Phoenix, AZ – Hispanic CREO organizers across the country are known for educating and motivating large numbers in communities to take action and raise their voices, and we are doing exactly that in Arizona.

CREO has spent the last two years building a base of Hispanic parents who vote and now support school choice. In 2007, we’ve extended those efforts to grass tops outreach to include educating members of the Arizona Hispanic Caucus on the school choice issue.

We are pleased to report that on April 10, Rev. Miguel Rivera, President of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders (CONLAMIC), CREO organizers, and Vice-President of Operations Maite Arce met with ten Democratic Legislators for an open dialogue on school choice.  

Denver, CO – The second year of our Spanish-language media partnership with Entravision (a Univision network affiliate) is off to a strong start.

This groundbreaking partnership began with the funding support of the Denver-based Daniels Fund in December 2005 and created a new mechanism to “Capture, Educate, Motivate and Mobilize” our audiences. This relationship is truly a unique example of choice collaboration and allied organization partnership.

Our 2007 year-long media campaign “Yo CREO: Cambio, Acción y Educación” (translation: I believe: Change, Action and Education) includes a daily schedule of television and radio spots run during prime time with a strong call to action.

Spots include a toll-free number for listeners and viewers to call in where they are informed about Hispanic CREO events and activities and are invited to CREO school choice training. Entravision also includes stories in their evening news, as well as live feeds during their morning news show Despierta America.

Tallahassee, FL – More than 4,000 parents, school children, community leaders, and educators from across Florida converged upon the Florida Capitol, Thursday April 12, to bring attention to Florida’s education and workforce crisis and its impact on the state’s Latino population.

The Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Washington D.C. based Hispanic CREO, and CONLAMIC joined Step Up for Students, an initiative of the Florida Corporate Tax Credit (CTC) Scholarship Program, in this effort. The attendees’ goal was to ensure Legislators know there is an education crisis in Florida that will affect the state’s future workforce – a crisis whose answer is parental choice in education.

The Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hispanic CREO, and CONLAMIC have joined forces:

1) To advocate, protect, and expand initiatives that will allow Florida parents to choose a school that will best meet their children’s needs regardless of their socio-economic condition; and

2) To inform Legislators of the crisis in low achievement rates among Latino students and the urgency in which they must act to better prepare Florida’s future workforce.

“Fifty percent of Florida’s Hispanic children are not graduating high school, and a staggering 94 percent of Florida’s Hispanic students who go to college drop out. This is happening at a time when our nation needs to provide our young people with an extraordinary education, yet our school system is failing to properly equip our youth,” reports Julio Fuentes, President of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"Many Faces, One Dream" photo gallery

Austin, TX – School choice in Texas is CREO’s largest goal this year. The Texas bill, drafted by CREO Chairman Robert Aguirre, is designed as an urban voucher program for low- and lower-middle income families. The pilot program, which applies to only nine of the state’s 1,037 school districts, will nonetheless be of sufficient scale to create systemic improvement in Texas’ most urban school districts. Its design is intended to also include dropout prevention and recovery.

A major part of the Texas effort has revolved around our telling the story of the privately-funded HORIZON program in San Antonio as the best test case in the country of the impact of broad school choice on a school district, on children and families, and on a community. Of all the data to be shared on the program, the most compelling has been a dropout rate of less than one percent and a college-going rate of more than 90 percent. These two points alone have helped move the discussion into legislative offices we have never before been able to reach.

The Texas effort continues its uphill battle at full speed until the end of the session which is May 28. Stay tuned as CREO and its state-based allies hope to be able to report great news in weeks ahead.

On behalf of Hispanic CREO's Board of Trustees, President and Staff, we are pleased to welcome our new Trustees:

Robert C. Enlow, Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation; Andrea Zayas, Former Director of Charter Schools for the New York City Department of Education; Paul Martinez, Founder of Martinez Communications; Dr. Matthew Ladner, Vice-President of Research of the Goldwater Institute.

We are very proud to have you aboard!

Every hour that passes in America, more Hispanics are signing El Grito to guarantee that all parents have the freedom to choose the best school for their children. Please visit www.justicebychoice.org
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