Congresswoman Barbara Lee applauds $8 Million Department of Education grant to Oakland-based nonprofit Reading Partners
Press Release
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13) today applauded an $8 million Department of Education grant to Oakland-based Reading Partners, a national nonprofit that helps students in lower-income neighborhoods across the country to excel at reading.
The Education, Innovation, and Research grant will help expand the group's National Literacy Tutoring Program to support 16,000 students in grades K-4 annually, and will be used to assess how the program is improving the students' reading skills.
Reading Partners currently serves students in 12 regions across the country, including 500+ students at 14 partner schools in the East Bay cities of Oakland and San Lorenzo.
"I want to express my deepest gratitude to Reading Partners for its support of young students at under-resourced schools across the country, including right here in the East Bay," Congresswoman Lee said. "Programs like this are doing vital work to close the equity gap in our public schools. For generations, Black, Brown, and lower-income students in our public schools have been denied equitable resources and educational opportunities. Reading Partners is making a difference by giving those students the foundation they need to succeed in school and throughout their lives. Thank you to the Department of Education for supporting this critical program in my district and across the country."
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and the Subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Congresswoman Lee has fought for years for increased funding for the Education, Innovation, and Research Grant. In past years, the grant has significantly expanded educational opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), including computer science. The subcommittee is pushing to increase the budget for the grant by $60 million in the next fiscal year to a total of $254 million.
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