education

A true coming together for children

Christie Getto Young — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:12:07 -0500

Last week I helped organize an event held at the Massachusetts State House entitled, "Health, Housing and Hunger Prevention: the Building Blocks of Childhood Success." The idea was to have a bunch of organizations that work in these areas band together to educate legislators and raise awareness about the current need around these issues. In many ways, it was a typical "Legislative Advocacy Day" up on Beacon Hill where we gave out information and materials, had an educational and inspirational speaking program of experts, provided food, and sought to build relationships with legislators read more »

Connecting Schools and Afterschools

Meghan Keaney Anderson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:39:25 -0400

United Way’s Connecting Schools and Afterschools Initiative aims to improve outcomes for children and youth by fostering relationships among schools and afterschool programs.

The initiative is grounded in findings from the 2005 Massachusetts After-School Research Study (MARS), which found that afterschool programs with stronger connections to schools had more engaging, challenging activities, higher staff engagement, and higher quality homework assistance. read more »

Illiteracy in America

Elizabeth Curtis — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:59:07 -0500

On February 25, 2008 ABC reported a story on its World News program entitled, Out of the Shadows: Overcoming Illiteracy.
I was staggered by this report that found 1 in 20 adults in Grand Rapids, Michigan are illiterate. The city set a goal to cut illiteracy in half in 10 years, and in the last 4 years the program has helped 1,000 people.

Without literate adults, how can we expect to have success for the children of our community? Literacy, education, and financial stability are so intertwined with all issues related to poverty. Sometimes it's critical to focus on the basics. read more »

Link Round-up!!

Laura Torres — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:00:27 -0400

The NYTimes Magazine has lots of great articles on the topic of philanthropy this week!

Highlights:

Can celebrities really help advance a cause?

Economists tackle the question: What really makes people give?

Is it possible to show a return on investment when it comes to philanthropy?

In thinking outside-the-box news, The Washington Post has published a radical idea from Michael Goldstein, founder of the MATCH School. In a nutshell Goldstein proposes that we let students drop out of High School and then let them come back when they are ready. Whaaaa?? Click here to get the full story.

There has been a lot of talk about boys being left-behind in education lately. This Boston Globe article explores how “Boys Clubs” have helped raise MCAS scores. Link.

According to this article on cnn.com, most middle-class Americans still cannot afford housing despite drops in pricing. Link read more »

Link Roundup!

Laura Torres — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:40:21 -0400

“In other words, a person who bought a home for $200,000 in the summer of 1988 would have had to wait nine years before being able to sell it for $200,000 again.” Excerpt from Boston Globe article on Boston 28 month housing slump. link

Good news! Money can buy you happiness. But only if you're generous...link

Food Stamp Use Nears Record. link read more »

New Research on Dropouts

Elena Sokolow — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:10:42 -0400

Last week the news media seemed unable to stop talking about America’s dropout crisis. So what is this all about, and why all the sudden attention?

Well last week the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center with support from the America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, released a report called Cities in Crisis, which explored the dropout issue with a specific focus on the graduation rates of America’s 50 largest cities. The study found that overall, graduation rates are significantly lower in the largest US cities, and further, that large disparities exist in some of our country’s largest metro areas, where students in a suburban school system may be twice as likely as their urban counterparts to graduate from high school. When EPE employed its own method of calculating the dropout rate, they found that only 52% of students from the largest districts in the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma, a rate well below the national graduation rate of 70%. How does this play out in the Commonwealth? read more »

Online Schooling

Ashley Ferrell — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:59:03 -0500

A few days ago as I was perusing the New York Times’ Education section, I stumbled upon an article on online schooling. Expecting to read a bit about the accessibility of online college courses for the non-traditional student, I was shocked to find that a number of parents throughout the country enroll their children in internet-based charter schools. read more »

Teachers Rock!

Meghan Keaney Anderson — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:57:20 -0400

Thank you to everyone who recognized the hard work of Massachusetts teachers by nominating one of your favorites for our Teachers Rock! contest.
Nominations are now closed.

Winning teachers will receive $500 worth of school supplies for their classrooms, generously donated by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. United Way and Stand with Children will announce 10 winning teachers in early January. If you would like to receive an email notification of the winners, please submit your email address below.

UWA Common Good Report: A Lesson in the Importance of Measurement and Message

Elena Sokolow — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:25:35 -0400

As Meghan said in her last blog, the United Way of America (UWA) recently unveiled what they are calling The Common Good Report which identifies three broad issue areas that UWA believes are the essential building blocks to a successful life, these being education, income and health, and goes on to articulate four indicators within
each of those categories, which they plan to track over time. More importantly though, is the fact that in this report and the communication that has accompanied it both in the press and at the UWA Community Leaders Conference, UWA has put forward what I consider to be both very bold and very specific goals around what they are commiting to achieve in the next ten years. Cutting to the chase, these goals are: read more »

Weekly Link Round-up!

Laura Torres — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:33:28 -0400

Relevant Local News

1.4 million adults in Massachusetts lack education and skills needed to secure family-supporting job link

Troubles at Jamaica Plain’s English High School demonstrate why we cannot just rely on schools alone to solve problems with youth and education. linkto Bsoton Globe article.

On Philanthropy read more »

Joining a non-profit board? A quick and dirty primer from the Wall Street Journal on what you should do the first 90 days. link
Dislike chatting it up with fundraisers? Jack Shakely of the California Community Foundation writes in this week's NYTimes that you pre-empt the charities and the fundraisers. Give before you get asked and take your philanthropic destiny into your own hands! link