What is Educare?
Educare is a research-based Program that prepares, at-risk children for school.
Through a coast-to-coast network of state-of-the-art, full-day, year-round schools, funded mostly by existing public dollars, Educare serves at-risk children from birth to 5 years. Each Educare School embraces a community's most vulnerable children with programming and instructional support that develop early skills and nurture the strong parent-child relationships that create the foundation for successful learning.
Educare is a:
- Program based on the best of early education practices that ensure the school readiness of children most at risk for academic failure
- Place of early learning that sends a clear message that we must invest in early childhood education because children are born learning
- Partnership comprised of philanthropists, Head Start and Early Head Start providers, and school officials dedicated to narrowing the achievement gap for children in their communities
- Platform for raising awareness of the value and vital importance of learning during a child's first five years of life.
Narrowing the Achievement Gap
Research shows that children who experience Educare for a full five years arrive at school performing on par with average kindergarteners, regardless of their socio-economic standing. Educare children have more extensive vocabularies and are better able to recognize letters, numbers and colors than their peers.
Children who attend an Educare School also develop strong social skills, including self-confidence, persistence and methods to manage frustration. All of these abilities are strong predictors for later success in academics and in life. What's more, early findings indicate the gains Educare children make hold as they move through elementary school.