My Hero

A great worker in Education

I give honor to a brilliant woman who most of her life working in education system in the United States. Mary L. Fifield, during all her carrier doesn’t work only for one category of social Class, but he allows me today as an immigrant and a part timer to have facility to go to college. As President of Bunker hill Community college since 1992, she said some words very significant to me who really interested in education system since the beginning. Community Colleges target students between Elementary School and High School, as she announced: “Community Colleges are a uniquely American invention. From their start as junior colleges in the early 1900s, these two-year institutions signaled a dramatic change that expanded educational opportunity from the affluent to the poorest and most disadvantaged among us. With the basic philosophy that everyone deserves the chance to go to college, immediately following World War II two-year colleges proliferated and made real the Truman Commission’s concept of a community college geographically accessible to all.” You can feel in her speech that the three words I bold came from her heart because until now, she still working to built Bunker Hill’s education better accessible to everybody.

If we did a retrospective on her pass, we will realize most of the time she worked for the community’s education. She was President of Harrisburg area Community College in Pennsylvania. She is a former member of the board and executive committee of the American Association of Community College. She was on the board of directors for the institute for Community College development, a state University of New York and Cornell University partnership. She also has several publications and articles about Community College, global workforce needs, and the value of diversities.

I don’t even need to mention all her carrier in private education, her service in Community College already proves how this fabulous woman cares about education. She gave all her heart and time working on, not only for herself or her family, but she gives the opportunity to everybody to get access. In her testimony on March 20, 2006, based on low income students, she explained some issues and the recommendations:

Issue

“According to the Education Commission of the States (ECS), more than 12 percent of the population lives below the poverty line…nearly 34 million people. These and other low income people have a little more than a 20 percent chance of going to college. For African-Americans and Latinos the percentage is lower. For low income students, the availability of financial aid becomes the deciding factor affecting college attendance. Yet increasingly, both static amounts of aid, such as the four year freeze of Pell Grants, and the policies governing eligibility of grants, such as the new Academic Competitiveness Grant, serve as disincentives to low-income students.”

Recommendations

“Break the four year freeze on funding for Pell Grants. Create Pell Grant eligibility for stand alone ESL programs. Revise policies governing Pell Grants so that grants for college are committed to students while they are still in middle and high school (the latter recommendation is a BHCC proposal only). Establish a sustained commitment to fund pre-college enrichment programs such as GEAR UP, Upward Bound and Talent Search. Provide incentives for dual enrollment programs to give high school students early familiarity with a college environment. Expand eligibility for the Academic Competitiveness Grant from exclusively full-time enrollment to include the two-thirds of community college students who are part-time.”

Issue

“Increasingly, federal grant opportunities for students are shifting from need-based to more exclusionary merit-based aid, while need-based aid such as Pell decreases in real value. The new

Academic Competitiveness Grants, for instance, require recipients to complete “a rigorous high

school program.” Many low income students don’t have the option of selecting their high school

and could be ineligible for this aid through no fault of their own. Similarly, the proposed PACE

Act provides four year competitive scholarships to students who obtain bachelors’ degrees in the

sciences, engineering or mathematics and concurrent certification as K-12 mathematics or

science teachers. These merit-based funds are to be awarded “on the basis of national

examinations”. In short, merit-based financial aid programs appear to help students who need

financial assistance least.”

Recommendation

“Establish a federal policy that makes need-based grants the primary aid for low income students and expand need-based grant opportunities.”

Based on her efforts, her capacity, her courage, we need more Mary L. Fifield to work in education in Boston Public School area. Not some people to identify the dilemma but to contribute on the struggle to position Elementary School and High School in a highest level.