Home About Us Media Kit Subscriptions Links Forum
 
APPEARED IN


View All Articles

Download PDF

FAMOUS INTERVIEWS

Directories:

SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS

HELP WANTED

Tutors

Workshops

Events

Sections:

Books

Camps & Sports

Careers

Children’s Corner

Collected Features

Colleges

Cover Stories

Distance Learning

Editorials

Famous Interviews

Homeschooling

Medical Update

Metro Beat

Movies & Theater

Museums

Music, Art & Dance

Special Education

Spotlight On Schools

Teachers of the Month

Technology

Archives:

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

1995-2000


JANUARY 2008

Grace Outreach Helps High School Dropouts Get GED Degrees 

By Emily Sherwood, Ph.D.

In Zaukema Blanding’s math class, students are  poring over their math homework with intense  concentration, scrutinizing conversion tables and  double-checking their fractions. A brightly colored  “hot seat” in the front of the class, currently  unoccupied, will be the prize for the student who  aces her homework that day. But this is no ordinary  school: there are no bells that signal class  times, and the students, all of them girls, are well  out of their teens. Many are single parents.

Nestled in the heart of the Mott Haven section  of the Bronx, where a staggering 46 percent of  families live below the poverty level and only  41 percent of adults has a high school education  or higher, the “school” is a nonprofit enterprise  known as Grace Outreach, and it’s helping lowincome  women earn their high school General  Equivalency Diploma (GED) through a free  program of instruction in math, reading and writing.  “I think of this as a second chance charter  school,” explains Executive Director Darlene  Jeris, an MBA who previously worked as a special  assistant to former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner.  “We are the only privately-funded all-women’s  GED program in the country.” As such, the program  has the flexibility to hire and fire its teachers  and to individualize its curriculum (students  fall into A, B, or C-level classes depending upon  their readiness for the GED exam) so as to get  the women through high school and on with their  lives as quickly as possible.

“How do you get out of the welfare system?  There’s only one way: education. That’s how you  get sustainable growth,” explains Grace Outreach  President Margaret Grace, who founded the  program in 2004 and now boasts over 200 GED  graduates to date. But Grace and her colleagues  don’t stop with the GED diploma, or the festive  graduation ceremony that they hold each June,  complete with white caps and gowns, red roses,  and a full buffet dinner. The second cornerstone  of Grace Outreach’s program is to help each graduate  pursue a personal career path that suits her  needs and abilities, be it immediate employment,  enrollment in a vocational training program, or  enrollment in a community or four-year college.  Zaukema Blanding’s math students, all A-level  women on-track to take their GED exams shortly,  talk about their next steps with excitement and  a pride borne of grit and determination: “I plan  to go to a full-time college and become a police  officer,” says 23 year old Kinesha. Her classmates  discuss aspirations that run the gamut from  construction work, house painting and plastering,  nursing, accounting, administrative work, and a  commission with the U.S. Navy. “We all share the  same goals. We all have children and we all want  to do better for them. We’re all pushing for each  other to pass,” sums up Kinesha.

Indeed, Jeris cites research indicating that the  educational level of the parent is the single most  important predictor of a child’s educational level,  underscoring that Grace Outreach will have a  ripple effect far beyond its graduation rates. “We  don’t live in an economy any more where you can  support yourself and become financially independent  without education,” she asserts. Among its  many lessons, Grace Outreach hopes to instill in  its graduates the confidence to move ahead with  their lives and tap into their potential to learn and  make meaningful contributions to society. ”The  GED is one of many things they’re going to do.  It’s not the end game,” explains Jeris.

Margaret Grace is acutely aware that for every  hundred women who graduate, there are hundreds  more whose lives could be transformed by  Grace Outreach. “One of our students has two  cousins, a mother and a daughter who also need  our help,” she adds pointedly. With additional  financial support, Grace would like to expand  into other neighborhoods by opening low overhead  centers that would allow more women to  graduate from high school: “We don’t want to be  owned by the address; all you need are two good  teachers to teach a group of 15 or 20 women,” she  adds with excitement. It’s clear that Grace and  her staff won’t give up till they begin to make a  meaningful dent in the needy South Bronx neighborhood  they have chosen as their home, and  that the women they serve, most of whom are the  first in their families to graduate high school, are  the unsung heroes in their lives: “So many individuals  can be crippled by what lies before them.  There are so many hurdles. But these women
don’t stop,” she adds quietly.#

COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE

Name:

Email:
Show email
City:
State:

 


 

 

 

Education Update, Inc.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2008.