given the tax a thumbs’ up, whether it supports early childhood education — like the Raise Your Hands For Kids initiative — or the Missouri Promise higher ed plan.

“By admitting that the tobacco tax is ripe for a reasonable increase, [lobbyist Ron Leone] has provided a service to voters,” wrote the Post-Dispatch editorial board. “That is a big deal. Now it is time for people who care about economic development to settle on a strategy to correct Missouri’s course on its current race-to-the-bottom trajectory.”