Tuesday, September 21^st

High-Speed Internet for Rural Schools

Nearly 2,000 rural schools with more than 550,000 students will receive new or improved high-speed Internet service as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Recovery-funded Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

While the majority of BIP awards are intended to expand or improve broadband service throughout entire rural communities, including households and businesses, USDA says more than 300 K-12 schools in rural areas currently not served by broadband at all will benefit from the 126 recently announced awards, which total $1.2 billion and will affect 34 states and three Native American Tribal lands. An estimated 82,000 students in will be getting access to high-speed Internet service for the first time. Read More

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Federal Funds Target Ex-Offender Re-entry

As the name implies, A Safe Haven became a refuge for Chicago resident Daniel Soto.

At age 13, Soto joined a gang, became addicted to drugs and, subsequently, cycled in and of jail. Since age 18, he has served a total of 13 years behind bars. Now 41, Soto has a new lease of life thanks to A Safe Haven, a Chicago-based residential substance abuse treatment facility.

Soto is nearly one year sober. He has reunited with his twin 18-year-old daughters and works as a substance abuse counselor at the same agency that got him sober. Soto admits it was tough. He was mandated to the program in 2008. Read More

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Delaware Schools: Program Gives Students Something to Build On

Nineteen-year-old Ryan Hatchell could have continued down a wrong path after he was arrested for having a gun and sent to the Ferris School for Boys, a Wilmington facility for delinquent youths.

Instead, he ended up last year in the Pre-Apprenticeship Program, which teaches students at the school job skills at construction sites headed by Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that builds affordable housing for low-income families.

"It opens up your mind a little bit," said Hatchell, of Georgetown, now a nursing student at Delaware Technical & Community College. "It teaches you new things and gives you better goals in life." Read More

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Denzel Washington, Boys & Girls Clubs Fight Dropouts

Long before he became a Hollywood star, Denzel Washington was a Mount Vernon, N.Y., schoolboy who spent after-school hours and weekends at his local Boys & Girls Club.

For 18 years, Washington has been national spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. On Wednesday, he's in Washington to help launch a new national program, called Be Great: Graduate, to identify kids who are at risk of dropping out of school and give them the help they need to stay and finish.

"Our goal is simple to state but hard to achieve," Washington said in a statement. "We want to help every Boys & Girls Club member advance to the next grade level every year and graduate from high school on time, prepared with the attitude, knowledge and confidence to succeed and achieve." Read More

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Graduation Rate Dismal for Duval Black Males

A new study shows the rate is nearly the worst in the country.

A lot can go wrong from cradle to career for black males.

In Jacksonville, nearly three out of four black ninth-graders fail to earn a high school diploma four years later, according to a study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based foundation ranks Duval County third from the bottom of school districts nationwide for its black male graduation rate in the 2007-08 school year. Only two other Florida school districts, Pinellas County and Palm Beach, ranked below Duval’s 23 percent graduation rate. Read More

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Dropout Prevention Program Comes to Detroit

A national dropout prevention program is coming to Detroit Public Schools to identify struggling students as early as the sixth grade and offer tutoring, counseling and activities to ensure they stay in school.

The Diplomas Now program is starting at Bow and Emerson schools, which were changed recently from elementary schools to pre-kindergarten to eighth grade facilities. The program is a partnership with City Year, Communities In Schools and Johns Hopkins University's Talent Development that provides early intervention for some of the nation's most challenged middle and high schools. Read More

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Door-To-Door Event Encourages No-Shows to Stay in School

For hundreds of Dallas students who have yet to return to school this fall, a knock on the front door today could be a visit from the Dallas mayor or the superintendent of schools.

The two leaders, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa and Mayor Tom Leppert, are participating in Operation Comeback, an annual initiative in which volunteers fan out across the city to encourage students listed as "no-shows" to return to class. Read More

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