BOSTON, January 28, 2008 – The National Partnership for Educational Access
(NPEA) has named Karin Elliott as director. NPEA is a membership organization for
programs working in collaboration with independent and public college preparatory
schools to provide underrepresented students with academic preparation, placement
services and counseling and ongoing support to ensure enrollment at four-year colleges.
NPEA was launched in late 2007 by The Steppingstone Foundation in Boston as a
collaborative action tank to share best practices and ensure innovation in the field of
school placement.

Elliot joins NPEA from Summerbridge Cambridge, where she was most recently the
executive director. Prior to Summerbridge, Karin was the director of training and
technical assistance at Horizons for Homeless Children, where she traveled across the
country speaking about child and family homelessness. Karin also spent five years
working for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services on Head
Start, education, and human service issues. Karin has a M. Ed. from the Harvard
Graduate School of Education and a MSW from Boston College.

“We are thrilled to welcome someone with Karin’s varied experience to work as a leader
and liaison with the member organizations,” said Michael P. Danziger, Steppingstone’s
President. “NPEA was initiated by John Klingenstein who saw many of the educational
access programs funded by his family struggle with the same issues such as recruiting
black and Latino boys and supporting boarding school enrollment. When we first
convened representatives from similar organizations over a year ago, it was evident that
there was both a need and an interest in information-sharing, collaborative action, and
dissemination of lessons learned. We look forward to benefiting from Karin’s knowledge
as well as the synergies among these fantastic programs from across the county.”

NPEA’s goal is to reach a day when all students have equal access to high-quality
education and opportunities for college and beyond. This unique community of
organizations and school-based programs - currently 38 strong, including A Better
Chance and Prep for Prep - share many characteristics, including common stakeholders, a
commitment to high-quality support for motivated schoolchildren, and a core set of
values anchored in educational access and equity.

Patrick Bassett, President of the National Association for Independent Schools, has
expressed his support of NPEA. “The time is now for NPEA. This initiative presents a
great opportunity for educational access programs from across the country to work
together to serve underrepresented students. The demographic of students of color
comprises most of the growth in the school-age population in our country today. The
importance of independent schools in accepting traditionally underrepresented students
cannot be emphasized enough. We can all benefit from this action -- schools, families and
most importantly, students.”

NPEA is dedicated to fostering quality, success, and growth amongst member
organizations, partner schools, and communities committed to educational access. Since
1957 when the Boys’ Club of New York first began preparing and placing underserved
low-income students into area independent schools, this community of organizations has
served close to 40,000 students and families.

NPEA has been made possible through the support of The Goldman Sachs Foundation,
the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund, and The Steppingstone Foundation. Founding
NPEA member organizations include The Aspire Program at Hathaway Brown School
(Cleveland, OH), High Jump (Chicago, IL), New Jersey SEEDS, Inc. (Newark, NJ),
Prep@Pingree (Hamilton, MA), REACH Prep (Stamford, CT), The Wight Foundation
(Newark, NJ), and Rainier Scholars (Seattle, WA), along with The Steppingstone
Foundation (Boston, MA).

“All of our schools – public and independent - are better off, indeed our country is better
off, if we level the dramatically uneven playing field of educational opportunity. With
NPEA we've taken a big step in that direction,” noted Steve Filosa, Director of
Prep@Pingree (The Pingree School, Hamilton, MA).

ABOUT THE STEPPINGSTONE FOUNDATION
Founded in 1990, The Steppingstone Foundation is a nonprofit organization that develops
and implements programs that prepare urban schoolchildren for educational opportunities
that lead to college. In Boston, Steppingstone serves more than 900 students in grades
five through 12 annually. For additional information, please visit the Steppingstone
website at www.tsf.org.