Mission Statement:

The Children’s Scholarship Fund aims to maximize educational opportunity for all children: for those in need by offering tuition assistance in grades K-8 for alternatives to faltering conventional schools and for all children by supporting and cultivating education reform and school choice efforts.

Goals and Strategies:

1) Children’s Scholarship Fund will continue to provide low-income children with partial scholarships, making it possible for parents to exit faltering conventional schools. By empowering parents to control their children’s education, CSF scholarships transform lives.

• Expand fundraising to increase the number of scholarships CSF can offer because CSF offers children access to a better education now. We believe every single child matters and that once a child is given food, clothing and shelter, there is no better way to break the cycle of poverty than through education.

• Track CSF scholarship recipients as they exit 8th grade so we can measure their high school graduation rates, college entrance rates, and college graduation rates. We know if a child graduates from high school, his annual income will be double that of a dropout, and his chances of being incarcerated, suffering from poor health, and even premature death will be greatly decreased.

• Raise awareness that every child does not have access to a quality education now. They deserve it and need it to prepare them for successful lives and to help build cohesive communities and a strong democracy.

2) Children’s Scholarship Fund will leverage the expertise built over a decade of experience to act as an incubator for developing new ideas and new resources in education reform and school choice efforts.

• Leverage CSF’s multiplier effect by offering financial, programmatic, and technical support to those interested in starting new publicly or privately-financed tuition assistance programs. CSF can share best practices and maximize efficiencies for local scholarship programs. The example and leverage CSF has provided has already been the impetus for many efforts – including new private programs in many cities, tax credit programs in Florida and Pennsylvania, and the DC voucher program.

• Educate the public about the urgent need for education reform. Raise awareness of the need to close achievement gaps between low-income and more affluent students, and between all American and international students.

• Remain inclusive. From the beginning, CSF has had a healthy diversity of opinion among its supporters – on philosophical, political, and religious levels. CSF seeks to be independent of any single agenda and open to whatever models of education reform will empower parents and provide better educational opportunities for children.