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Alliance Going to Warsaw, Poland!


by Tammy Drennan

 



Originally published in Alliance e-Notes, Vol. 1, No. 2, March 7, 2007 



 

Thanks to a designated donation from a long-time Alliance supporter, Alan and Marshall will be attending the World Congress of Families in Warsaw May 11-13, 2007.  The Alliance is a co-sponsor of WCF’s fourth worldwide conference in defense of the family.

 

Alan and Marshall will be representing the case for independent education, free of state control, as a major source of family and societal health.  They’ll be meeting with family representatives and advocates from around the world, talking one-on-one with leaders of other organizations and distributing Alliance literature.

 

Alan will also be presenting, in a public ceremony, the Alliance’s Tocqueville Award to Professor James Tooley for his work in discovering and promoting thousands of small, inexpensive, privately-run, for-profit schools throughout Asia and Africa.


We’ll have more on this exciting trip in our next newsletter, but for now, a quick Q & A to whet your appetite.

     
 

Q.   What is the World Congress of Families?

 

A.   World Congress of Families (WCF) is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to “provide research and understanding that demonstrate and affirm family and religion as the foundation of a virtuous and free society.”  WCF brings together family advocates from around the world to discuss ways to strengthen and protect the “natural family.”

 

 

Q.   Why is the Alliance attending this conference?

 

A.   Keeping true to our goal to be an alliance of people devoted to education free of state control, we want to take advantage of every opportunity possible to spread our message and empower families to act on and fight for their freedom.  WCF presents the perfect venue to help spread our message beyond the borders of the United States, and especially to some of the developing of countries of Eastern Europe where many are just recovering their freedom and shaping the laws they’ll live under for years to come.  We’d like to help them avoid the mistake of ceding their children’s education to the state.  Due to a special donation slated for this specific purpose, we are able to attend the WCF conference and reach out to the world.

 

 

Q.   Who will be speaking at the World Congress?

 

A.   There will be over 40 speakers at the conference, but the most exciting part is that seven of them are signers of the Alliance’s proclamation!

 

·    Theodore Baehr, Ph.D., Publisher, Movieguide®; CEO, The Christian Film & Television Commission™

 

·    Allan C. Carlson, Ph.D., President, The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society

 

·    Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, President, Human Life International

 

·    Paul T. Mero, President, Sutherland Institute

 

·    Steven W. Mosher, President, Population Research Institute

 

·    Christine Vollmer, President, Alliance for the Family (Latin American and Europe)

 

·    Richard Wilkins, J.D., Director Doha International Institute for Family Studies and Development

 

 

Q.   Who is Professor James Tooley?

 

A.   James Tooley, Ph.D., is professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.  In the course of some research Professor Tooley was doing for the World Bank, he happened upon a small, private school in a poor area of India and wondered if there were others like it.  His curiosity led to the discovery of thousands of similar schools throughout Asia and Africa.  Professor Tooley now works, through the E. G. West Centre run by his university, to help support and encourage such schools.  Beginning next week, he'll be taking a one-year leave to act as a special advisor to a new $100 million fund aimed at promoting inexpensive “dime-a-day” schools in India and Africa.

 

 

Q.   What is the Tocqueville Award?

 

A.   The Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Advancing Educational Freedom is not commemorated by a statue or a medal.  Instead, it’s a special edition of the book, Tocqueville's Political and Moral Thought: New Liberalism, by M. R. R. Ossewaarde, a Dutch professor of philosophy.

 

The book is presented in a beautiful wood box lined with velvet and embellished on the inner lid with a brass plate engraved with the recipient’s name and the date of the award.

 

Dr. Tooley is the sixth recipient of Tocqueville Award.  The prior recipients are the late E. G. West, the late William Bentley Ball, John Taylor Gatto, Charles MacKenzie, and Michael Farris.

 

 

Q.   Will Alan and Marshall be doing anything else while they’re in Europe?

 

A.   Of course!  But more on that in the next newsletter!

 



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Events
Last updated March 7, 2007

Some of the more
well-known signers of our proclamation:

Ed Crane
President, Cato Institute

John Taylor Gatto
1991 New York State Teacher of the Year

Fr. John A Hardon
SJ
RIP
The Catholic Catechism

Don Hodel
Former Secretary of Interior

D. James Kennedy
Coral Ridge Ministries

Rev. Tim LaHaye
Left Behind

Rabbi Daniel Lapin
President, Toward Tradition

Tom Monaghan
Founder, Domino’s Pizza

Ron Paul
US Congressman, Texas

John K Rosemond
Parenting Author, Columnist, Speaker


They and thousands of others have signed Our Proclamation:

"I favor ending government involvement in education."