More on Sharing Web Resources

This week I explored some of the outside links on the Children's Defense Fund (CDR) website. http://www.childrensdefense.org/ One of the areas that I found very interesting is a page that has  links to other organizations called the Outside Partners Page. This is a page that thanks various organizations that have donated money to the CDR fund. The organization Robinhood http://www.robinhood.org/home.aspx targets poverty in New York City. Robin Hood's partners with poverty fighting nonprofit organizations in New York City. They also create funds such as the 9/11 fund. Another organization that captured my interest was The Annie E. Casey Fund.  http://www.aecf.org/ This organization was founded by Jim Casey and his siblings in honor of their mother. Jim Casey had an abundance of wealth because he was the man who founded UPS. Their mission is to "help vulnerable kids and families succeed."

Today I searched a new area of the site. Previously, I read a small amount on Haley's Farm and I learned that it is a 157 acre farm that belonged to Alex Haley the famous author. This was all the information that I had read. Today I found out exactly what the story is behind this farm and the good that it does. The CDR purchased this farm in 1994.

Acccording to the CDR website, "The Children's Defense Fund and its many programs have transformed Haley Farm into a vibrant training ground for the next generation of leadership, advocacy and service for children and families."

This week in class I learned a great deal about equity and excellence in early childhood education. The CDF website addresses many of the issues I learned about.  CDF states, " Inequities in funding and resources place poor children in low-performing schools with inadequate facilities and often ineffective teachers."  CDF goes on to say, "Practices such as tracking, retention, out-of-school suspensions, and one-size-fits-all zero tolerance policies continue to contribute to the discouragement, disengagement, and eventual dropout of countless children in America." This was something new that I had not thought about before. The inequity does not stop at the preschool level, this carries on into the child's entire schooling.

One thing that I find very informational on the CDF site is the listing of statistics. I want to share the following statistics with my classmate, because I found this very eye-opening and added to the knowledge of what we learned about this week.

Schools serving mostly African-American students are twice as likely to have teachers with one or two years of experience than are schools within the same district that serve mostly White students.

Only 22 percent of local education agencies (LEAs) reported that they operated pre-k programs targeting children from low-income families.

Students with limited English proficiency make up 6 percent of the high school population (in grades 9-12), but are 15 percent of the students for whom algebra is the highest-level math course taken by the final year of their high school career.

3,000 schools serving nearly 500,000 high school students offer no algebra 2 classes, and more than 2 million students in about 7,300 schools had no access to calculus classes.

Only 2 percent of the students with disabilities are taking at least one Advanced Placement class.