Davenport Promise plan draws national attention

Font Size:

By Sheena Dooley | Wednesday, July 9, 2008 7:52 PM CDT | () comments

All eyes are on Davenport as the city pushes forward in its efforts to create a scholarship program to send all high school graduates to college.

Some members of the Davenport Promise Task Force were surprised to learn when they recently attended the Promise.Net conference in Kalamazoo, Mich., that communities across the nation are looking to see how Davenport’s efforts play out and whether it will secure public dollars to pay for such a program.

More than 200 people from 83 communities in 25 states attended the first-ever Promise.Net conference that aimed to connect communities across the country looking to start a scholarship program similar to the Kalamazoo Promise and those that have already established them.

By bringing them together, the communities could learn from each other about what it takes to start a Promise program.

“We seem to be on the right track here in Davenport,” said Tanisha Briley, assistant to the city administrator who attended the conference as a task force member. “What we are considering is pretty breakthrough and goes beyond what the Kalamazoo Promise does.”

The Davenport Promise seeks to use public dollars to fund part, or all, of it. It would be one of the first communities to use public dollars if residents approve funding.

An initial plan brought before the City Council last year reallocated the city’s 1-cent local option sales tax, which is currently used for property tax relief and capital improvements, to pay college tuition and fees for all Davenport graduates. It would also pay for apprenticeship and trade school programs and provide homestead grants for veterans.

Aldermen voted down the proposal, saying there were too many unanswered questions and more research needed to be done. Mayor Bill Gluba and the City Council formed the Davenport Promise Task Force in April to study the issue and bring a recommendation back for consideration.

“Davenport is the furthest along (of any other community) as far as pursuing the local option sales tax option,” said Michelle Miller-Adams, a visiting scholar at the UpJohn Institute in Kalamazoo who has researched Promise programs and was involved in organizing the conference.

“People are looking to Davenport to see whether politically you can make this fly,” she said. “And, also, you guys have a strong team. The people who showed up here represent many of the key stakeholders. The fact they all talk to each other — people look at that as a model.”

About a dozen Davenport representatives attended the conference, marking the first time the city has ventured to Kalamazoo to learn about its program first-hand. They brought back information that will help in shaping how Davenport’s program will look, task force members said. That information includes:

n Bringing all stakeholders in the community together for input in how the Davenport Promise should work.

n Create a simple and universal program. Doing so will keep administrative costs down and allow more people to participate, allowing for better buy-in.

n Align community groups that the scholarship program will affect so they know what role to take as it moves forward.

“In order for the whole system to work, it’s dependent upon every aspect of our community being united and being willing to work together,” said Ethlene Boyd, a task force member who attended the conference. “The synergy and chemistry that comes forth when a community does that is what makes this Promise thing so exciting.

“If I could just take what we experienced in these few days back to Davenport and have us be able to get together and have these same conversations and be willing to lay it all on the line … The larger picture is truly the future of Davenport, of our community, our kids, our businesses and our city.”

Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563) 383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com. Comment on this story qctimes.com.