Page 55 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE PROGRAM

Zalesne’s desk in the vice president’s office next would be occupied by
Elisabeth Stock (WHF 96–97), who stepped in to implement the program
mandated by Zalesne’s executive order. Stock pulled together a small team
and launched the Computers for Learning program, which began the wor-
thy task of redirecting thousands of surplus government computers to the
neediest American schools. Stock wanted to take the concept to the next
level, and so upon leaving Washington at the end of her Fellowship year,
she started a program that would get donated computers not just into
schools but into the homes of low-income families so that kids—and their
parents—could have a computer loaded with educational software acces-
sible to them every single day. For direction, Stock reached out to Gaynor
McCown (WHF 93–94), who worked for three years after her Fellowship
as a senior education policy maker in the Clinton administration before
returning to New York City to work as senior vice president for educational
and workforce development for the New York City Partnership and Cham-
ber of Commerce. At the partnership, she focused on increasing the private
sector’s role in public education. She also led the first pay-for-performance
system in the New York City public schools. McCown linked Stock with
the right people, and in 1999 Stock launched Computers for Youth, which
operates in New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta and has provided approx-
imately 15,000 families with refurbished computers full of educational
software.
Stock hopes Fellows will continue to reach out to one another, not only
to provide a leg up in business or government but also to work together to
have a positive impact on the nation. “Everyone is supposed to follow their
heart. So some people decide what they really want to do is be in busi-
ness—to make lots of money for themselves and their investors,” she said.
“There are other people who go out and do nonprofit work and change the
world; others will say I want to go into government and change the world
that way. But the thing is, all of us need each other. Even those people who
have gone off to make lots of money, they then want to use their money
to improve the world too, and they just don’t necessarily want to be doing
the work at the ground level since that’s not where their leverage is. There
are others of us who do want to be on the ground and can make a pro-
found difference there. If we could all just join forces and band together—
imagine what kind of world we would have.”

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