How the Economy has Impacted Non-Profits

A 2010 State of the Nonprofit Sector report showed only 18 percent of the more than 1,300 nonprofit leaders surveyed expect their organizations to end 2010 in the black. While in 2009, 35 percent of organizations ended the year with an operating surplus. 61 percent of those organizations surveyed have less than three months of cash available, and 12 percent have no cash.

80 percent of nonprofits expect to see an increase in demand for their services in 2010, while only 49 percent expect to be able to fully meet that demand. Organizations are taking a number of steps to maintain, and expand — service delivery during this period of economic uncertainty. Collaboration is big now, with 52 percent stating they have collaborated with other organizations to provide programs, 43 percent have added to or expanded their program offerings, 18 percent have expanded the geographic area served by their programs, and 60 percent have become more engaged with their board.

The economic crisis on foundations includes the fact that there is expectation among grant makers that the field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of having weathered the economic crisis. In addition, the long-term impact of the crisis on their own foundations are forcing engaging in "being more focused and disciplined in executing our strategy” as well as “more robust strategic planning,” and “more focused use of the foundation’s capabilities.”

This means the field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of the world’s economic crisis. There have been declines in overall consumer demand and our country’s highest unemployment figures in a quarter century, so it is no surprise that nonprofit community has suffered as well.

Children of the City in Sunset Park near Brooklyn, New York, is actually growing, according to their Chairman of the Board Rocco Basile, who has been affiliated with the charity for a number of years. In fact he even has a website devoted to nonprofits. Visit http://www.roccobasile.net/

(Source: The Foundation Center.)

Hugh Jackman is Guest of Honor at Children of the City Gala

Last week Hugh Jackman, Tony and Emmy Award winning actor and producer, was the Guest of Honor at the Brooklyn, New York-based Children of the City Benefit to help raise awareness of the educational needs and social challenges of underprivileged children in Brooklyn communities. The evening was hosted by WABC Features & Lifestyle reporter Lauren Glassberg as the guests gathered at New York's Pier Sixty.

Rocco Basile, chairman of the board of directors of Children of the City was honored by District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, for his efforts in supporting the non-profit. Brooklyn Retail Market Manager for TD Bank Eileen Holmes, was honored with the 2010 Children’s Champion Award.

The benefit was an opportunity to bring about awareness of the challenges the children have to face. Founder and President Joyce Mattera, who has dedicated her life to helping disadvantaged and neglected children talked about the fact that there is a 48 percent dropout rate in the Brooklyn community, which as more than 30,000 children. One out of four are living in abject poverty.

Children of the City is dedicated to changing the culture of poverty. Visit www.childrenofthewcity.org.

Title IX and Nondiscrimination

Vice President Biden today announced that the Administration has issued a 'Dear Colleague' letter that withdraws a 2005 interpretation of Title IX policy. Joining the vioce president for today's announcment were Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

What is Title IX? It was enacted in 1972, mandating that any educational institution receiving federal funding for programs and activities cannot discriminate on the basis of sex.

In 2005 this policy included compliance standards that were criticized nationwide for being inadequate and inconsistent with Title IX's nondiscrimination goals. Today's announcement reverses this interpretation, and returns to a more thorough test for assessing compliance with Title IX.



-- Rocco Basile

Has the Recession Harmed Philanthropies?

This was just released in March 2010 - A recent report on the 2010 State of the Nonprofit Sector said that 18 percent of the more than 1,300 nonprofit leaders surveyed expect their organizations to end 2010 in the black. In 2009, 35 percent of organizations ended the year with an operating surplus. But, 12 percent have no cash and 61 percent of those surveyed said they have less than three months of cash available. (Source: The Foundation Center.)

Basically this means is that the field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of the world’s economic crisis.

About 80 percent of these nonprofits expect to see an increase in demand for their services in 2010. On the other hand, only 49 percent expect to be able to fully meet that demand.

Many charity organizations are taking steps to maintain, and expand during these recessionary times. 52 percent stated they have collaborated with other organizations to provide programs; 43 percent have expanded their offerings; 18 percent have expanded the geographic area served by their programs. A big 60 percent said that they have become more involved with their board.

Overall, the impact of the economic situation on foundations is as follows:
1) There is a clear expectation among grant makers that the field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of having weathered the economic crisis. 2) The long-term impact of the crisis on their own foundations are forcing engaging in “more robust strategic planning,” “more focused use of the foundation’s capabilities,” and being “more focused and disciplined in executing our strategy.”

There have been declines in overall consumer demand and our country’s highest unemployment figures in a quarter century, so it is no surprise that the future outlook for the nonprofit community has been impacted by the recession.

One charity thatI work closely with and sit on their Board, is known as Children of the City in Sunset Park near Brooklyn, New York, however, is not suffering at all since the recession. It is growing.

-- Rocco Basile

Rocco Basile Reports: Mathew Encourages Talent

“My job is to encourage talent.”


As you know I report things happening at my charity Children of the City, as well as add information to my website on educational trends and such at www.roccobasile.net.

But here's a really inspiring story I wanted to share ... Mathew is a tutor in Children of the City’s Create Success After School Program in Sunset Park near Brooklyn, NY.

He basically teaches kids the skills they need to come up with a strategy for learning. And he believes that creativity is the key. Matt inspires confidence and boosts his students' self esteem.

He mixes it up with drama, games, and group presentations like last semester's reading of Shakespeare’s “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream.” This helps promote public speaking, listening skills and comprehension.

A communications major, Matt grew up in Sunset Park. He was making a documentary in El Salvador when he realized he wanted to teach, so he moved back to his old neighborhood and rearranged his work schedule to free up his afternoons to help teach the kids at Children of the City.

-- Rocco Basile

David Tyree Spends Afternoon with Children of the City

As you know, I serve on the Board of a Brooklyn-based charity, Children of the City and often write about this charity, education and our youth in my website, www.roccobasile.net, and this blog. The New York Giants' football star David Tyree is also on the Board, and he recently visited the kids during one of the Create Success program classes, which is an after school and/or summer program for kids. It's the only multi-service educational program of its kind and is fast becoming a model sought after by other agencies for their own after school program sites.

The program places priority on each student’s academic success with intense tutoring and help with their homework, which ends up being a connection with the student allows us the open door to provide them with other services such as counseling, or advocacy within the social systems like court. Some of the skills that the program achieves include:
Our goals are:

- Closing the academic skills gap;

- Displacing the poverty mentality;

- Providing the support and resources needed to help each child and youth complete their education so they can enter the workforce;

- Addressing social issues that discourage a child from focusing on their education.

The Create Success program also evaluates student performance using NYC Department of Education assessment tools which sowed that over the past three years 95 percent of the students tested improved several DRA levels; 20 percent increased an entire grade level; and all of the students expressed they felt more comfortable reading, more confident in their math skills.

In general this program helped the Children of the City kids develop positive outlooks for the success of their education and lives.

-- Rocco Basile







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Children of the City's Mission

The mission for Sunset Park-based Children of the City, located in Brooklyn New York has remained the same since 1981. They try to reach at-risk inner-city youth and their families. Children of the City's goal is to connect families to resources to address their current crises in an effort to change the culture of poverty.

One of their programs, Strong Minds and Strong Homes, is a volunteer-based outreach effort that meets children and families where they live. Strong Minds - Strong Homes (SMASH) is a volunteer-based effort that meets children and families in Sunset Park and connects them with services they might not otherwise seek out on their own.

The goals of this program include:

1) Building a healthy community - by increasing connections between community members and service providers.
2) Empowering parents to meet basic physical needs of their children - by connecting them to food pantries, employment services, clothing providers, and other social service groups.
3) Equipping parents to raise healthy children - by helping to train and support them to use healthy developmental strategies to raise their children. This helps reduce neglect and child abuse.
4) Increasing educational opportunities for children - by advocating at local schools and connecting them with supplemental academic programs.

I also have other information about this and other programs that Children of the City sponsors on my educational website www.roccobasile.net.

Children of the City also believes in the importance of mobilizing its community members to work together for the good of everyone in the neighborhood. Each year the organization trains 50 volunteers from the Sunset Park community. Each person commits to giving 10 hours every month conducting outreach for children and families, over 12 consecutive months.

I do it and it is the best feeling in the world to give back to a community.

-- Rocco Basile

Survey Says Nonprofit Giving Has Declined 10% due to Economy

In order to keep an eye on my chairites from time to time I review research and statistical informatio n to post on my website http://www.roccobasile.net/. According to survey findings released by the Foundation Center, giving will likely decline by more than 10 percent since 2008. The survey is the result of interviewing and obtaining the responses of 600 foundations. What’s more, continued reductions are expected throughout 2010.

The year has suffered declines in overall consumer demand and our country’s highest unemployment figures in a quarter century, so it is no surprise that the future outlook for the nonprofit community has been impacted by the recession. The field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of the economic crisis.

The majority of experts believe that the nonprofit sector will emerge stronger but agree that ultimately there will be fewer organizations. U.S. foundation giving suffered an estimated 22 percent drop in foundation assets in 2008. Earlier this year, the Foundation Center estimated that 2009 giving by the nation’s more than 75,000 grant making foundations would “decrease by around eight to 13 percent, and at this time, it seems as if it is likely the decline will be even more.

The economic crisis has forced nonprofits to adjust their operating costs. More than two-thirds of respondents to the September 2009 said they have in some way reduced operating expenses since the beginning of the economic crisis, even those that still have endowments. It seems that some nonprofits are trying to preserve the value of their endowments, so that they will not permanently diminish grant making capacity, while others have determined they will be smaller institutions going forward and are making necessary staffing and expense adjustments.

How are they cutting back? Many have reduced operating expenses since the onset of the economic crisis, by reducing staff travel and salaries. Two-thirds of the respondents that cut expenses reported reducing staff travel budgets and/or limiting staff to attend conferences. A little over one-third indicated that they had also reduced staff training and professional development opportunities.

A larger share of respondents expect that their giving will be lower in 2010 (26 percent) than higher (17 percent). Larger foundations, those giving over $10 million, are more likely than smaller foundations to reduce their giving further next year. While asset averaging generally limits the impact of modest economic fluctuations on annual giving, the extreme 2008 asset losses will not be balanced out by 2007 asset growth and the 2009 turnaround in the market.

Finally, the impact of the economic crisis on foundations has been twofold. 1) There is a clear expectation among grant makers that the field of philanthropy will become more strategic as a result of having weathered the economic crisis. 2) The long-term impact of the crisis on their own foundations are forcing engaging in “more robust strategic planning,” “more focused use of the foundation’s capabilities,” and being “more focused and disciplined in executing our strategy.” The focus of other types of long-term changes cited by survey respondents ranged from governance to grantee relations to investments.

The Foundation Center’s next Foundation Giving Forecast Survey will be conducted in January 2010, with results released in the March 2010 edition of Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates.

The annual Foundation Giving Forecast Survey and made it available to approximately 5,000 large and mid-size U.S. community, independent, and corporate foundations.

-- Rocco Basile
Source: Foundation Center, 2009 http://www.foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/researchadvisory_economy_200911.pdf

Has the Economy Affected Top Twelve Educational Trends?

Every generation has sets of educational trends that are constantly evolving right along with the times. By taking a look at these trends, higher-education institutions are better able to prepare for the future students to become productive members of society and world leaders.

As you know I am fascinated with how our children develop and learn, as evidenced from the topics on website at http://www.roccobasile.net/ - especially the underpriviledged kids in the charities where I serve as a Board member such as Children of the City. (Kaylen on right)

Let's take a look at five of these predictions (there are twelve in all) to see if the economy has affected them in any way this last year.

1. Evergreen students - It is the 18 year olds who are bringing the new technologies to college campuses, but due to this fact they expect the infastructure to be in place to support their new evergreen ideas. But this last year the biggest trends included social media like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, interactive mobile smart phones, and places like SecondLife.com are a great tools to train students virtually. Universities continue to explore new ways to integrate these tools into a productive learning environment and the slow economy only slows down the process of implementation.

2 Globalization - The demand for higher education worldwide is increasing and will continue to grow. There a re 100 million college students globally, and the growth areas have been India, China and the Middle East. Today students must prepare for a global workforce.

3. Techninal and informational literacy. Technical literacy among teachers in increasing, and more are using computers and ew technology in teaching. Students may be device savvy but they need to improve on being information savvy, therefore using technology for academic purposes is the new goal. a wave of faculty retirement is bringing new teachers to the forefront who are younger and more technologically savvy.

4. Enrollment, retention, and branding. Schools are hip to using the Internet to market academic programs, and e-learning online is well under way (e.g. Zinch.com is to help students in the college application process). Colleges have built attractive brands, and are using new methods to enroll and keep students in school - such as call centers to contact students and leave voicemails if they miss classes.

5. Mobility. Colleges are compelled to capitolize on feature rich mobile phones to reach students new ways such as texting, instant messaging, video, etc. Now colleges are exploring ways to use PDAs to deliver coursework, field data, training modules, schedules, and much more.

Just as colleges and universities are experiementing with technology tools to improve learning, our younger students are less fortunate in some communities where public schools simply do not have the government support for funds to provide the technology - especially during bad economic times.

Life is a learning experience ... This is why programs like ChildrenoftheCity are so critical to communities like Brooklyn.

-- Rocco Basile

Champion of Hope Event Photos with Gweneth Paltrow

We got the photos back from our July 29 Champion of Hope Gala evening featuring Oscar and Golden Globe winning actress Gweneth Paltrow as guest of honor, with the Children of the City girls. To view all of the event photos, click here.

As you know, as a board member of this charity, I get to work with the volunteers and the kids.

There's more about it, and my other charities on my website, http://www.roccobasile.net/.

Meterologist Bill Evens from WABC-TV Eyewitness News was the Master of ceremonies, as well as the Auctioneer joined by David Tyree of the New York Giants, and actress Bella Thorne.

-- Rocco Basile

Rocco Basile is Proud of Angel

As a father, Rocco Basile knows how tough it can be to be a Dad, and how instrumental a father is in shaping a child’s life. That's why Basile and the charity he works closely with, Children of the City, are proud of Angel Lopez, a 24 year old former gang member,

Angel’s dad was incarcerated when he was a boy, and his Mom had drug problems. Several well meaning relatives tried to help, but the lack of a male authority figure led Angel to search for role models among the gang leaders that he thought were so cool.

Then one day about four years ago a Children of the City youth outreach counselor started visiting with Angel’s nephew, in order to listen to what Angel was saying. Soon, Angel started making appointments to talk with the counselor himself because he wanted to be a good father to his son and daughter. He married the mother of his children and endured the hardships that were required to quit the gang. He credits Children of the City with helping him with his education, a job, and learning how to be a better parent.

What would Angel's life been like if he had found Children of the City when he was a child? Committed to volunteering at Children of the City, Angel said, “I reach out to the kids. I try to give as much of myself as I can ... I tell them the truth about the streets. I warn them about jail, the diseases, and everything else that is out there when you switch to the fast lane. I let them know that I had a choice, and they have choices."

--Rocco Basile

























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Joe DiMaggio Still Supports Students with Learning Disabilities

Joe DiMaggio was a friend and generous supporter of Xaverian High School and was the first person to ever receive Xaverian's highest honor, the Concordia Award, in 1997. DiMaggio died on March 8, 1999, with the honor of being known as "the greatest living baseball player."

Joe played for the New York Yankees baseball team and his nickname was the "Yankee Clipper." How did he get this nickname? In the game of baseball, to 'clip' the ball means 'hit' the ball. everyone knows that Joe DiMaggio was a great hitter! But 'Yankee Clipper' is also the name of a beautiful sailing ship. To the people who watching him play baseball, DiMaggio played as like a sailing clipper ship -- gracefully.

Xaverian's Concordia Award was renamed the Joe DiMaggio Award to memorialize DiMaggio's life-long commitment to the health, educaiton and the well being of America's youth. Dimaggio has an annual award gala in his memory - The Joe DiMaggio Award Gala - a fundraiser for Xaverian High. This is a special program for students with learning disabilities.

The Joe DiMaggio Award's mission, established in 1999, is to memorialize his "lifelong commitment to the health, education and well being of America's youth."

More than 100 young men have graduated from this special initiative and all have gone on to four-year colleges. Because Xaverian is private and tuition driven, all proceeds from the annual Gala benefit its many students. the evening usually always includes a silent auction of rare Joe DiMaggio memorabilia donated by the DiMaggio Estate and Morris Engelberg, Esq.

Earning the Bay Ridge school's highest honor, formerly called the Concordia Award, DiMaggio won it in 1997. The award has since been presented to Dr. Henry Kissinger, Maestro Luciano Pavarotti, former mayor and current presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani, television personality Regis Philbin, singer/songwriter Paul Simon, Sopranos star James Gandolfini, CBS Sports commentator Boomer Esiason and NBC Emmy-Award winning sports broadcaster Bob Costas.

This year's May 2009 Joe DiMaggio Award Gala honors Reggie Jackson. This year's Master of Ceremonies is Jim Ryan, the Legendary Television Reporter and Anchorman.

--Rocco Basile

Have you heard About the Developmentally Appropriate Practice Video?

I just discovered the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a group that has been a leading voice in defining, disseminating, and recognizing the best practices in the care and education of children. iot deals with kids that are up to age 8. As you kbnow I review all the latest informaiton on the education of children and put muh of this reearc on my website http://www.roccobasile.net/.

The NAEYC recently released the third edition of its principles and guidelines for teachers and others in the field of early childhood education in 2009. It describes the “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” — that is, teaching practices that ensure that young children learn and develop to their fullest potential.

To listen to the video, click the link below.http://www.naeyc.org/dap/resources1.asp.

In addition, you may want to review Young Children, an award winning peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly by the NAEYC. The magazine's issues are organized around topical clusters that devote attention to issues in the field of early childhood education. The practitioner-based nature of Young Children makes it unique among journals and its award winning status testifies to the publication's excellence.

--Rocco Basile

Trends in 2009: Multicultural Education

Did you know that currently 70 percent of the population that is online are white? The trend is that in 2009 more and more African-Americans and Hispanics are going to go online via their PCs and or mobile telephones. Marketers will follow to target multicultural audiences with more culture-specific messages and languages.

In fact, multicultural education is a more recent field of study aiming to create equal educational opportunities for students from diverse ethnic, social-class, and cultural and racial groups. The goal is to help all students acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed to function effectively in a pluralistic democratic society.

All people have the right to learn and communicate with people from diverse groups around the globe in order to create a moral community that works for worldwide peace and the common good of everyone. Multicultural education draws content, concepts and theories from specialized fields including history, ethnic and women studies, as well as from social and behavioral sciences. Multicultural education applies content from these fields and disciplines to challenge curriculum development in educational.

I am very encouraged to see these kinds of trends in education today. My website http://www.roccobasile.net/ has been focused on trends in education and my charities over the last year, and I am seeing tremendous results from my charities including Children of the City.

As evidenced in December during the Christmas holidays, 600 children and 100 adults were invited to the headquarters of Children of the City located in Brooklyn, New York, where hundreds of toys and gifts were distributed to needy kids. Dozens of volunteers wrapped the donations of toys that were received, then distributed them to neediest children from all walks of life.

The non-profit's educational programs have helped thousands of at-risk inner-city children and youth with hope, and resources to positively affect their lives via after school programs, and by connecting them and their families to resources. The goal is to educate and empower them to break the negative and destructive cycles they’ve grown up.

The result is multicultural community where people have learned to take responsibility to bring lasting change to themselves and their environment.

--Rocco Basile

Food Drive Feeds Hundreds; Christmas Drive is On!

One of the charities that I support, among others listed on my website http://www.roccobasile.net/, is - Children of the City - who rounded up 100 volunteers from all over New York to give away Thanksgiving meals to needy families this last November. Over 700 adults and children, about 119 families in all, got a 25-lb box of food to feed a family of six. They either received a turkey or ham.

America's Second Harvest stated that, "one in five people standing in line at a soup kitchen this Thanksgiving was a child." And it is sad to say that one in four children in New York City live in poverty. More than 16,000 homeless children sleep in the New York City shelter system each night.

My family and I helped again this year, and as always, it's truly rewarding.

****

Christmas without a gift is the reality for many of these children living in poverty. I would like to encourage you to put a smile on a child's face this year via a tax-deductible gift to the Children of the City's 2008 Christmas Project. This year we are partnering with New York Cares and St. John's Bread and Life. Since 1981, thousands of children have received a Christmas present thanks to these folks who know the true meaning of Christmas is giving ...

To donate simply click this link. Happy holidays! -- Rocco Basile

The Cost of Education Today

Today's New York Times had a Letter to the Editor response to a prior article by writer Tamir Lewin that was published on December 3, 2008 focusing on how College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S. based on the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Eric J. Furda, the dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania wrote that there are some institutions like his that do offer aid to students. There, undergraduate students who are eligible for financial aid are offered no-loan packages, regardless of family income.

He went on to say what this means is that students from typical families with incomes that are less than $40,000 per year will pay no tuition, nor room or board. Penn accepts students based solely on academic and other strengths, not on families’ ability to pay. And despite the current economic crisis, they remain steadfast in this commitment to educate the best and brightest young people, regardless of economic background.

Here's my favorite part of his comments... Penn’s founder Benjamin Franklin once said, an investment in education pays the greatest interest.

As I continue the work I do for my two charities, including Children of the City and the Joe Dimaggio Award Committee, for my Alma Mater, Xaverian High school (left photo), it is rewarding to know that the youth participating in these programs will have a chance to attend college and universities, because of the care we are putting into helping them now. My website, http://www.roccobasile.net/ features many of the exciting programs that are in progress.

But it is pretty sad to read the some of the statistics in the report. College tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last ten years, while students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.

-- Rocco Basile

Final Stages of No Child Left Behind

On November 13, officials discussed the final Title I regulations to strengthen No Child Left Behind (NCLB) ED during a national teleconference. Back on October 28 U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings had announced the final regulations to strengthen and clarify NCLB, focusing on improved accountability and transparency, uniform and disaggregated graduation rates and improved parental notification for Supplemental Education Services and public school choice.

As I follow educational trends and often post interesting facts on my website http://www.rocccobasile.net/. I thought perhaps this slide show from the teleconference call would be of great interest to those who did not yet read it.

Click here to see the PowerPoint presentation of slides. This discussion was led by ED officials who were involved in developing the regulations and who are helping states, districts, and schools implement them. The focus was on regulations related to high school graduation rate, supplemental educational services, and public school choice.

Basically, the reforms introduced into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) by the NCLB have changed the way that states and districts approach educating all students to achieve high standards.

Now, the final regulations respond to the lessons learned from six years of implementing the reforms, and build on the advances states have made with their assessment and accountability systems. --Rocco Basile

President Elect Obama and Educational Reform

I was doing some detailed research online and studying how things might change insofar as education with the new president in office. As you know I support education via my charities - http://www.childrenofthecity.org/ and also on my educational website http://www.roccobasile.org/. But with the new president, there will be new policies. It is important that we all know what these are.

President elect Obama has been a leader on educational issues throughout his career, and in the Illinois State Senate he was a leader on early childhood education, helping to create the state's Early Learning Council. In the U.S. Senate, Obama has also been a leader in working to make college more affordable. His first bill sought to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100.

Obama also helped pass legislation to achieve that goal in the recent improvements to the Higher Education Act, and he has also introduced legislation to create Teacher Residency Programs and to increase federal support for summer learning opportunities.

Unlike some of the other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care. Their "Zero to Five" plan will provide support to young children and their parents, and unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden plan to create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. They will:

• Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.
• Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Here are other key promises:

Barack Obama will reform No Child Left Behind
Both Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. That is why he plans to improve the assessments used to track student progress, and measure a student's readiness for college.

Invest in early childhood education
This comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children as well as their parents, helping states move towards a voluntary, universal pre-school system.

Make college affordable to all Americans
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have plans to create what they are calling a new American Opportunity Tax Credit worth $4,000 in exchange for community service. It will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.

Obama has some aggressive plans. Check out his Education Website. -- Rocco Basile

Watch the entire video by clicking below:

Education in Thailand Poses Long-term Threat

In my research for my own educational trends website, http://www.rocdcobasile.oprg/, I often come across interesting articles about educational situations, or trends from other countries. The country of Thailand's political stability is a mess because of the months-long standoff between the administration and the People's Alliance for Democracy. What is more compelling however, than this country's politics, is the quality of basic education. It is this issue that will pose a long-term threat to the country, according to a recent report by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment.

Left: These children are members of the Palong, a Mon-Khmer tribe found mostly in Burma's Shan state.

Halfway into the five-year evaluation of the performance of both primary and secondary schools across the country, the bad news is out. One-fifth of the 22,811 schools did not pass, and with more than 12,800 schools yet to be evaluated, since most of them are small ones located in remote areas, the chances of these passing the standard are remote, as they are already struggling to find enough money to run the schools, as well as teachers.

This is such a sad story in a country with a government where politicians taking the helm of the ministry of education do it for position and for the sake of their party, and not for the students.
And even through teachers are considered very important when general elections come, and are influential in rural areas they too can convince voters who to cast the ballot for when the time comes to vote. This is why many policies and projects target the teachers.

In Thailand, over the past eight years, there have been only two ministers in education who were qualified and praised by educators keen to see improvements in education.

Perhaps the country should consider a template for improved education that works from other countries, and cities, like the program instituted in Brooklyn, NY by Children of the City. Volunteers help the children with their homework, and provide a community environment where kids want to learn.

--Rocco Basile

The source for tis article came from Saritdet Marukatat, a News Editor, Bangkok Post.

Statistics on Our Country's Education

According to a website called Charity Navigator, there are about 1.5 million elementary school teachers and 1.1 million secondary school teachers in the United States, and the amount spent, by average, on home schooling per child in the United States is about $450. Here are some more interesting statistics, and you'll find other data on my website at http://www.roccobasile.org/.

• There are between 8 and 15 million children nationwide are unsupervised at the end of each school day;
  The average deaf child isn't introduced to English until age six, upon entering school.
  87% of Americans aged 18 to 24 have completed high school with a diploma or an alternative credential such as a General Education Development (GED) certificate;


• School districts in the U.S. with the highest child poverty rates have $1,139 fewer state and local dollars to spend per student than the wealthiest districts; and


• When among 18- to 24-year-old Americans are given maps, 70 percent cannot find New Jersey and 11 percent cannot find the United States.

This country is in a sad state when it comes to the education of our youth. And based on the charities that i have been working with, the only resolution are programs that actually do make a difference, like Children of the City.

On October 30 we had a Friends and Legislators Cocktail Party which was hosted by Commerce Bank. The purpose of the event was to bring together individuals from the New York business community, political community, and philanthropic community to continue dialogue around educational, social, and humanitarian needs of disadvantaged children and families in Greater New York.

Before Christmas we will be hosting our annual toy drive. Stay tuned with more info.

-- Rocco Basile