For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Dena Schlamowitz,
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Phone: 617-282-1567
ext. 114

BELL CEO Shares Best Practices with Educators, Politicians in Ireland
U.S. after-school and summer academic enrichment program serves as model for out-of-school time education at Dublin conference

Dorchester, MA- May 4, 2005- Earl Martin Phalen, CEO and co-founder of BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), visited the Republic of Ireland this week to share best practices in “out-of-school time” education at a conference hosted by Atlantic Philanthropies, One Foundation and Ireland’s National Education and Welfare Board. Mr. Phalen was invited to the conference to speak about BELL, a nonprofit education organization with the mission to improve the educational achievements, self-esteem, and life opportunities of elementary school children living in low-income, urban communities. BELL serves more than 5,000 children nationwide in its after-school and summer academic enrichment programs.

The Irish conference, “Is out-of-school time the nation’s great untapped educational opportunity?”, highlighted three US programs, BELL, Citizen Schools, and After-School for All, as models for out-of-school learning. Mr. Phalen spoke to an audience of Irish leaders in the out-of-school sector, including state funders, policy-makers, national providers, educators, and philanthropic funders, about BELL’s success in providing engaging, results-oriented programming to elementary-age children in New York, Boston, Washington, DC, and Maryland.

“I am honored to be a part of this conversation with educators, practitioners, and politicians and to serve as a resource for children throughout the world. There was incredible energy in this visit, and it is clear that Ireland is looking to leverage their new position as a great economic power in Europe to ensure that all children and families have access to educational opportunities,” said Mr. Phalen.

During the week of the conference, Mr. Phalen and representatives from the other US programs visited several successful Irish youth service organizations: Barnardos, an organization focused on providing support, development, resources and services to the Repuplic’s children facing the greatest societal disadvantaged, including the Irish Traveller Community; The Ark, a cultural center devoted exclusively to innovative arts programming for children; and Fatima housing development, an organization working hand-in-hand with some of the poorest families in Dublin. Mr. Phalen said he was shocked by two observations during these visits, “The children are leaving school at much younger ages than in the United States, and this creates a very different challenge for the nonprofit sector in Ireland. On the other hand, in conversations about the children and families these organizations serve, the commonalities were striking. These families and the issues they face could have placed them right in our own communities of Dorchester, the Bronx, and Southeast, DC.”

Atlantic Philanthropies and the One Foundation hosted this conference in an effort to challenge the Irish representatives to think differently about out-of-school time programming and to learn from the three guest organizations, who the conference honored as “demonstration” organizations for out-of-school learning.

About BELL
Founded by students from the Black Harvard Law Students Association in 1992, BELL is a community-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the educational achievements, self-esteem, and life opportunities of children living in low-income communities. BELL serves under-performing elementary school children in Boston; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Prince George's and Montgomery counties in Maryland.

For the 2004-2005 school year, BELL served nearly 5,000 children at seven public school sites in Boston, four in Washington DC and Maryland, and twenty-one in New York. BELL’s outcome-oriented model has shown incredible results: more than 80% of BELL scholars reached proficient and advanced levels in literacy by the end of the program cycle, up from 66% when scholars began; for the third consecutive year, 100% of BELL scholars performing at the failing level moved up and out of this category by the end of the program; and 100% of BELL’s first class of scholars has gone on to college.