News & Features
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apaweb@americaspromise.org.
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8/27/2010
Help us kick off a season of celebration at the official announcement of the 2010 100 Best Communities for Young People presented by ING! We hope you’ll join us on September 21 at 10:00 a.m. to hear which 100 outstanding communities have been selected for recognition this year.
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8/27/2010
Leading 9/11 organizations and the national service community announced today that they have joined together for the first time to offer a comprehensive educational resource, introduced for this year's 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance, to help America's children learn about what happened on 9/11 and why, and to inspire students to annually pay tribute through their own voluntary expressions of charitable service. Nearly 4,000 teachers have already signed up for these materials, with an estimated 10,000 expected to utilize them this year, according to the 9/11 nonprofit MyGoodDeed, which worked to bring these influential organizations together to support the education program.
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8/27/2010
Play On 2010 is taking place at Columbia University in New York City on October 12 and 13, 2010. Take advantage of this high-energy opportunity to learn the latest tools, techniques and strategies to make the most out of play and positively affect the lives of children. Play On 2010 is a hands-on, interactive conference designed for parents, teachers, coaches, youth workers, community advocates and everyone else who understands the value of play and wants better tools, techniques and strategies to make it part of their community.
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8/27/2010
The following grants and funding opportunities are currently accepting applicants. These grants are not offered through America's Promise Alliance, but they each relate to our Five Promises. If you have questions about these opportunities, please follow the links provided in each item.
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8/27/2010
Applications are now available for new board members for the State Farm Youth Advisory Board (YAB). Represent your community as a member of a diverse group of 30 youth, aged 17-20, from across the United States and Canada. The board is charged with managing and distributing $5 million per year in service-learning grants. As a member of the YAB, you will be provided an amazing personal developmental opportunity, as well as a chance to make a long-lasting impact in communities YOU care about, providing solutions to today’s pertinent issues.
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8/16/2010
America’s Promise Alliance has been named one of several featured charities by State Farm ® and Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the new Go To Bat program. State Farm and MLB unveiled the initiative and organizations it will benefit at the annual State Farm Home Run Derby July 12 in Anaheim, CA. The 10-week program will allow baseball fans and other individuals to raise money for select charities through their participation in an online home run derby game.
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8/16/2010
A nationally representative poll released August 12 by Gallup and America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) shows that one-third (34 percent) of youth ages 10-18 are poised to achieve academically, socially and civically, and half (53 percent) are hopeful, while 63 percent are fully engaged in school, as quantified by Gallup research. This survey is the second public poll to come out of the larger Gallup Student Poll initiative, which has measured the hope, engagement and wellbeing of students in grades 5-12 in hundreds of schools since March 2009 through the administration of surveys in individual schools and school districts nationwide.
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8/16/2010
America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) is pleased to welcome the Network for Social Responsibility (NSR), a new partner, and help promote NSR’s “Youth Service Challenge” and “WaysToHelp.” NSR’s mission is to improve students' understanding of social issues, inspire them to become involved in their communities, and empower them to make a positive impact on the world. NSR wants to help other Alliance partners draw attention to their service programs as well. The “Youth Service Challenge” will invite high school students to develop BIG, meaningful service projects and share them with the world in the context of a highly-visible national competition (October 1 – December 31).
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8/16/2010
In support of the “Grad Nation” movement, After-school All-Stars (ASAS) has piloted a Transition to High School program for middle students, called CampUs™. The intensive overnight program – conceived as a camping experience -- took place in last month on the campus of Loyola Marymount University and brought together 50 low-income, urban After-School All-Stars students from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Jose, San Diego and Honolulu. All are entering 9th grade, and all have displayed early warning signs that they have the potential to drop out of high school.
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8/13/2010
A nationally representative poll released August 12 by Gallup and America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) shows that one-third (34 percent) of youth ages 10-18 are poised to achieve academically, socially and civically, and half (53 percent) are hopeful, while 63 percent are fully engaged in school, as quantified by Gallup research. This survey is the second public poll to come out of the larger Gallup Student Poll initiative, which has measured the hope, engagement and wellbeing of students in grades 5-12 in hundreds of schools since March 2009 through the administration of surveys in individual schools and school districts nationwide.
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8/13/2010
A new Child Trends research brief finds positive outcomes for adolescents in high-quality out-of-school time programs, but no significant differences between adolescents in low-quality programs and those not in a program at all. The brief, How Out-of-School Time Program Quality is Related to Adolescent Outcomes, is based on data from the Every Child Every Promise survey commissioned by the America's Promise Alliance.
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8/13/2010
National PTA's Back to School Central web resource provides expert advice to prepare your students to go back to school. Review some of the stories in these sections to ensure your student gets off to a good start this school year including Back to School Preparation, Homework Help and Study Skills, and Parent Involvement and Communication.
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8/13/2010
Two reports released this week by The Education Trust—“Big Gaps, Small Gaps: Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating African-American Students” and “Big Gaps, Small Gaps: Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating Hispanic Students”—dig beneath national college-graduation averages and examine disaggregated six-year graduation rates at hundreds of the nation’s public and private institutions.
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7/30/2010
America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) and DeVry Inc. have announced a major, multi-year partnership to help increase high school and college graduation rates across the country. The partnership will be a featured component of the Alliance’s Grad Nation campaign, a 10-year effort to mobilize all Americans to take action in their communities to end the high school dropout crisis and ultimately prepare young people for postsecondary education and the 21st century workforce. In support of the partnership, DeVry will donate $1.5 million to the Alliance, to be distributed over three years, and provide additional in-kind donations of up to $750,000 per year in each of 10 cities to support a key goal of both organizations – to see more young people earn a postsecondary or college degree.
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7/30/2010
The economic crisis has led to an increase in the number of homeless students attending our nation’s schools for the second year in a row, resulting in a 41 percent increase over the last two years, according to analysis in a new brief released July 27 by First Focus, a bipartisan child advocacy organization and policy affiliate of America’s Promise Alliance. The brief summarizes recent federal data, as well as findings from a national survey of school districts and state departments of education.
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7/30/2010
America’s Promise Alliance Chair Alma Powell was a keynote speaker July 22 at the Military Child Education Coalition’s annual conference near Washington, D.C. An Alliance Partner, MCEC is focused on ensuring quality educational opportunities for all military-connected children affected by mobility, family separation and transition. Mrs. Powell spoke on the subjects of service and community, pointing out that while many underlying challenges of educating military children, such as mobility, remain the same, life has changed for military families, creating new challenges.
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7/30/2010
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, with its implementation partner Jobs for the Future (JFF), has been awarded a two-year $7.7 million dollar grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service under its Social Innovation Fund (SIF). Partnering with JFF, the National Fund, collaborating with nine national and 200 local and regional funders, will expand its assistance to at least 23,000 additional participants over three years in 24 high-need communities, while at the same time addressing the critical skill needs of more than 1,000 employers. SIF, administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, is a new way of doing business for the federal government that better targets public-private resources toward solving social challenges.
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7/30/2010
YouthBuild USA was recently awarded one of two $10 million competitive national grants from the U.S. Department of Labor to prepare young adult offenders and young people without a high school diploma for employment and postsecondary education as well as to engage them in community leadership. The National Association of Service and Conservation Corps received the other grant. The two grantees will work in partnership with federal and state correctional agencies, local workforce investment boards and community-based service providers to offer a proven array of academic, employment and other re-entry-focused strategies designed to transform the lives of program participants.
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7/30/2010
More than 850 museums across America are offering free admission to military personnel and their families this summer as part of the Blue Star Museums program, a Blue Star Families initiative in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and participating museums. Inspired by the participation and positive response to Blue Star Museums, Blue Star Families is launching an art contest for military children.
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7/30/2010
Ford Motor Company Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) recently announced the 10 winners of their Ford Driving Dreams through Education grants. Under the program, each LULAC council will receive $20,000 over a two-year period to implement solutions that address high school dropout rates among Latino students in their communities. The grant recipients include LULAC councils in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.
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7/16/2010
America’s Promise Alliance has been named one of several featured charities by State Farm ® and Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the new Go To Bat program. State Farm and MLB unveiled the initiative and organizations it will benefit at the annual State Farm Home Run Derby July 12 in Anaheim, CA. The 10-week program will allow baseball fans and other individuals to raise money for select charities through their participation in an online home run derby game.
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7/16/2010
Two new reports released this week reveal boosts in federal spending on children during 2009 and 2010 were largely due to the stimulus legislation known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Without that additional one-time spending, the share of spending on children’s programs would have actually declined over the past five years. Children’s Budget 2010 is the latest edition of the Children’s Budget series by America's Promise Alliance policy affiliate, First Focus. Kids’ Share 2010: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2009, an Urban Institute-Brookings Institution report, is the fourth annual examination of the federal spending trends and tax policies that support and affect children and families.