Leslee's Op-Ed Published May 18

Better world through education

I’ve had the opportunity this school year of volunteering in my daughter’s kindergarten class. No, not as a parent of a kindergarten child, but as the parent of the teacher. As I’ve worked with these beautiful children, I’ve witnessed their skills grow from knowing a only few letters and sounds to reading books. What pride they have when they finish reading and get to take the books home to read to their parents. Seeing these 5- and 6-yearolds and their first public school experiences makes me wonder what they will choose for careers as adults. They will learn much over the course of their next 12 years in school. Lucky children — attaining an education is their fundamental right. Unfortunately, education as a fundamental right is not the case in many developing countries of the world. As a member of RESULTS, a grass-roots advocacy organization committed to ending hunger and poverty, I have learned that education in developing countries is the most effective way to break the cycle of poverty. However, consider: . More than 72 million primary (elementary) school children around the world are not in school; 226 million do not have access to secondary education. . There are many reasons why children do not attend school: school fees, child labor, poor quality schooling, health crises such as HIV/ AIDS, discrimination and conflict. . Nearly 70 percent of the world’s out-of-school children live in South/West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. . Studies find that 100 million girls enrolled in school will drop out before completing primary schooling often because of their inability to pay fees or because they are needed to take care of their household where a parent is dying of AIDS. . Less than 10 percent of children with disabilities are in school. . The ability to attend school is only the first challenge. In some places, there may be as many as 150 children in each classroom and not enough teachers or supplies. In 2000, 189 countries, including the United States, agreed to support the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals for reducing global poverty by 2015. One of the eight goals includes universal access to education and equal access among boys and girls. The United States’ commitment is falling far short of what was pledged. In 2006, we gave a total of $477 million to education in developing countries — the approximate cost of building just 17 U.S. high schools. The Education for All Act is bipartisan legislation that would authorize an initial $1 billion in global education funding for this year, scaling up to $3 billion by 2012. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin and Rep. David Loebsack — please co-sponsor this act. We’re all better off when the children of the world are educated.

Leslee Sandberg of Cedar Rapids is a retired longtime educator and member of the Cedar Rapids RESULTS group.