National Town Hall on education

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien on March 31 hosted a national town hall on United Way’s findings on education based research and conversations with people across the nation.

Education is also a local focus with the goal of ensuring , our children enter school ready to learn, succeed in school and graduate on time. United Way of Snohomish County’s board of directors recently approved 10-year goals in:

• literacy
• social/emotional development
• parent engagement
• community support

Findings from the National Town Hall on education:

• Safety and security consistently come up as critical issues for everyday people. There’s a sense that if we can’t create a safe and stable environment for kids, nothing we do will help them achieve success.
• Communities of faith must be part of the solution. Parents, caregivers and even people who don’t have kids are saying schools aren’t solely responsible for children’s success. They believe that other institutions where values are taught and modeled have to step up and be part of the effort.
• People across all demographic lines, from all walks of life, believe we are failing our children. People see education as the key to success and voice in different ways the common theme that the only way children will be successful is if the entire community wraps its arms around them.
• Kids need role models just as much as they need academic support. There is a persistent feeling out there that we can’t solely focus on academics at the expense of nurturing the whole child and that we’re not being balanced in our approach. 

The forum in Washington, D.C. also launched United Way’s national Reader/Tutor/Mentor initiative that supports Michelle Obama's Challenge to engage 1,000,000 new readers, tutors and mentors. Read more at http://liveunited.org/