Reed backs efforts to save critical programs

More than 200 students, parents and education officials attended a press conference at the Liston Campus of CCRI to rally support against proposed budget cuts that would eliminate many college access programs funded under the federal TRIO program.
Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed hosted the event which was attended by representatives from CCRI, Rhode Island College, the Children’s Crusade and Dorcas Place. The combined organizations provide critical services to more than 10,000 students in Rhode Island.

“The President is attempting to correct financial missteps that created a deficit at the expense of students in Rhode Island and across the nation,” Reed told the audience. “These programs provide opportunity and improve education for thousands of students in Rhode Island and help to ensure greater economic success for the state.”

CCRI President Thomas Sepe called it “an outrage that anyone in today’s world can believe that the proposals being made are morally, socially and educationally right. They are not.”

In his remarks, Sepe told of the many successful Rhode Island Educational Talent Search alumni who have gone on to pursue higher education opportunities at CCRI and other colleges and universities around the country. “The vast majority of these students come from families whose parents never had the opportunity to earn a college degree,” Sepe said.

Sepe introduced Faicaly Quinones, a senior at Woonsocket High School and a current Talent Search participant.

“I came to the United States in 1998 and began my junior high school education at Woonsocket Middle School in grade seven as an ESL student,” Quinones said. “Thanks to Talent Search, I have excelled from an ESL student to an honor student taking college preparatory courses in high school.” When Quinones graduates from Woonsocket High School in June, she plans to attend Hampton University.
Sepe thanked Reed for his efforts in trying to overturn the budget recommendations, and praised him for his long term commitment to education.

“Let no one be mistaken, we are in one hell of a fight for the soul of America,” URI President Robert Carothers, president of the University of Rhode Island, told the audience. “There are folks down there in Washington who don’t understand the struggle that all of us are in to create opportunity for the people of this nation.”

RIC President John Nazarian also thanked Reed for “sounding the alarm” about the cuts to higher education, and spoke of the success of the Upward Bound program. Other representatives of the Bridge-to-College Program at Dorcas Place and the GEAR UP Program at the Children’s Crusade also related how the cuts would impact their programs.

Issuing a challenge to the president and congressional Republicans, Reed said, “Today we sound the alarm. We go back to Washington next week and start the attack.”

Since 1991, more than 14,000 middle and high school students in Rhode Island have been assisted by the Rhode Island Educational Talent Search program of the Community College of Rhode Island. The results of the program are clear. Each year:

98% of RIETS students enrolled in grades 6 through 11 stay in school and are promoted to the next grade.
95% of RIETS seniors graduate from high school.
85% of RIETS graduating seniors enroll in college or training.

In the 2003-2004 fiscal year alone, 771 Rhode Island students participated in the Talent Search program.