Cradle-to-Career Education Access: A New Information Resource

Education, from cradle to career, is a critical issue for our very eclectic community in the DC metro area. We’ve got some of the most highly-educated people as well as some of the least-educated.

We must work together

Improving education requires all of us — public, private and nonprofit sectors — to work together in new ways. And it requires a clear-eyed view of the problem and its roots. For instance, the fact is, high school dropouts are more than 12 years in the making.

Nationally,

• Disadvantaged children start school at least 2 years behind in pre-reading skills.
• For every 50 children who don’t learn to read in kindergarten, 44 will still be struggling in 3rd grade.
• Children without reading skills by 3rd grade are unlikely to graduate. New research shows grades and absenteeism rates by 3rd grade can predict dropouts with 90% accuracy.

That's why the entire education continuum — from birth through 24 years old — must be in our sightline if we are to move the needle on educational achievement and preparing our youth for success.

A new resource for education advocates

To overcome the challenge of finding credible, actionable resources for improving educational outcomes for our youth, United Way NCA has launched a new educational insights news service. This interactive set of videos, tools, and resources can easily be embedded on your website or blog. Once it’s done, your visitors will receive the latest information about the state of education in our region. Once you embed the multimedia player, each time we update it, your version will automatically be synchronized with the new information.

Check out this month’s Insights, headlined by the Kenilworth-Parkside area’s Irasema Salcido, the CEO and founder of the Cesar Chavez Charter High School for Public Policy.

Click here for instructions for embedding the interactive media player on your own website or blog.

Education Reform is the Top Mobilization Priority in Your Transformed United Way

As you know, we have some of the richest, poorest, best- and least-educated citizens in the country.

Yet, due to that diversity—both ethnically and geographically—the Capital Region is one of the most difficult communities in America to mobilize and address our most demanding civic challenges.

Leslie Whitlow Graves

In remarks to Council of the District of Columbia Chairman Kwame Brown and council members on Wednesday, February 23, your United Way of the National Capital Area made it clear that the organization is taking dramatic steps to transform, and outlined some of the actions we’re taking in the education arena.

As one of the most respected brands in the world, a transformed United Way can be a key “mobilizer” around the issues of education, financial stability, and health in our area. This is our new mission. This is our new calling.

Here’s an excerpt of United Way NCA’s President & CEO Bill Hanbury’s testimony, delivered by United Way NCA’s Leslie Whitlow Graves, senior vice president of community impact. Click the link below to read the full remarks.

"Education reform is our top mobilization priority. United Way of the National Capital Area is becoming a key neutral convener…bringing together leaders and stakeholders at all levels…from education, business, non-profits, neighborhoods, civic and philanthropic sectors…all around common goals and benchmarks to support every child in our community…from cradle to career.”

Read the complete remarks of National Capital Area’s President & CEO Bill Hanbury.