[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7] [Senate] [Pages 10083-10084] [From the U.S. 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. 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 [[Page 10084]] 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. ____________________