The Choice Bus Uses Prisoner Perspectives To Discourage Dropping Out
“The Choice Bus is an initiative of the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation, a national nonprofit created in 2007 to help educators, community leaders and other interested groups reduce the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate. Dr. Shelley Stewart named the foundation in honor of his mother, whose murder he witnessed at the hands of his father at the age of five. The tragic incident put him at risk of poverty, homelessness and dropping out of school. Had it not been for his passionate first-grade teacher, Mamie Foster, Stewart’s life may have gone in a different direction. But no matter what was going on in his life — running away, bouncing from one relative’s home to another, changing schools — Stewart remembered Mrs. Foster’s stringent message that you could be anything you wanted if you had an education. And for Stewart, education made all the difference.”