1.1: Education
Provide, support and/or facilitate access to services and resources that contribute to improved educational outcomes for economically
disadvantaged people, especially children.
Other Information:
Many economically disadvantaged children and youth have difficulty succeeding in school. The dropout process begins with young
children entering school ill-prepared, and too many are unable to catch up and perform at grade level. With the right support,
all children can succeed. Engaging children in the early years and throughout their academic career helps ensure more children,
youth and adults develop essential skills and an appreciation for learning. Our education strategy is grounded in this challenge
and in our unique role as a service provider and capacity-builder for schools and communities. When we examine the education
interventions that lead to the best education outcomes for students in most need -- increased instructional time, family involvement,
smaller student-teacher ratios, better teachers -- we can identify a common element. These kinds of policies promote personal
attention by caring, capable adults devoting time and attention to a student. Personal attention from caring and capable adults
is the reason we have a remarkable opportunity to improve education outcomes for students. Well-implemented national service-supported
efforts can lead to critical outcomes such as improved attendance, improved engagement in coursework, improved course completion,
performance at grade level, performance on standardized tests, high school graduation, and persistence in college and university.
Academic achievement -- performance on standardized tests, high school or college graduation -- is premised on strong academic
engagement -- high levels of attendance, positive behavior in class, or on-time course completion. Our education programs
support both academic achievement and engagement, but the large majority of our education grants and expertise are focused
on engagement. Thus, we don't propose to solve the dropout crisis, but we do propose to help strategically address what precipitates
it. A chart outlining the education focus area strategy can be found in the Appendix. Below is an overview of our objectives,
strategies and performance measures.
Indicator(s):
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