Decision Points

we wanted: All students improved, but minority students improved the most.
    In January 2008, I visited Horace Greeley Elementary School in Chicago to mark the sixth anniversary of No Child Left Behind. The school, named for the nineteenth-century abolitionist, was 70 percent Hispanic and 92 percent poor. It had outperformed most public schools in Chicago. Student proficiency in reading had risen from 51 percent in 2003 to 76 percent in 2007. Math proficiency had improved from 59 percent to 86 percent.

    At Horace Greeley Elementary School.
White House/Joyce Boghosian
    It was uplifting to see a school full of low-income minority students thrive. A sixth-grader, Yesenia Adame , said she enjoyed taking tests. “Then your teachers can know what you need help on,” she explained. At the end of my visit, I told students, parents, and the press what I had long believed: No Child Left Behind is a piece of civil rights legislation.

    I used to quip that I was a product of a faith-based program. By 1986, faith had changed my heart, and I had quit drinking. Ten years later, my eyes opened to the potential of faith-based programs to transform public policy.
    In June 1996, two African American churches in the town ofGreenville, Texas, were burned. Until 1965, a sign on the town’s main street had advertised “The Blackest Land, The Whitest People.” As governor, I feared we were witnessing a surge in old-time racism.
    I traveled to Greenville to condemn the burnings. A mixed-race crowd of about four thousand people turned out in the football stadium. “From time to time, Texans boast that ours is a big state.” I said. “But as big as this state is, it has no room for cowardice and hatred and bigotry.” Then I gave the microphone to Tony Evans , a dynamic African American pastor from Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas. He told a story about a house with a crack in the wall. The owner hired a plasterer to cover the crack. A week later, the crack reappeared. So he hired another plasterer. A week later, the crack was back again. Finally the homeowner called an old painter, who took one look and said, “Son, first fix the foundation and then you can fix the crack in the wall.”
    The crowd nodded and clapped. Then Tony turned to me. “Governor, I have something to say to you,” he said.
    Uh-oh
, I thought.
Where is this headed?
    “We need to fix the foundations,” he said, “and your old government programs aren’t doing the job.” He said he had a better alternative. It was the most effective welfare system in the world. It had buildings on many street corners, a list of willing workers, and regular meetings to study the perfect manual for saving lives.
    He was talking about houses of worship. And he was right. Faith-based programs had the potential to change lives in ways secular ones never could. “Government can hand out money,” I said, “but it cannot put hope in a person’s heart or a sense of purpose in a person’s life.”
    I looked for ways for Texas to partner with faith-based organizations. I met with Chuck Colson , Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, who had spent time in a federal penitentiary and found redemption. Chuck had founded an organization devoted to spreading the Gospel behind bars. We agreed to start a faith-based program in one wing of a Texas prison. Chuck’s program, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative , would provide instructors for Bible study and a life lessons course. The program would be optional and open to prisoners near the end of their sentences. Each inmate who participated would be connected with a mentor and welcomed into a church congregation upon release.
    In October 1997, I visited the Jester II prison near Sugar Land, Texas, where several dozen inmates had enrolled in InnerChange. At the end of the tour, a group of men in white jumpsuits filed into the courtyard. They formed a semicircle and struck up “Amazing Grace.” After a few stanzas, I joined the chorus.
    The next morning, Karen Hughes brought me the
Houston Chronicle
. There I was on the front page, shoulder to shoulder with the prison choir. The story noted that the man next to me, George Mason , had pled guilty to killing a woman twelve years earlier. That day in the prison yard, he did not seem like a murderer. He had a gentle manner and a kind smile. No question he had become a spirit-filled man.

    When I ran for president, I decided to make a nationwide faith-based initiative a central part of my