Education
Education is the cornerstone of individual and community success. It’s essential to getting and keeping a job with a livable wage and health benefits. And it’s fundamental to a community’s economic prosperity: a well-educated workforce attracts world-class jobs.
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United Way has put a stake in the ground on education. Our goal is to cut the number of high school dropouts in half by 2018. It's an ambitious goal. This year, 1.2 million high school seniors will not graduate. That means 6,000 students will drop out today. The numbers are even grimmer for young people of color.
Every parent's dream is for our children to succeed – and for their success to surpass ours. But today's young Americans are less likely to earn a diploma than their parents, a distinction not shared by any other industrialized country.
United Way wants to change that reality, and boost every child's chance for success in school, work and life. Our core strengths – a national network, committed partners and public engagement capacity – position us well to activate this social change movement.
Our goal is to mobilize United Ways, our partners and individuals around the challenge to cut the high school dropout rate in half by 2018. United Ways are the right galvanizers of work towards this goal because we bring three powerful drivers of social change to the education challenge:
- A national network with demonstrated success in mobilizing communities to change lives;
- A diverse array of partners who leverage our assets; and
- A capacity to move communities to make a difference.
Education Focus Areas
Much of the United Way system is already engaged in education work – especially early childhood education and increasing high school graduation rates. But our 10-year education goal cannot be achieved by focusing on high school alone, or by starting in the 9th grade or only doing early childhood work. High school dropouts are 12 years in the making, usually starting school behind. So tackling the education challenge requires reframing education on a birth to 21 continuum. The five focus areas United Way works in are a way to organize the work and build strategies in light of the birth to 21 continuum.
United Way's model focuses on outcomes and goals for a community, and drawing on the strength of existing partnerships, relationships, and good ideas already underway. Supportive communities, effective schools and strong families must be in place, supporting strategies and approaches rooted in research. The results we're after mirror our five education focus areas:
- Enter school ready to succeed
- Read proficiently by 4th grade;
- Make a successful transition to middle school;
- Graduate from high school on time; and
- Be ready for success in college, work and life
But what matters most is individual involvement. Research shows the strategies proven to work are those that connect communities to their schools: parent involvement; literacy volunteers in the classroom; mentors for disadvantaged students; business leaders engaged in early childhood advocacy.
Quality Child Care
Children learn best in loving, nurturing relationships and through everyday experiences. That hard-wires the brain for future learning, especially in the early years. Whether children are at home, with relatives or friends, or in childcare – the quality of early education is key to later school success. United Ways are leading dozens of pilot programs to improve the quality of childcare and equipping parents to make the best choice for their family.
United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta is involving everyone from pastors to parents in its efforts to significantly improve the quality of early care and education – wherever the child is. Churches are hosting parenting classes; hairdressers are offering educational material for grandparents; childcare centers are getting accredited, and turnover among childcare teachers has dropped 30 percent.
School Readiness
Children entering kindergarten with skills they need to succeed are more likely to graduate from high school and become productive workers. But almost half of America’s kindergarteners are behind – those from low-wage households by two years. Most will not catch up.
More than 660 United Ways and their partners are carrying out the Born Learning public engagement campaign. It helps parents, caregivers and communities support early learning. Public service advertising, a resource-rich Web site (www.bornlearning.org) and educational material (all in English and Spanish) offer fun, concrete ideas to help young children learn.
Some 60 percent of the low-income children in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were entering school without critical skills. In response, United Way of Greater Chattanooga created a public awareness campaign, a parent help line and a one-stop resource center, and engaged 50 community partners to provide information and hands-on help in poor neighborhoods. Parents lacked literacy skills to read to their children, so the partners created 23 mini-libraries and a mobile Reading Van. Seven years later, 30 percent more at-risk children are developmentally on track – and coming to school ready to succeed.
Academic Completion
With more than 1.2 million children dropping out each year, America faces a dropout crisis. The cost? More than $312 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes according to Communities in Schools, one of America’s leading drop-out prevention partnerships.) These trends are reversible, but only when communities and public, private and nonprofit sectors work together.
United Ways are funding mentoring programs and after-school initiatives, putting volunteers in classrooms and supporting dropout prevention programs. The United Way of Chittenden County in Burlington, Vermont, cut drop-out rates in half by leading a truancy project with Burlington schools, law enforcement, juvenile justice, judicial, and human services
To ensure that children get early exposure to books – which helps build literacy skills and is a factor in graduation rate – United Ways are boosting books and literacy programs.
That’s why the United Way of Central Minnesota’s Success By 6 launched Imagination Library three years ago. Today, 7,500 children under 5 receive a book each month in the mail, and strong community support is expected to raise that number to 10,000. Local businesses are promoting the initiative and encouraging their employees to sign up.