Rauch Foundation Awards ERASE Racism a $100,000 Grant to Support Education Equity Initiative
Syosset, NY (PRWEB) July 08, 2015 -- The Rauch Foundation Board of Directors has awarded a $100,000 one-year grant to ERASE Racism to support its Public School Education Equity Initiative. ERASE Racism will work with Education Equity Working Group, comprised of superintendents and other administrators, educators, nonprofit advocates, parents and civic leaders to implement the initiative.
The initiative will:
· Review an analysis of current and potential policies and laws that can either perpetuate racial segregation or contribute to racial integration in public schools and identify priority areas of work.
· Create a plan and begin to implement campaigns of concrete actions that combat discriminatory policies and laws and/or promote policies and laws that advance education equity and racially integrated schools and classrooms.
· Plan and launch an educational campaign about the significant benefits of diverse educational settings.
ERASE Racism’s past efforts to address education inequities on Long Island include: creating a 30 minute documentary called “A TALE OF TWO SCHOOLS: Race and Education on Long Island” that highlights disparities in opportunities between two school districts; holding three regional education equity forums that brought scholars and school administrators together to discuss effective strategies for creating racially integrated schools and classrooms; and producing research on Long Island’s 124 racially segregated school districts, such as “Heading in the Wrong Direction: Growing School Segregation on Long Island.”
When asked how this new grant might strengthen the organization’s Education Equity Initiative, president Elaine Gross, said “A strong foundation has been laid and over 70 individuals have signed on to work with us in the Education Equity Working Group. More people recognize the need for change and with this grant we will be able to hire a new staff person to manage this campaign. I’m optimistic that we will create opportunities on Long Island for future students to learn in racially integrated schools and classrooms.”
About ERASE Racism: ERASE Racism is a regional organization that leads public policy advocacy campaigns and related programmatic initiatives to promote racial equity in areas such as housing, public school education and healthcare. It engages in a variety of research, education and consulting activities to identify and address institutional and structural racism, primarily on Long Island.
Elaine Gross, ERASE Racism, http://eraseracismny.org/index.php, +1 516-921-4863 Ext: 14, [email protected]
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