Since 2012, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has supported educational enrichment in rural areas by awarding over $3.3 million in grants to six outstanding organizations operating in Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In this report, the authors combine the experiences of these organizations with findings from the…

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has provided over $3.3 million in grants to outstanding providers of educational enrichment in rural areas since 2012. In extensive interviews, rural education experts in our grantee organizations shared their practical knowledge of the best ways to identify academically talented students in rural areas, provide…

In some countries, the scale of the youth illiteracy problem calls for critical and targeted responses. It is important to help young people in developing countries gain basic literacy skills so that they can contribute to the development of productive, peaceful, and democratic societies. While national commitments and support are important, the…

Georgia's Certified Literate Community Program is a state-supported, community-based effort that provides all levels of instruction--from basic skills to technical writing--to adults at all educational levels. The goal is to enable every capable adult to attain reading, speaking, writing, problem solving, and comprehension skills. (SK)

This document offers an overview of the Houston READ Commission (HRC), a nonprofit urban literacy coalition created by the Mayor and City Council in the Greater Houston area. It describes how the coalition of community organizations first came together in 1988, in response to a survey's finding that there are over one million functionally…

Condensed from "The Center Forum, a publication of the Center for Urban Education, III (March 1, 1969), 1,4-5.

The Library Rural Literacy Outreach Program targeted to ten rural communities in the Fresno County, California, Free Library district is reported. The sites were chosen based on inquiries from volunteers in those communities and support for the program by the branch library staff. Goals of the program were to provide literacy services to adult…

The agents most successful in reaching and teaching those most in need of basic skills instruction are the community-based organizations (CBOs). They come into being in response to social and economic problems faced by their constituents--disadvantaged minorities, the poor, the unemployed, and the alienated. Because of their close ties to the…

A project was conducted to disseminate career education philosophy, methods, program activities, and evaluation results to career education practitioners and the general public in rural Appalachia. Five major project dissemination tasks were accomplished and evaluated, including (1) visitations to the project and regional schools so that educators…

The purposes of this paper are to identify the current trends in social studies curriculum and teaching strategies and to make some projections about the future. Three conflicting movements, or paradoxes, are identified. The first paradox is the back-to-the-basics movement vs. an expanded curriculum. This is due to conservative reactions to…

Focusing on programs that successfully expanded primary education in rural areas and among young girls, this report describes a mobilizing project that assisted six local programs in documenting and disseminating their methods. The report discusses the six successful projects: (1) the PROPEL project in Pune, India; (2) the 900 Schools Project in…

A study was conducted among adults enrolled in adult basic education (ABE) General Educational Development (GED) courses to determine their perceptions of the impact of the ABE/GED programs on their employment/economic position, skill and knowledge acquisition, community involvement, attitudinal changes, personal relationships, and continuing…

The Senior Citizens and Parents as Resources for the Classroom (SPARC) project is designed to maximize the learning potential of students. Through the SPARC project, parent and community volunteers, guided by professional educators, can help to meet student needs. This elementary school manual has been compiled by and for the teachers and…

Career development, life skills, and basic skills were important emphases in the experience-based career education program installed at two Virginia high schools. The program, call ExCEL (Exploring Careers through Experiential Learning), aimed to provide student experience in community learning sites and to integrate this with acquisition of…

The series "Self-instructional Notes on Social Participation" is a six-volume series intended as teaching aids for adult educators. The theoretical, methodological, informative and practical elements of this series will assist professionals in their work and help them achieve greater success. The specific purpose of each notebook is…