SOURCE Taps America Learns To Help 1,000 Los Angeles Students Get Into College
Innovative technology helps power new federally and privately funded collaborative
 
MISSION HILLS, CA – April 3, 2006 – America Learns announced today that Student Outreach for College Enrollment (SOURCE) has begun to use the National Performance Measurement and Support Network (“the America Learns Network”) to help 1,000 Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) students get into college. 

According to the 2006 California Educational Opportunity Report, only 23 percent of California high school seniors enroll in a four-year college or university, and the average student to college advisor ratio is 790 students to one.  In Los Angeles County, 18% of high school seniors enroll in four-year colleges and universities.

SOURCE – A New Federally and Privately Funded Collaborative
The U.S. Department of Education and the William T. Grant Foundation are funding SOURCE to determine whether the low-cost intervention can increase the number of low-income high school students taking the necessary steps to enroll in college.  The SOURCE collaborative is made up of the EdBoost Education Corporation, LAUSD, Berkeley Policy Associates and Professor Thomas Kane (Harvard Graduate School of Education).

In the SOURCE program, 1,000 LAUSD students have been matched with trained college student advisors, with a maximum ratio of 15 students to one advisor.  Advisors help their students through the college application and financial aid acquisition process from the spring of their junior year -- when they should be taking the SAT -- until they graduate from high school.  For the next 15 months, advisors will meet regularly with their students to help them choose colleges, fill out applications, write personal statements, and complete financial aid and scholarship applications.  

Additional information about SOURCE is available by calling Dr. Tiffani Chin at 866-886-0006 or visiting http://www.edboost.org/SOURCE.

The America Learns Network – A Key SOURCE Component
SOURCE is the latest program to select the America Learns Network to streamline its evaluation and reporting process while providing personalized, on-demand support to staff members working with students in the field.

“With 70 advisors working with 1,000 students all over Los Angeles, we face two huge challenges with SOURCE,” said Dr. Tiffani Chin, Director, SOURCE.  “How do we keep track of what the advisors are doing?  And, how can we provide fast, high-quality support to advisors working in the field?  From the moment we first tried the America Learns Network, we saw it as a solution to both problems. The America Learns Network is far more cost-effective than adding staff members, and it's faster, easier, and more reliable than any other system we investigated.”

“We’ve found that the America Learns Network costs organizations at least seventy percent less than hiring individuals to do the same work,” said Gary Kosman, founder and CEO, America Learns.  “I’m thrilled that SOURCE has selected the America Learns Network in its pilot year to get its managers the evaluation and tracking data they need while getting its college advisors the personalized, on-demand support they need.”

About America Learns
America Learns is headquartered in Mission Hills, California and is home to the National Performance Measurement & Support Network (the “America Learns Network”), an easy to use, cost effective Web-based service that helps organizations streamline their reporting and evaluation efforts, build institutional memory, and provide ongoing training and support to staff and volunteers working with students.  America Learns is the nationwide leader in helping nonprofit tutoring and mentoring programs provide superior support to their students, tutors, mentors and staff.  In 2003, the social venture capital organization Echoing Green seed funded America Learns out of a pool of nearly 1,000 applicants worldwide.