the child tax credit would lead to bigger payments for lower-income families on the Earned Income Tax Credit. He also played a leading role in the design and passage of other Clinton administration economic initiatives, including the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit, the New Markets Tax Credit, the Children's Health Insurance Program, the Gear-UP Early College Mentoring program, expanded debt relief to poor nations, and stronger international protections against abusive child labor. He was the architect of the Save Social Security First budget strategy, and co-negotiated the final week of the China WTO agreement in Beijing in 1999 with United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky. Sperling worked with then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers to negotiate protections for the Community Reinvestment Act in the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. These protections helped secure passage of the bill. Sperling represented the U.S. government and gave a keynote address at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal in 2000, where the world committed to the second millennium development goal of universal primary education. Post-Clinton administration After leaving the Clinton Administration, Sperling focused on promoting universal education, particularly for girls in poor and developing nations. In 2002, he founded the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution and served as its first executive director for seven years from 2002 to 2008. In that role, Sperling advocated for a global compact for education for all children, with publications on universal education for all nations in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and IMF Quarterly: Finance and Development. He also authored concept papers for the Education for All Fast Track Initiative on Closing the Trust Gaps: Unlocking Financing for Education in Fragile State and How to Unlock Financing for Fragile States and Move Toward a More Unified Global Architecture for Education Financing: Eight Preliminary Recommendations. Sperling was a member of U.N. Millennium Task Force on Girls' Education. In 2003, Sperling also founded the Global Campaign for Education-US, a broad-based coalition of national and community-based organizations, international NGOs, teacher unions, faith-based groups, and think tanks dedicated to ensuring universal quality education for all children. The organization's mission is "to promote education as a basic human right and mobilize to create political will in the United States and internationally to ensure universal quality education." In 2004, he co-authored the book