Contact Program Officer Jolene Chavira today at (213) 413-4130 to learn more about this topic.

The foundation supports quality childhood learning opportunities that promote cognitive and social development, programs that increase parent involvement in children’s learning, and collaborative partnerships among elementary schools, school districts and nonprofit organizations that strengthen English language arts and math instruction to increase student achievement.

Goals:

• Increase school readiness for kindergarten among underserved children
• Increase K–5 student achievement outcomes and reduce the achievement gap between population groups

Objectives:

• Improve performance on school readiness pre-literacy and math assessments for pre-kindergarten students, especially among children who are low-income, minorities or English language learners
• Increase K–5 student achievement outcomes in reading and math on both state standardized and local assessments
• Increase parent knowledge of and participation in effective strategies to support children’s learning at home
• Identify policy barriers to increased access to quality public education for underserved children and English language learners and increase parent engagement in the decision making and advocacy efforts that affect these policies
• Increase teacher, school and district use of evidence-based effective practices (e.g., targeted teacher professional development, professional learning communities, analysis of student data, experiential curricula, etc.) for improving instruction and increasing academic outcomes through collaborations among schools, school districts and nonprofit organizations

Priorities:

• Efforts that show a demonstrated track record of providing effective preschool or parent education programming to underserved populations
• Efforts that reflect close working relationships among nonprofits, schools and school districts
• Programs that leverage funding from other public and/or private sources
• Policy development and advocacy efforts that promote increased access to quality schools (i.e., schools with experienced, well-prepared teachers, effective curricula, adequate facilities, etc.)
• Collaborative groups of elementary schools (three or more) that work to improve student achievement in reading and math by equipping teachers with effective instructional strategies and the ability to utilize student data to inform classroom practice. For this collaborative grant program, applications will be limited to partnerships of schools, school districts and nonprofit organizations serving low performing school communities and solicited through a separate RFP process.

Please contact Jolene Chavira, program officer at (213) 413-4130 for more information about this program area.

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