Learn to Earn support
The national nonprofit StriveTogether announced Thursday that it will support Learn to Earn Dayton’s work to identify and implement strategies to close the educational achievement gap in Montgomery County and help place “Equity Fellows” in several school districts, including the Dayton Public Schools.
Modeled after a successful STEM Fellows program led by the Montgomery County Educational Service Center, Equity Fellows will be charged with identifying practices and policies that impede underrepresented students’ school success. For example, the Fellows will track and monitor achievement and suspension data disaggregated by race and gender. They also will help school staff understand their building’s disaggregated data and promote culturally responsive teaching.
The Montgomery County Educational Service Center and Sinclair College are co-partners in this initiative, and the National Equity Project will be providing significant amounts of the training.
The $500,000 award is part of StriveTogether’s Cradle to Career Community Challenge, which seeks to create local change to enable economic mobility. The program’s goal is to strengthen and align the many systems, such as education, employment, health and housing, that shape opportunity for children and families.
Through the Community Challenge, more than $20 million over the next three years will fund projects across the country that aim to shift public policy and engage the systems needed to help students progress from kindergarten to postsecondary completion and finding a job.
Sinclair College President Steven L. Johnson said, “Sinclair is deeply committed to helping all young people reach their full potential. By helping train and assist Equity Fellows in eliminating barriers to school success, we’re ensuring that more Dayton-area young people will be college- and career-ready.”
Grantees are expected to match StriveTogether’s funding through local fundraising efforts in Year 2 and Year 3 of the program.
In addition to grants to community-based cradle-to-career organizations, StriveTogether is awarding policy-focused grants to seven statewide campaigns, including in Ohio. Ohio’s effort will be led by Cincinnati’s Strive Partnership, in collaboration with Learn to Earn Dayton. That work will be focused on promoting and achieving Ohio’s Attainment Goal that, by 2025, 65% of adults will have a 4-year or 2-year college degree, or a post-secondary workforce credential. CONTRIBUTED