Improving education for youth living in poverty

As part of its “Back to School” day on August 5, 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) introduced its “Coordinating Housing with Education”Initiative. The initiative is part of HUD’s effort to bridge the gap between poverty and education, by increasing the number of HUD-assisted households with school-aged children who have access to schools scoring at or above the local average. Providing low-income parents and guardians with access to information regarding local schools and their performance ratings is a key ingredient to this effort. Access to information can enable low-income parents to make informed educational choices for their children, and empower them to become further involved in their children’s education.

As part of this effort, HUD is partnering with the GreatSchools website, a free, user-friendly website which helps parents and guardians find good schools in their area. The website features over 200,000 public, charter, and private profiles of PreK-12 schools. The website is administered by GreatSchools, an independent, nonprofit organization, which aims to reach, engage, and influence parents to become actively involved in their child’s education.

Through HUD’s existing work with the Department of Education, its partnership with GreatSchools, and the work of the HUD Neighborhood Network Centers, which promote
self-sufficiency and provide technology access to residents living in HUD assisted communities, we will collectively work towards improving educational outcomes for children living in poverty.