TSC co-chairs, Luis Ubiñas, President of the Ford Foundation, and Chris Gabrieli, Chair of the National Center on Time & Learning join together to  celebrate a year of progress. This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

The winner for the TSC Student Contest middle school bracket….drum roll…Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS)2 in Washington, D.C.! Students at (MS)2 created advertisements for their favorite electives, in which they can participate due to their school’s expanded school day. Check out the submissions from Nia and Kimani below. Which class would you choose?

We are pleased to announce Rianna, a senior at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, in Hartford, Connecticut, as the TSC Student Contest Winner for the high school bracket! In the post below and the accompanying video, Rianna shares the difference that an expanded schedule has made for her. Congratulations Rianna!

Prior to starting my work at the Time to Succeed Coalition (TSC), I was a teacher in an inner-city classroom. From that work, I know that expanding learning time has a real and significant impact for students, parents, teachers, and communities. However, now that I am working in an office and away from the day-to-day life of a school, it is easy to lose sight of the impact of expanded learning time.

Since the founding of the United States of America, president after president, regardless of party affiliation, has expressed the importance of a strong education system. In honor of this President’s Day, we have pulled some of our favorite education quotes from President George Washington to President Barack Obama. “I conceive that a knowledge of books is the basis on which all other knowledge rests.” ~ George Washington "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." ~Thomas Jefferson “Upon the subject of education … I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.” ~ Abraham Lincoln “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt "Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens." - Dwight Eisenhower “Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.” ~ John Kennedy “In the new economy, information, education, and motivation are everything.” ~William Clinton “We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of the day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.” ~ Barack Obama