More than 10,000 students across Mississippi who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina will get special academic help under a program announced last week.
The one-year intervention effort, Project Assist, is being offered by the Washington-based America鈥檚 Choice group and the state of Mississippi with a grant of $5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
The goal is to strengthen academic rigor and instruction in the low-performing schools that have received the greatest influx of students, according to a press release on the initiative.
The project will send 25 coaches to work in the schools and districts to help school leadership teams in literacy and mathematics. The initiative also will provide books, materials, professional development for teachers, and assistance to schools in helping students and families adjust to their new communities.
America鈥檚 Choice is a private, for-profit subsidiary of the National Center on Education and the Economy. The group already was working with the state of Mississippi to raise achievement in low-performing schools.
