Vote to Send Money to a Hawaiian Classroom! (It only takes a Moment.)

Teach For America is the reason Eric and I are here on the Big Island of Hawaii. The organization's mission is to help close the "achievement gap" in the United States, defined by Wikipedia as:

" the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, ability, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout rates, and college-enrollment and -completion rates."

Did you know that Hawaii is among the nation's lowest scoring across many of these measures? I certainly didn't before he was placed here. It's easy to think of Hawaii as a land of pineapples and glamorous resorts, but in reality, many parts of Hawaii are extremely poor and rural.

One of Eric's fellow TFA members is in the running to get a $25,000 grant for technology for his classroom courtesy of Pepsi. Like so many TFA members, Matt is a commited and passionate teacher and I'd love to see him win this grant money. If you'd like to take a minute to peruse his idea (helping his sixth graders improve literacy while learning to employ technology!) and give it your vote, we can bump him up in the rankings! The top 10 ideas recieve funding.

And Matt says "Just showing my kids that something like this is possible is worth more than money." Amen to that.