Pathways to Academic Excellence is an early childhood education initiative focused on children under the age of 5 and designed to strengthen parent-child interaction, parenting strategies, and access to high-quality early childhood education. The program, which was first developed three years ago, encourages and empowers Latino parents, educators and Latino non-profits to intervene early in children’s lives, helping to support families in low-income communities.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Hearst Foundation, we will be able to expand Pathways to an additional 150 parents over the course of 2016. We will provide an early childhood education curriculum to low-income, Spanish-dominant and/or bilingual Latino parents. It is estimated that our work with 150 parents will reach 450 children. Through workshops and easy-to-use learning materials aimed to boost the skills of their children, we will ensure that their children are better prepared to succeed in school.
Our Pathways program has been a proven success. By our estimates, 50 percent of children served will show at least a 20 percent improvement in critical child function areas such as acquiring and using knowledge and skills. In addition, 50 percent of parents served will show at least a 30 improvement in areas such as realizing their role as another “teacher” in their young children’s lives, and learning literacy-developing activities they can do at home. Education matters, and we’re committed to making sure every child’s education is quality.
