Since our founding 10 years ago, we have been helping parents make good choices about their children's education. Today, about one in three American parents turns to GreatSchools in a given year to help them decide where to send their children to school and track the performance of their children's schools.
Today, we're announcing that we have received funding to undertake a major new initiative designed to help low- and middle-income families guide their children to graduate from high school ready for college.
More than a year ago, we began to consider: What more could we at GreatSchools do to improve education? How could we do more for our large audience of parents? And what could we do for low-income parents whose children face the steepest climb to college?
Our answer: We should leverage the technology of our times to create a comprehensive parent-training program and support group that inspires and guides parents — especially low-income parents — to raise children who are ready for college.
Funded generously by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, this new initiative will do just that. Stay tuned!
Bill's Blog
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Magazine’s Annual Education Report Reveals Anti-Literary Epidemic
November 2008 (RALEIGH, NC) – Educating potential gang members, an anti-literary epidemic, “real education,” and college prep scams are only three of the subjects covered in Raleigh Metro Magazine’s annual Education Report, on newsstands now in the November edition.
Senior writer Liza Roberts celebrates the efforts of one dedicated retired teacher from Los Angeles battling Durham’s high school drop-out and gang involvement through EDGE, a special school she founded that keeps kids off the street and helps them steer their lives back on track. EDGE stands for Education, Development, Growth and Employment. Despite the school’s quantifiable success, its future is threatened by a severe lack of funding.
Education expert George Leef discusses the concepts behind The Dumbest Generation, a new book by Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein that insists technology is creating an anti-literacy epidemic, resulting in thin vocabularies and short attention spans.
“Bauerlein explains that the style of reading that young people adopt from their Internet immersion is marked by very limited vocabulary, aversion to lengthy passages and ‘scanning’ rather than close reading,” Leef writes. “Most Internet material is written with those habits in mind – quick, easy, chatty.” The problem with this? “Serious thinking depends on the ability to read and analyze difficult material,” he asserts.
Leef also takes a look at Charles Murray’s radical new book Real Education, “debunking the idea that because college graduates have higher average earnings we should try to put more kids through college.” Murray rocked the academic world with his first book, Losing Ground, an equally controversial look at conventional liberal viewpoints.
Nathan Allen, the author of several books on college testing, bares the truth about college prep courses in an article entitled “Are You Being Scammed?” What he reveals could save parents a bundle of money.
Metro’s Arch T. Allen discusses a new autobiography by Howard Lee, chairman of the NC State Board of Education, entitled “The Courage to Lead: One Man’s Journey in Public Service.” Lee, 74, was elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969 and has served in the NC Senate.
Established in 1999, the four-color monthly Metro Magazine has a circulation of 40,000 with readership from the Triangle area of North Carolina to the coast
Metro’s November content, including the annual Education Report, is also available online at www.metronc.com.
Posted by: Kim Weiss | November 20, 2008 at 08:42 AM