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$420,000 Going to Groups Fighting for Education
Reform
(click here to view press
kit)
SEATTLE, WA (July 28, 2005) – In an effort
to infuse the fight for quality education with
necessary funding, the Marguerite Casey Foundation
announced $420,000 to four Mississippi Delta
community-based organizations.
“This is the first allotment of targeted
funding to a region of Mississippi hard pressed
to provide quality education to its students
of color,” says Luz Vega-Marquis, President
and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation. “The
public school system is in a desperate state
across the Delta, demanding new strategies in
funding low-income families to create grassroots
change.”
Four organizations will receive the funding to
continue their work on increasing civic engagement
on education reform among low-income families,
all of which belong to the Mississippi Education
Working Group (MEWG) and span three counties
in the Delta. MEWG is a coalition of grassroots
community organizations working to create quality,
first-rate public educational opportunity for
African American families in their school districts.
“These organizations, no matter their size,
have proven to be cornerstones in their communities,” says
Vega-Marquis, “they have worked toward
and expressed interest in expanding coalition
building efforts and family-led social change.”
The State Board of Education acknowledges that
there is a statewide crisis of insufficient
numbers of teachers in the schools, especially
in the area of basic skills, such as reading
and math, and that Mississippi schools rank among
the lowest in the United States in teacher salaries,
per pupil expenditures, and student performance
on standardized testing. In addition, every year
the racial balance among teachers and administrators
shifts in the direction of domination by
Caucasians (teachers are now 75% Caucasian, 25%
African American), even as the racial balance
of students in the public schools becomes increasingly
African American. Mississippi is 37% African
American, but its public schools are 56% African
American.
Marguerite Casey Foundation began funding
in Mississippi and other southern states in 2002,
providing over $2.2M to the state. “We
at the Foundation have found the perseverance
of Mississippi families inspiring. Our own course
of action follows our promise to ask questions,
listen to communities about their needs, and
act according to those wishes. It is clear that
these organizations required additional support
to continue their social change efforts.”
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