 Twelve years ago, America was struck by changes in the public education landscape, brought about by the disaggregation of student data through no child left behind. We began to more fully understand the differences in student outcomes across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. The NEA Foundation found itself at a crossroads. Across the country, many sought to close achievement gaps with a top-down strategy. But that's not the world we believed in. We believe that positive change occurs when everyone plays a role, when educators are the agents of change, not just objects of it. We believe that communities have the knowledge they need to improve student learning and public education. With that in mind, the NEA Foundation launched the Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative in 2004, fostering deep collaborative partnerships among local education unions, school districts, and community organizations. We invested more than 13.7 million dollars across seven sites, supporting reform that is for the community and by the community. So 12 years ago, when the NEA Foundation began this journey of creating a new initiative called Closing the Achievement Gap, it was simply a theory on paper. And over the last 12 years, we have found partners across this country deeply committed to creating the kind of changes needed for students to succeed. They've thrown their heart, their soul, their mind into this endeavor. The achievement gap is that space between those who are going to be able to make it in society and those that are going to fall by the wayside. Our children, because of the challenges that they face and because of our lack of resources, don't have the same opportunities of children in wealthier communities. It affects our economy, it affects our democracy, it affects communities, it affects individuals. So when one child isn't educated, the repercussions are much beyond their household, their community. We're all affected. The initiative is something that I think we can all truly be proud of. It came together with a collection of people at the bargaining table and it came together with our local teachers union and district and principals all working together and thinking about what would it look like if we put kids in the middle. All of the players are sitting at the table, our school system and paraeducator and office professionals, our principals, our city. You see superintendents, you see school districts inviting parents and community in asking them what are their wants and needs and also asking how can we work together to really benefit all of our children. One of the things that business community and why I'm involved in this is because they have a stake in the outcomes of what's going on in our school district. There are future leaders, there are future decision makers, they're the future employees and employers so we want to make sure that they have every opportunity to succeed. Under our theory of change, there were three key partners. There was the school district, there was the local association or union and there was the community and the idea was to align resources and efforts to support students around really pressing issues. Home visits is a fantastic way to connect with families and the bonds that are built extend throughout the school year and throughout the whole educational process. Educators realize that these parents wanted the same thing for their children that they want for theirs, that they're not that much different. When the teachers come back to the classroom, they now know the whole picture where the child's coming from and that changes and builds their relationship. Kids' behaviors were better, their academics were better, we just feel like a better educator because you have that connection with the student and their family. By the end of the grant, we had trained over 2,000 teachers within that five years and had impacted literally thousands of students. Our suspensions are way down, our arrests are way down, attendance is way up, truancy is down so all of our indicators, the climate culture indicators as well as the academic achievement indicators are moving in the right direction through our focus on the plan. Our funding has actually expired a few years ago but all of our initiatives remain and it's embedded in who we are and what we believe and how we work with our kids. It's now our job to figure out how to take that to the next level. The initiative that was started by our receiving the NEA Foundation grant has planted seeds throughout this country, I'd like to see them grow. As we come to a closing point in this work, we're deeply, and I mean deeply appreciative for everyone's commitment to this endeavor, we could never have imagined doing this work without the support of community members and parents and school districts, both superintendents and principals, but more than anybody other than the students, the teachers are who we have invested our greatest amount of time in and they've given us our greatest rewards. They are our heroes and we thank you.