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Read the Report on Education in America

Voices for the Common Good Report (UWW)

 

United Way World Wide just released "Voices for the Common Good: America Speaks Out on Education." This report shares the aspirations and concerns of everyday people across America about their communities and what it will take for all children to succeed in life. It's based on a series of community conversations local United Ways hosted across the country last fall, as well as some focus groups and a national poll.

Above all, what we heard is that at a time when there is so much acrimony, divisiveness, and negativity in our debates, on the issue of education, everyday people are hungry to get past the posturing and get on to doing whatever it takes to set children up for success. And while so much attention lately has been placed on schools, the people we heard from said again and again that while the schools play an important role, communities, and individuals, have to step forward in a different way.

Thank you to all the people whose voices are lifted up in this report. Our goal is to make sure that these voices are heard and that they help shape how all of us work together on education.

 Download the Report

  

Louisiana's Promise

Louisiana's Promise is a statewide initiative on dropout prevention. Its mission is to support the planning efforts of local districts to help them achieve a cohort graduation rate goal of 80% or greater by the 2014 school year. Louisiana's Promise was launched in late October 2008 with a state summit that attracted more than 800 community leaders from the state who came together to begin tackling the dropout problem in their communities. The state summit was followed by seven regional summits in which community leaders from each school district met to begin identifying local solutions to the dropout problem. Sixty-seven (67) districts prepared preliminary action plans.

Education's Next Horizon commissioned the Picard Center for Child Development to conduct an evaluation of the initial community engagement and action planning work. In response to the findings and recommendations of the Picard Center, Louisiana's Promise now provides targeted assistance to the twenty school districts that have the lowest cohort graduation rate.

For its work with Louisiana's Promise, Education's Next Horizon received the Community Cornerstone Award by the United Way of Acadiana.

For more information about Louisiana's Promise or to learn how to become involved in raising graduation rates, click here.