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The Center for Education Reform honors Howard Fuller, Founder and Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, as one of six distinguished heroes in education reform at its 5th Anniversary Gala Celebration on October 28,1998 in Washington, DC.

Dr. Howard Fuller’s career includes many years in both public service positions and the field of education. Dr. Fuller is a Distinguished Professor of Education, and Founder/Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The mission of the Institute is to support exemplary education options that transform learning for children, while empowering families, particularly low-income families, to choose the best options for their children.

As some states begin to implement systems of performance-based compensation for teachers, such as merit pay or teacher bonuses, educators, along with the National Education Association, among other national teachers’ unions, express opposition to the idea, worried of the competition it might bring and skeptical of the difficulty that would come with creating fair standards. Candidates for the upcoming presidential election Al Gore and George Bush weighed in on the issue as well.

Jeanne Allen explains the necessity of such a system, stressing that the value a teacher can bring to their students’ education is most important in and out of the classroom.

CER Founder Jeanne Allen gives the opening remarks at a REACH Alliance (Road to Educational Achievement Through Choice) 1994 conference on school choice and education reform in Pennsylvania and around the country.

Calling on all legislators and Americans everywhere to recognize the growing number of parents looking for better and more options for their children’s education, Allen stresses the need for more quality options within the public school system, citing successful school choice programs across the states, sharing her optimism for the future and speaking to the danger of accepting the status quo by waiting to turn ideas into action.

The REACH Foundation (Road to Educational Achievement Through Choice) and its sister organization, the REACH Alliance, are Pennsylvania’s grassroots coalitions dedicated to ensuring parental choice in education.

REACH Alliance was instrumental in the drafting, passage, and recent expansions of Pennsylvania’s landmark Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program.

REACH continues to educate Pennsylvania citizens and the General Assembly to ensure that parents have a true choice in their children’s education.

In Hartford, CT, the city Board of Education granted private companies the control of public schools as autonomous, self-run institutions in 1994. Opposition among parents and teachers was strong. Jeanne Allen appears on Business Insider with Neil Cavuto to make comments on the benefit of public schools’ partnering with private companies.

With students’ test scores, as well as national proficiency in reading and writing on the decline, President Obama addresses the Nation for the first time in his term on education, encouraging students everywhere to work harder and outlining his plan for America’s education system. Jeanne Allen appears on CNN to give commentary about what is needed for the President’s education policy.

The Senate hears testimony from pioneers of the reform movement like Jeanne Allen, Sam Brownback, and others in a committee to address the state of the District’s failing education system.

As national support for charter schools increases across the states, including President Clinton releasing a message in support of the alternative schooling, UCLA releases a negative report on charter school benefit and progress. Jeanne Allen appears on Good Morning America to rebut the study in support of education reform.

The WI school choice program, one of the first choice programs in the nation, allowed 400 Milwaukee students to use school vouchers to attend a private school free of charge. Even with the number of federal education officials backing school choice on the rise, its enactment was ruled unconstitutional in a WI court in 1990.

Many Milwaukee parents participating in the voucher program vowed they would not send their children back to public school.

Proponents of school choice and school choice programs, including CER, took the case to the Supreme Court and eventually won, the Court ruling to uphold the law, allowing the programs to continue.

Clint Bolick, a lawyer in defense of school choice, reiterates the benefits of the voucher program, saying, “…[public] schools, faced for the first time with competition are beginning to listen to low income parents and hear what it is they need and want.”

Clint Bolick serves as director of the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation in Phoenix.

A legal pioneer, Bolick has argued and won cases in the United States Supreme Court, the Arizona Supreme Court, and state and federal courts from coast to coast. He has won landmark precedents defending school choice, freedom of enterprise, and private property rights and challenging corporate subsidies and racial classifications.

Before joining the Goldwater Institute in 2007, Bolick was co-founder of the Institute for Justice and later served as president of the Alliance for School Choice.

Richard Bonin takes an in-depth look at the success in Milwaukee’s school voucher program, speaking to critics and proponents of school choice legislation, namely Milwaukee Councilwoman Polly Williams.

Annette Polly Williams a counselor, clerical worker and politician from Milwaukee who served 10 terms as a Democratic Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing her assembly district from her election in 1980 until January 3, 2011.