The AT&T Foundation, the corporate philanthropy organization of AT&T Inc. has announced a $300,000 award to the National Education Association Foundation's Closing the Achievement Gap initiative. Chattanooga/Hamilton County is one of only four regions where the initiative will be piloted. In addition to Chattanooga the program will kick off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Seattle, Washington, and rural Ohio.

The NEA Foundation's Closing the Achievement Gap initiative is a large-scale pilot effort to close the achievement gaps between minority and disadvantaged students, while raising achievement for all students, by supporting collaborative efforts between local unions, school districts, and community partners to improve teaching and learning.

The AT&T Foundation grant builds on this work by funding efforts to increase STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) teaching and learning in grades 9 – 12 and to support systemic and district-level efforts that impact student achievement, dropout rates, student engagement and learning.

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, the United States ranks 21st of 30 in scientific literacy and 25th out of 30 in math among other developed nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Recent research indicates that only 20 percent of under-represented minority high school students have the requisite math courses to take STEM subjects at the college level.

"Our work in these pilots will play a critical role in learning how we can best ensure that American high school students are prepared for the next level of education," said NEA Foundation President and CEO Harriet Sanford. "By focusing what we have learned through our Gaps work on a specific need, STEM, by empowering educators to develop and use proven practices to address these needs, and by sharing what we have learned with other educators, we will improve teaching and learning in these schools, and most importantly, develop protocols that can be used by others. Our partnership with AT&T is an important extension of our work."

Through the initiative, educators will be provided with the opportunities to: support innovation in the classrooms and improve content to students; support teacher knowledge and growth; deliver engaging instruction through experimental learning opportunities; and connect community assets and resources in pursuit of increased student achievement, officials said.

"AT&T is proud to support the Closing the Achievement Gap initiative, which reinforces the importance of subjects like science and math, and tests new methods to improve learning in these critical areas, ,said Gregg Morton, president of AT&T Tennessee. “Through this important collaboration, the NEA Foundation is working to ensure that America's future workforce will remain strong and competitive in the new digital economy."

"We are very proud that our area will host one of the four pilot projects for this much needed science and math education initiative," said Mayor Claude Ramsey. "Preparing our young people for the jobs of the future is our highest priority and this is a great example of how the public and private sectors can work together to accomplish this goal."

In April, AT&T launched Aspire, a $100 million high school success and workforce readiness initiative. AT&T Aspire is the company's largest philanthropic commitment ever — and one of the largest-ever corporate commitments to address high school success and workforce readiness.