A Classroom Is More Than Four Walls

Building schools is the easy part. Keeping a trained teacher standing in front of thirty children, year after year, is the work that actually moves the numbers.

A donor can fund a school building in a single gift and see a photograph within the year. Teacher salaries, textbooks and in-service training need a commitment measured in years, which is why they are chronically underfunded everywhere.

Our education program now spends more on people than on construction. Where a building already exists, we would rather repair its roof and pay its teachers than raise a new one down the road.

The measurable result is retention. In the three districts where we have funded salaries for four consecutive years, teacher turnover has fallen from above forty percent to under ten, and literacy scores have followed.

This is the case for monthly giving in a nutshell. A recurring gift is what lets us promise a teacher a job next September.