Daily Archives: February 6, 2017

In 1993, Fr. Sean McGraw, C.S.C. and Fr. Tim Scully, C.S.C. received $5,000 from the President of the University to found the Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) with the goal of preserving and spreading access to quality Catholic education throughout the country.

The core mission of the program is to provide a ray of hope through educational excellence to underserved children, Scully said in an interview.

Scully, who now serves as chair of the ACE Advisory Board, said the program initially began by training 40 recent college graduates nearly all from Notre Dame in education and sending them to teach in Catholic schools across the country, typically in low-income communities, as ACE Teaching Fellows.

Since its inception, the highly-selective ACE Teaching Fellows program now receives over 400 applications a year and selects approximately 90 graduates roughly half of which graduated from Notre Dame to participate in the program.

We live in intentional communities of four to seven people, Scully said. Were in 35 cities across the United States. These teaching fellows go out into their communities and teach in underserved Catholic schools for a period of two years, and they return to campus during the summers to receive a masters degree and accreditation and licensing as a teacher. I would describe it as an awesome leadership experience where youre giving your heart and soul away to needy kids.

There are roughly 180 ACE Teaching Fellows currently operating in schools around the country.

We started this effort in a sense because it was so difficult for some under-resourced dioceses and schools to find great teaching talent, and so were looking for very talented people not necessarily the highest GPAs and the highest GREs but were really looking for people who, in addition to native talent, just kind of bring a passion and a zeal for our mission, Scully said.

He said the program has expanded considerably since its founding, now managing several independent schools, as well as other programs.

Since we didnt have a department of education we had no ability to impart proper professional training to those folks, he said. At the outset we outsourced our educational training to our partner institution on the WestCoast, the University of Portland. They provided the masters degree for the first four years of our program.

ACE now runs 15 Notre Dame ACE Academies, fully staffed and funded by the Alliance.

[Since then] weve built the Institute for Educational Initiatives, which houses the masters degrees and the faculty, and so weve really built a pretty significant human capacity here at Notre Dame to provide professional training, today not just for teachers but for principals and for English language learners and for students who have special needs, Scully said. Its become a very large effort. Today were the largest provider of resources and talent to Catholic schools across the country. Were in one in every four Catholic schools in the U.S., mostly low-income schools and under-resourced schools.

Scully said that, under the leadership of the ACE staff, once-struggling schools are able to quickly recover.

For example, St. John the Evangelist [an elementary school in Tuscon, Arizona], which we took over 6 years ago, had 130 students and was about to close, serving hispanic students in the sixth-poorest zip code in the country, he said. Today that school has 450 kids in it. The student achievement scores have gone from the mid-to-low teens to the mid-sixtieth percentile.

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ACE program benefits low-income communities - Observer Online

Gov. Terry Branstad talks with reporters Monday, Jan. 6, 2017, in Des Moines. Behind him is Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend, and Marvin DeJear, director of the Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families.(Photo: William Petroski/Des Moines Register)Buy Photo

Underemployment of minority Iowanswill be targeted by a special initiative of the State Workforce Development Board, Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds announcedMonday.

The board is establishing a subcommittee with a goal of reducing minority joblessness by at least 5 percent within the next five years, or bringing the minority unemployment rate to a position that matches the state average for unemployment,Branstad said.

Iowa's statewide unemployment rate dropped to 3.6 percent in December. But,according to the latest Census information,African-Americans had an unemployment rate of 14.2 percent, Native Americans had a rate of 11 percent, Asian-Americans had a rate of 5.3 percent (other Pacific Islanders had a rate of 13.6 percent) and Hispanic Americans had a rate of 8.1 percent. The statewide average in the Census data was 3.9 percent.

It is unacceptable that we have such a huge disparity between our average unemployment rate and the rates in our minority communities," Branstad said. "We must be focused in our efforts to address this issue, and the minority outreach subcommittee is the first step."

Marvin DeJear, director of the Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families in Des Moines,said minorities are the fastest-growing segment of Iowa's population. He believesthe state can't wait to address the unemployment disparities between minorities and the rest of the state's working population.

"We have to be more intentional about their success," DeJear said.

Four counties have been identified as pilot communities:Polk, Dubuque, Black Hawk and Pottawattamie. These counties were selected based on having high concentrations of minority residents and unemployment rates, state officials said.

Listening tours will be held in the spring, which will provide opportunities for members and leaders of the communities to gather a broad perspective and identify connections and influences within communities, state officials said.A strategic plan will then be developed.The subcommittee will be chaired by State Workforce Board member Andy Roberts, who is business manager for Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 33.

The push for the initiative came from former state Rep. Wayne Ford, a Democrat who represented an inner-city legislative district in Des Moines.Branstad and Reynolds announced the plansat anews conference in Des Moines at the Evelyn K. Davis Center, which helps individuals achieve career goals.Thecenter is a partnership between theCommunity Foundation of Greater Des Moines,United Way of Central IowaandDes Moines Area Community College (DMACC).

Reynolds said the subcommittee's work will be aligned with the goals of the state'sFuture Ready Iowa Alliance, which seeks to have 70 percent of Iowa's workforce obtainingeducation or training beyond high school by the year 2025. She is co-chair of the alliance and said Iowahas a tremendous opportunity to close the skills gap inminority communities, while helping Iowa families find stable, good-paying jobs.

Iowa offers programs that are working," Reynolds said. "We need to do a better job of matching those programs and job opportunities to Iowans who are eligible to take advantage of them."

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Disparities in minority unemployment targeted by Iowa officials - DesMoinesRegister.com

A late-night e-mail from a Denver mosques leaders to a federal homeland security agent about a visitor who appeared to be radicalized was the result ofyears of work to establish trust between law enforcement and Colorados Muslim community.

Now, some worrythe relationship that has been forged through community meetings, worship services and meals could be eroded by President Donald Trumps actions toward Muslim countries and his vows to fight radical Islamic terrorists.

Nadeen Ibrahim, a 22-year-old activist in Denvers Muslim community, said she appreciatesthe intentional, sustained efforts that federal authorities have made to establish the relationship. But she is concerned about the future.

Muslims fearTrumpsnomination of Jeff Sessions, a conservative Alabama senator, to be U.S. attorney general, Ibrahim said.

A recent travel restriction on refugees and others coming to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations furtherraised their concerns. And reports from Reuters and other news agencies that the U.S. governments Countering Violent Extremism program might be changed so that its sole focus is Islamic extremism has upped the alarm even more, Ibrahim said.

Its going to be a little more challenging now with the rhetoric that Trump has been promoting, Ibrahim said. Theyre specifically setting a target on the Muslim community.

Acting U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer declined to discuss the connection that led mosque leaders to report odd behavior exhibited by Joshua Cummings, the man whois charged with first-degree murder in the Tuesday night shooting death of Scott Von Lanken, an RTD security officer and charismatic Christian preacher. Cummings was an avowed Muslim who expressed radical thoughts during two visits to a Denver mosque and in social media postings.

During a Jan. 11interview with The Denver Posts editorial board, Troyer said he had faith that the partnerships would stay intact no matter who is approvedas U.S. attorney general.

The U.S. attorneys office in Colorado is staffed by career prosecutors, and the person who leads the office is granted prosecutorial discretion in deciding which cases to take to court and how to run the office, Troyer said.

For example, if the White House ordered its U.S. attorneys to prosecute all undocumented immigrants with a focus on deportation, then they would be forced to drop more cases involving drugs, fraud, weapons trafficking and other serious criminal violations, he said.

The serious effort to get to know people in the community started in 2011 under the directionof former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

I was skeptical when this all started, Troyer said. People were going to see this as soft. It was outside our core mission.

But his attitude changed.

Troyer is frequently seen at community meetings and worship services. The Colorado Muslim Society has posted pictures on its Facebook page of Troyer and his senior staff ata December service.

And since Trumps election, Troyers office has doubled efforts to be visible and talk to people who are afraid, including Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the LGBTQ community.

They have held meetings across the state because they have seen fear on the rise. In 2016, the officereceived 50 complaints about hate crimes and civil rights violations compared with 12 in 2015.

And since the election, federal authorities in Denver have conductedthree interventions with people becomingradicalized, Troyer said.

When communities are angry and fearful, they dont engage, Troyer said. Right now especially, the fear and anger is so deep. He hopes listening allows people to breathe and communicate.

The Denver Police Department also has made efforts to reach out to the community. During a Friday meeting of the citys Immigration and Refugee Commission, members specifically praised Commander Paul Pazen for his outreach in northwest Denver.

Jamie Torres, director of the Immigrant and Refugee Commission, said Denver police intend to maintain those relationships no matter what happens on the federal level.

What we said yesterday stands today, and it hasnt been compromised because of these events that are happening, Torres said.

The interaction can be delicate, though. For example, Denver police want to increase patrols around the citys mosques afteran attack Monday on a Canadian mosque. At the same time, police dont want to give the impression that theyre conducting surveillance, Torres said.

The fear of informants, moles and surveillance inside mosques is real, said Qusair Mohamedbhai, a Denver civil rights attorney who serves as general counsel to the oldestmosque in the state. It happened across the country after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he said.

Mohamedbhai said the relationship between federal authorities and Islamic leaders has paid off twice in Denver.

The first time camewhen the Aurora father of two teenage girls of Somali-descent trusted the FBI to intercept his daughters as they traveled to Syria. The girls were brought home and never charged with a crime.

That was a good result, Mohamedbhai said.

The second came in December when mosque leaders sent the e-mail saying a man who had attended an open house and a lunch appeared pretty advanced in his path to radicalization.

Authorities acted on the tip, although they were unable to prevent Cummings alleged fatal attack on a security guard.

But theres a chance that good will could evaporate, especially among Muslims who are not U.S. citizens, Mohamedbhai said. Those who hold green cards, visas or refugee status may be driven underground by Trumps actions.

Its just not good policy, he said. It doesnt work. A lot of good work is going to be lost.

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, said reporting shouldgo both ways. He wishes someone would have reported the white man accused of opening fire in a Canadian mosque last week and killing six worshipers.

But he hopes Muslims in American keep doing their part.

We hope that kind of reporting would continue, Hooper said. But it makes it more difficult when youre under siege by the very government you need to report to.

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As Trump's policies stoke fears, Denver's Muslim community worries about eroding trust in law enforcement - The Denver Post