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ABOUT
CHOICE THRU EDUCATION
Choice
Thru Education, Inc.
(CTE) became an independent 501c (3) non-profit
organization in 1974.
CTE has operated in Chelsea for 41 years
and is the sponsor of one of the oldest and most developed Upward Bound
programs in the nation, community-based but with long standing partnerships
with colleges and local school systems.
CTE
is an agency developed during the War on Poverty in the 1960's.
At CTE the idealism of the 60's merges with
the realities of the 21st century by remaining focused on its mission
to break the cycle of poverty through the education of the neediest of
our youth, regardless of the challenges they face.
CTE
has reached thousands of multi racial, ethnic and low income families
through the programs, services, and activities developed over many years.
Programs include: a federally funded Upward Bound Program. Upward Bound
offers a six week summer session on a college campus, complemented by
tutoring, financial aid, and placement counseling during the school year.
During the academic year, extensive after-school tutoring, college,
financial aid and career counseling, mentoring, peer leadership
training, and enrichment activities are available at CTE's facility.
The GED program offers classes four days per week. Through 2006, CTE offered
an on-site alternative program for pregnant and parenting teens culminating
with a Chelsea High School diploma.
Choice
Thru Education's annual budget of around
$400,000 is funded from federal, state, and local governments, private
organizations, businesses and individuals. The primary funding source
is the U. S. Department of Education for the Upward Bound program supplemented
by the Massachusetts Educational Opportunity Program (MEOP), Employment
Resources, (ERI), Mass Department of Education and fund raising from events
and contributions.
CTE
was the first non profit in Chelsea to purchase its own building with
help from the Hayden Foundation in 1980.
The 5,000 sq. ft. facility on Pearl Street includes classrooms, a computer
lab, small kitchen, offices, conference room, large activity hall, handicapped
accessible bathrooms, and storage space. There is an additional
5,000 sq. ft. undeveloped basement. There are no monies owed on the facility.
During the summer, the Upward Bound program locates for 6 weeks on the
Wheelock College campus.
- 40 years of successful programs designed to meet the educational needs of an ever changing student and family population;
- the high number of graduates who successfully pursued and completed post secondary education and are productive and self sufficient individuals;
- an experienced and committed staff;
- support from alumnae and families, the local community and businesses, and collaborating organizations;
- maintaining focus on our mission to assist our youth to access to educational opportunity.
- Short term: to survive our current crisis by finding and developing resources; to continue our mission with or without the Upward Bound funds and to develop a strategic plan for resources and diversify funding sources to insure self support and sustainability for another 40 years;
- To recruit, train, develop and retain quality staff;
- To build upon the momentum generated from the 40th anniversary celebration;
- To create lateral programming to address the decreasing local public school graduation rate;
- To implement a capital development plan.
In Memoriam:
The First 40 Years of "Choice" in Chelsea
The First 40 Years of "Choice" in Chelsea
The name says it all: “Choice Thru Education.”
It was – and is, and always will be – a tough-love message. Focus, hard work, goals, ambition – for a teenager (as for any adult), these things make a difference, open up opportunities, expand and redefine life’s possibilities.
Many kids instinctively knew this was solid, honest, unflinching advice about the way of the world. Education was the way up. College or some other post-secondary education was the way out. Knowledge gave us choices. Ambition and hard work gave us access to more education. More education gave us more choices.
Of course, it was love that sustained CTE. Forty years after Sue Clark, a young woman from Maine, fresh out of Smith College, launched her Quixotic campaign to spread her simple but powerful message about the importance of education among hard-scrabble Chelsea-area teens – kids who needed to hear it; needed to believe it -- there are now thousands who remember how they gradually became believers.
And learned how to act upon their new convictions.
Most learned critical lessons about ambition, aspirations, and study habits, when they became one of about 100 students – more or less, depending on what CTE could wrangle for its annual “Upward Bound” budget – who where drafted out of Chelsea and neighboring towns and plunked into a college campus for advanced and remedial classes in core curriculum subjects, and a taste of life beyond the Bridge.
Thousands of lives were changed. Perhaps you were one of those? Perhaps others among your family or friends were among them? Perhaps you saw or heard of the results?
For some kids -- for some years, over the decades – perhaps what mattered most was that CTE was a safe, warm, well-lit, place. Almost by serendipity, some kids found themselves motivated by working with Sue and CTE tutors in the year-around support program. Others found refuge in “Choice’s” full-day classes for Pregnant and Parenting Teens. The annual “road trip” to DC was a first vacation for many. One local municipal official claims his life was changed by one afternoon he spent at a one of the innumerable college placement sessions sponsored by “Choice.”
At the right time, in the right place, the right adults were available for help, advice, and guidance. Lives changed.
Even most of those who benefited directly from “Choice” never realized how unusual, almost unique, CTE’s summer college program was, and is today. “Upward Bound” was one of Lyndon Johnson’s signature programs from the 1960s’ War on Poverty: a pre-college preparatory program for high-achieving low-income students. Most “Upward Bound” programs are owned by prominent colleges, and are used to vet potential applicants. With federal, state, and local municipal support, CTE tweaked the program slightly.
Through the decades, across the nation, CTE was usually the only local community-based non-profit which sponsored an “Upward Bound” program. And while “Upward Bound” was initially designed for high-achieving students, CTE opened up the program to accept highly-motivated students (often with academic and lifestyle problems) who were eager to change, and willing to define new, higher, personal goals. Lives changed.
Sue and the CTE staffers – over the years, an amazingly disparate group of often-selfless teachers, tutors, and counselors -- pushed thousands through high school, or back into high school. And beyond. With their ambitions informed, if not shaped, by “Choice,” thousands of Chelsea-area kids went on to college. Many were lucky enough to go far beyond that, into full and rich lives where they have passed their blessings on to their own children -- and helped others come to understand that you have to strive, and study, and struggle, to open opportunities for yourself.
As Chelsea rode the waves of immigration that poured into this tiny gateway city -- as different accents became more common and then changed again; as different fads and different administrators shaped and reshaped Chelsea’s educational establishment -- Choice Thru Education stayed true to its simple, stubborn, message.
Choice Thru Education.
Lives can be changed.
Former Assistant to the President for Chelsea (1989-1991)
Boston University
Choice
Thru Education, Inc., 140 Pearl St., Chelsea, MA. 01250
Mailing
Address: P.O. Box 505599, Chelsea, MA 02150
(617)
884-4706 - Fax: (617) 884-1601 - info@choicethrueducation.org