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The
National Education Project has begun a "50-City Initiative,"
which is designed to provide reliable, profoundly effective
tutors on a massive scale to children in the elementary schools
of 50 medium-size cities across the country. Our purpose,
simply put, is to raise reading and math scores across entire
cities, and to provide to these children the literacy skills
they must have if they are to be employable in a technological
economy.
To
accomplish this, the Project proposes to establish 20 programs
in each city; these programs, in turn, will provide 145,000
hours of tutoring to the children in the elementary schools
of each city during a five-year period (that is, 20 programs
in one city x 7,250 hours of tutoring produced by each program).
The 50-City Initiative will produce a total of 7,250,000
hours of tutoring (that is, 20 programs per city x 7,250 hours
of tutoring produced by each program x 50 cities). After five
years of tutoring on this scale, each city will have, on the
reading and math test scores alone, one
of the finest elementary school systems in the nation.
To
underwrite the cost of this initiative, the National Education
Project anticipates raising $1,500,000 in each city from corporations,
foundations, law firms, and from the general public. The Project
will use these funds for two purposes:
- To
provide 20 grants to colleges and universities in each city
in the amount of $50,000 per grant (that is, 20 grants x
$50,000 per grant = $1,000,000); and
- To
underwrite the administrative cost of operating 20 programs
in one city during the five-year grant period.
The
Project also plans to contract with an independent third-party
to provide a systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of
the tutors over the four-year period. Before doing so, however,
and in an effort to obtain a completely independent assessment,
the Project will strive to identify an outside source willing
to underwrite the cost of the evaluation effort.
As
has happened in the past, corporate and foundation sponsors
may choose to provide funds to the National Education Project
to support programs in specific cities (or, indeed, at specific
colleges) selected by the donor. The Project will honor this
stipulation, provided the designated colleges agree to participate.
Corporate
donors also may choose to provide funds to the National Education
Project to be paid in installments over several years.
Several
years ago, the National Education Project began a national
campaign designed to demonstrate that these programs could
be made to work anywhere in the country. The Project was successful
in this effort, and had programs in operation at 12 colleges
and universities in six states across the country, including
California, New York, Mississippi, Illinois, Massachusetts,
and New Jersey.
The
National Education Project has a tutoring program now underway
at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire.
The
Project also had considerable success raising funds from private
sources for this effort. Please see Previous
Donors for a list of the 19 corporations, law
firms, and foundations that provided support for these programs,
including:
-
The Xerox Foundation
- Hughes
Aircraft Corporation
- the
Los Angeles Times
- the
New York Daily News
- Houghton
Mifflin Company
- Exxon
Education Foundation
- Manufacturers
Hanover Trust Company
- Digital
Equipment Corporation
- Latham
& Watkins
- Bank
of Boston
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