Up For Grabs: $10M For Groups Reaching Kids

Carol’s Summary:
Today is the deadline for communities to apply for an education and community grant provided by President Obama and the Department of Education. Obama plans to offer up to $10 million to communities that want to establish early childhood education and equal opportunity programs in their neighborhoods. An estimated 1,000 communities around the country have stated interest in applying for the grant.

Through their “Promise Neighborhoods” communities will implement funding and strategies to improve schools in low-income areas, by following the Harlem Children’s Zone program as a model. Harlem Children’s Zone is a program in New York City that provides equal learning opportunities for children, such as Head Start learning centers. Programs like Harlem Children’s Zone have led to increased test scores and college enrollment rates amongst students in these areas.

One of the programs that applied for Promise Neighborhoods is The Pinon Project in Cortez, Colorado. This program focuses on educating low-income Native American children and their families. They offer parenting courses and an emphasis on improving high school retention and graduation rates. Cortez also offers adult education programs for people who dropped out of high school.

Promise Neighborhoods plans to award an initial $500,000 a year to 20 communities nationwide.
Education is a valuable and important aspect of society, and it is very important that all children receive equal opportunities to succeed, regardless of their socio-economic and ethnic background. LifeBound provides books and curriculum to elementary, middle and high schools in many areas, and makes sure that all schools can access our materials.

Equality is imperative to student success, and there should no longer be any sort of “achievement gap” amongst our nation’s students. Visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com to learn more about our material and goals as a company.

Article:
Up For Grabs: $10M For Groups Reaching Kids
Larry Abramson

First in a two-part report
June 24, 2010
Just before he was elected president, Barack Obama made a speech laying out how he would revive the fight against poverty.
He promised to focus on programs like the renowned Harlem Children’s Zone in New York. He called it “an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck, anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children.”

Now, Obama wants to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone — a community organization that gives low-income kids equal access to education — and he’s offering a total of $10 million to communities willing to try. The response has been tremendous: Nearly 1,000 organizations say they will compete for the “Promise Neighborhoods” money. The deadline is Monday.

To read more of part 1: www.npr.org part 1
Part 2: www.npr.org part 2

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