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Jeff Thielman’s professional work has prepared him well for public service.
Jeff has devoted much of his working life to the creation of schools and programs that help children in great need. For the past ten years, he has been a leader in the effort to bring quality college preparatory education to young people in America’s cities. In 1997 he was recruited to work for a new, alternative school called Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, which was designed to reach economically disadvantaged young people from Chicago’s south side. The neighborhood served by the school and where Jeff lived during his time in Chicago was challenged by a 50% high school drop out rate and dangerous gang activity. Jeff oversaw an $18 million fundraising effort, and the school gained a national reputation for a unique work-study program that engaged students in their learning, kept them in school, and motivated them to pursue higher education.
In 2000, Jeff became the Executive Director of the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation, which was established to create private high schools and middle schools for low-income young people throughout the United States. Since 2000, Jeff has led the effort to establish 18 high schools modeled after the Chicago school in some of the nation’s poorest urban communities, and under his guidance the foundation has provided start-up funding for 40 middle schools. The two networks of schools are serving more than 8,000 young people from economically disadvantaged families in the 2007-08 school year.
Jeff is the Chairman of the Board of Bellesini Academy, a middle school in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and serves as Vice President of New Initiatives of the Cristo Rey Network. To learn more about the Cristo Rey movement, please visit www.cristoreynetwork.org. A new book about the Cristo Rey schools, More than a Dream, is being released. To learn more about these unique schools praised by political and civic leaders across the country, please visit www.morethanadreambook.com.
Jeff is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School. From 1985 to 1989, he served as a Jesuit International Volunteer in Tacna, Peru, where he taught high school and founded the Center for the Working Child to help street children and their families. Twenty-one years after its founding, the Center continues to provide health, nutrition, education and housing services to 250 children each year. Jeff served as the project’s first director, hired and trained staff, designed the project’s core programs, and continues to raise funds to support the Center. His book, Volunteer: With the Poor in Peru (Paulist Press, 1991), details the founding of the project. To purchase copies of Jeff’s book, please visit www.authorhouse.com
Please contribute to Jeff's Campaign!
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