Breakfree Education, formerly known as The Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings (CEEAS), is an educational advocacy group that pushes for reforming juvenile correctional facilities. ¹ Originally founded in 2011, the organization is run by executive director David Domenici, a lawyer and the husband of Cheryl Mills, whom is also a lawyer and aide to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ²

Domenici’s organization operates several short-term educational programs for young inmates every year, provides educational, administrative and policy counseling to both state agencies and private institutions, and has, since August 2016, run the Travis Hill School in the New Orleans Juvenile Detention Center. ³

Background

David Domenici, son of the late former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), began working with inner-city children through a mentorship program at his investment banking job.⁴ After working as a corporate lawyer, he quit his job, cashed out his retirement fund, and, along with fellow lawyer James Forman, opened a pizza parlor which employed teenagers who had served jail time. In 1997, after realizing that many of the youths he was employing were not in school, he and Forman founded the Maya Angelou School, a small charter school in Washington, D.C. for youths who had been involved with the juvenile legal system. The school provided a combination of academic curriculum, counseling, and part-time employment (at one of the school’s two partner businesses). By 2015, the school, which started with 20 students, expanded to 450 students on three campuses.⁵

Domenici later said that he became convinced that poor educational opportunities both outside of and inside jail were to blame both for high incarceration rates and for unemployment. He said in an interview with The Atlantic, “They are not bad kids—they are poor, they have failed at and been failed by our school systems.”⁶ Domenici advocates for an improved system of education in jails, one that works to “distinguish children who need help from those who warrant punishment.”⁷

In 2011, Domenici sought to expand this vision beyond his efforts at the Maya Angelou School, founding the organization, then-CEEAS, in order to provide educational tools to many juvenile detention institutions, and to expand his advocacy efforts. ⁸

Organizational Overview

As of 2024, BreakFree Education’s work includes a number of programs which involve direct work with students, resources and incentives for teachers in juvenile detention settings, and counseling and advocacy aimed at reforming educational policy and systems on a large scale. ⁹

Student programming consists of numerous monthly programs such as “Words Unlocked,” a month-long poetry initiative held every April, and “Start from Scratch,” a program that provides incarcerated students with basic coding and programming skills, and then hosts a competition for participants. By 2016, these programs were drawing over a hundred participating sites. Domenici argues that, because of their time away from the world and regular educational opportunities, these children “deserve the chance to continue their education” and to keep up with contemporary things like the developing technological world.¹⁰

In August 2016, the organization took over the operation and administration of the Travis Hill School in the New Orleans Juvenile Detention Center, which serves around 40 regularly attending students. In fall 2017, it planned to open another school, modeled off of the Travis Hill School, in the nearby Orleans Justice Center, a pre-trial detention center in the New Orleans area.¹¹

BreakFree Education provides policy support and advocacy, pushing for more funding and attention to prison schools, and offering prison educational programs advice and suggestions on policy changes. Recently, for example, CEEAS helped the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs change its schools into public charter schools, shifting control from local school districts.^{12 13}

Funding

While BreakFree Education does not receive any grants directly from the government, as consultant to government institutions it receives much of its income from public sources. Domenici claims that an adequate education for an incarcerated student costs twice as much as for a typical public school student, and it has long been his explicit goal to have most of his budget covered by public funds.¹⁴ An online bio from back in 2002 describes, “David’s leveraging of public dollars magnifies a unique piece of his strategy: changing policy through the reallocation of funds.”¹⁵

The organization’ consortium of juvenile detention centers for the improvement of their educational programs, receives membership dues from D.C., Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Los Angeles, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York City, Oregon, Utah, and Virginia.^{16 17}

People

Founder and Executive Director

David Domenici is the founder and Executive Director of BreakFree Education, founding the group as the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings (CEEAS) in 2011. He is married to Cheryl Mills, a lawyer and aide to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ¹⁸ Prior to BreakFree Education, Domenici co-founded the Washington D.C-based alternative school network Maya Angelou Schools, while serving as principal of the Maya Angelou Academy from 2007 through 2011. ¹⁹

Board of Directors

BreakFree Education’s board of directors includes Domenici, Felipe Franco, the Senior Fellow for Young Adult Practice at the Annie E. Casey Foundation; Feroz Khosla, the Managing Director of Goldman Sachs; Steve Patrick, the Executive Director of The Aspen Institute‘s Aspen Forum for Community Solutions; and Lucretia Murphy, the Senior Program Officer with Jobs for the Future. ²⁰

Ties to the Clinton Family

David Domenici is married to Cheryl Mills, a Clinton family lawyer known for her role in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial and more recently for her prominent role in Hillary Clinton’s private email server scandal.²¹

Domenici was himself implicated in the controversy²² following the exposure of Clinton’s emails, as a 2010 email surfaced in which Mills had forwarded a proposal by Mr. Domenici about an education corps in Haiti to Clinton, to which Clinton responded, “Great ideas (no surprise). Let’s work toward solid proposal maybe to Red Cross and Clinton Foundation since they have unencumbered $[sic].”²³

In 2013, its first year, the organization’s month-long poetry initiative “Words Unlocked” featured Chelsea Clinton as a judge in its final round.

1. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
2. “David Domenici.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/david
3. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
4. “David Domenici, Headmaster of the School of Hard Knocks.” Ozy. 2015. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/-david-domenici-headmaster-of-the-school-of-hard-knocks/40946
5. “The New Idea.” Ashoka. 2002. Accessed May 29, 2017. https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/david-domenici
6. “Learning Behind Bars.” The Atlantic. 2016. Accessed May 30, 2017.  https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/06/learning-behind-bars/485663/
7. “The Problem.” Ashoka. 2002. Accessed May 29, 2017. https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/david-domenici
8. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
9. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
10. “Start from Scratch.” CEEAS. 2016. Accessed June 1, 2017. http://www.ceeas.org/start-from-scratch/
11. “School Management.” BreakFree Education, Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/schoolmanagement
12. “David Domenici, Headmaster of the School of Hard Knocks.” Ozy. 2015. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/-david-domenici-headmaster-of-the-school-of-hard-knocks/40946
13. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
14. “David Domenici, Headmaster of the School of Hard Knocks.” Ozy. 2015. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/-david-domenici-headmaster-of-the-school-of-hard-knocks/40946
15. “The Strategy.” Ashoka. 2002. Accessed May 29, 2017. https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/david-domenici
16. “Consortium for Educational Excellence in Secure Settings.” CEEAS. 2016. Accessed June 3, 2017.  http://www.ceeas.org/consortium/
17. “School Management.” BreakFree Education, Accessed February 2, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/schoolmanagement
18. “David Domenici.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/david
19. “David Domenici.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/david
20. “About.” Breakfree Education, Accessed February 1, 2024. https://www.breakfree-ed.org/about
21. “Top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills granted partial immunity in email investigation.” Politico. 2016. Accessed June 1, 2017. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/mills-immunity-228580
22. “Emails Show Clinton Foundation Shaped Policy.” Washington Times. 2015. Accessed June 1, 2017. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/1/hillary-clinton-emails-show-foundation-shaped-poli/
23. “Emails Show Clinton Foundation Shaped Policy.” Washington Times. 2015. Accessed June 1, 2017. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/1/hillary-clinton-emails-show-foundation-shaped-poli/