David Carmel

1993

David Carmel

Jumpstart

http://www.jstart.org/

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

In the Carnegie Foundation's Starting Points publication, teachers reported 35% of American kindergarten children arrive at school unprepared to learn. These statistics are even more alarming for children from low-income families. A 1993 study showed that about 50% of all poor children start first grade up to two years behind their peers in preschool skills. Since these early inequities in skill persist an increase with time, a child's performance in preschool is directly linked to success later in his or her school career.

Jumpstart is a national organization that recruits and trains achievement-oriented college students to deliver an innovative early learning program via a yearlong mentoring relationship with a three to five-year-old child. Jumpstart provides individual attention to develop a child's language and literacy, social, and initiative skills. Its outcome-based model includes a comprehensive package of training, curriculum, and assessment strategies for both summer and school year programs. As of 2003, Jumpstart is serving 4,500 children in 15 states and 120 early learning centers across the country.

Biography:

David is currently co‐founder of Carmel Asset Management, an endowment fund for individuals and non‐profit institutions. While in college, David co‐founded Jumpstart – an early literacy program pairing college students and community members with preschoolers from low‐income communities. Currently, Jumpstart engages 3,500 Corps members in service to more than 15,000 children as the largest part‐time AmeriCorps program in the country. David was selected to join the 2002‐03 class of White House Fellows, and was awarded the Secretary’s Honor Award from the United States Department of the Treasury. During the 2004 election cycle, he spent a year working on Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell and Cures Initiative, for which 59% of voters approved $3 billion in research funds. He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and a board member for Jumpstart, the New York Stem Cell Foundation and The East Harlem School. David earned his BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He lives in New York City with his wife Kirsten, an economist, and their twins, Tobias and Philippa.