August 21, 2012
Dear Friends,
I hope you received my note the other day, about our New Letter to Friends. If you don’t feel like going back to your in-box, let me briefly explain.
The new CER Newswire is now live. Instead of our reports, opinions and insights weekly, it is now a daily news digest, providing all of the most critical education reform news from around the country, briefly summarized and waiting for you, most days, before you even get your first cup of coffee! While that service is free, it will soon require a one-step log-in to access the page. We hope you enjoy reading what we read every morning to get our days started.
Where, you ask, will you get that same dose of insights, news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else, spiced with a dash of irreverence, from the nation’s leading voice in school reform? Well, I am pleased to introduce you to the New Letter to Friends, a semi-monthly publication that will come to all CER members on paper or electronically, that is, if you choose to join us (and you know we love choice!)
As I said last week, the written word can indeed move mountains, and many still prefer their written word on paper. However, whether you prefer your jolt of reform on paper or electronically, it all costs money to produce and while generous, our funders can no longer be expected to support all of the work we do.
So you’ll need to opt in for this new donation-based subscription service. You will continue to receive it free until September 15th. After that, it will only go to CER Donors and Members.
It’s easy to become one! For the very low annual fee of $120 each year for the individual parents and teachers out there, and the equally low fee of $240 for those of you involved in a business or organization that benefits from the work we do, you’ll be able to receive the New Letter to Friends!
Since we first announced the New Letter to Friends, we’ve received great feedback from people near and far, and from some of you who we hadn’t heard from in years. We’re delighted you’re still watching, playing in the game, and engaged in reform. Now it’s time to take it up a notch!
If you’d like a glimpse of what you’ll be getting semi-monthly, please link to the enclosed survey and while you’re there, take time to fill it out and give us your feedback as well as take the plunge and sign up now! You can link to our donations page there or here to start the process, or think about it until September 15th, and we will remind you, often, of course! The few thoughts I share in the link — and your feedback — will eventually make their way into a larger writing project.
If you like what we do, we hope you’ll pay for it. If not, there is still plenty of free stuff available at Edreform.com, the flagship website of the movement. You can check Newswire daily, get even more engaged with the media through The Media Bullpen and follow us through Twitter and Facebook!
For 19 years, The Center for Education Reform has been the pioneer and leading advocate for substantive, structural change in American education. Its people and policies have helped fuel an exciting generation of reforms and new activists challenging the proverbial conventional wisdom day in and day out. Our work has led to one billion impressions in the media on reform, millions of new school choices, documentaries, ideas and dozens of new laws. Today reform is “cool,” a goal we aspired to when we wrote our first mission statement in 1993 and put a stake in the ground on making educational choice and accountability mainstream.
We hope you’ll join us and wish you the best in your efforts!
Best Regards,
Jeanne Allen
President