Our Mission
Bridging The Digital Divide (BDD) is a nonprofit
organization created to enhance the academic and technology skills of
our nation's youth and adults, thereby bridging academic, economic and
social divides that exist throughout our communities. The strategy is to
provide every American Family in spite of their income, with a computer
with broadband Internet accessibility in their home.
To accomplish this mission, BDD partners with
businesses that donate their used computers. BDD rebuilds these units,
installs software programs, and recycles the computers by placing them
with organizations that work with children, the elderly, physically
challenged and low-income families. As a result, their education is
enhanced through the use of computer technology and educational
software.
The Following Alarming
Statistics Justify Our Mission
Ø
50 percent of black teenage girls studied were infected
with at least one STD reports Statistics Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. (1 out of 4 female teen was infected with an STD)
Ø Rice University study concludes 135,000 drop out of
high school annually in Texas, an overall graduation rate of 33%.
60 percent of the African American students, 75 percent of Latino
students and 80 percent of ESL students did not graduate within five
years Rice University Researchers report.
Ø Recent studies put the cost of dropouts to all Texas
taxpayers at $377 million a year, every year, over the lifetime of
the Texas dropout - compounded by next year's cost of dropouts. Crime
goes up and more prisons are needed. Medicaid costs go up and dreams are
broken. Over the past 20 years, 2.5 million kids have dropped out of
Texas schools, creating an ongoing cost to taxpayers and our economy of
billions of dollars.
Ø In the Fondren southwest area of Houston there are
12,000 plus single parents, over 42,000 adults without high school
diploma’s, and thousands of non-English speaking immigrants.
Ø
In the 900 Unit Pines Of Westbury Apartment Complex (Southmain
& Hillcroft) there are approximately 2400 residents in the Pines
Apartments and 80% of the residents live in single female head of
household and earn less than $16,000 annually.
Ø 21% of Houstonians, over 450,000 people, live at or
below the poverty line. 80,000 children live in Houston families that
experience hungry. (Channel 2 reported this during their 2008 super Bowl
food drive)
Ø California and Texas are some of the state that
determine how many prison cells to build for the future by how many
third grade boys can read.
Ø
Life Keeps Getting Worse for Black Men in U.S.By
Erik Eckholm The New York Times, Tuesday,
March 21, 2006
The plight of black men in the United
States is far more dire than is portrayed by common employment and
education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has
worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul
brought gains to black women and many other groups.
Ø Black Women 20 Time More
Likely To Get Infected With Aids.
In 2003, the rate of new
AIDS cases for black women was 20 times that of white women and five
times greater than the infection rate for Latinas, according to a report
by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black and Hispanic
women accounted for 77 percent of all new AIDS infections in 1994. Nine
years later, the rate was 85 percent, according to the agency
Ø Digital Divide Still
Separates Students, (By Ben
Feller The Associated Press)
Many more white children
use the Internet than do Hispanic and black students, "This creates
incredible barriers for minorities," said Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at
the Center for American Progress and an analyst on how communications
influence civil rights. Not using the Internet "narrows their ability to
even think about the kind of work they can be doing," Lloyd said. "It
doesn't prepare them for a world in which they're going to be expected
to know how to do these things."
Returns on investment in education and
development programs from infancy to young adulthood,
Per dollar spent: Prenatal: $3.01
Infancy: $4.42
Preschool: $7.94
ç
School-age: $1.66
Youth job training:
$0.45
Paper: Houston
Chronicle Date: THU 01/22/2004
ILLITERACY FACTS
Why We Should Be Eradicating Illiteracy
- Only one-third of America's fourth-graders are
able to read at a proficient level.
- Only one out of every six African-American and
one out of every five Hispanic high school seniors are proficient in
reading (NAEP).
- Among Hispanic fourth-graders only 16 percent
read at a proficient level.
- 68% of low-income 4th graders
cannot read at the proficient level. (NAEP, 2000)
- A majority of reading problems
can be prevented in preschool and the early grades. (NRC, 1998)
- National studies show that the return on
investment per dollar spent is nearly $8 for preschool students
compared to less than $2 for school age children and less than 50¢
for youth job training.
- There is a 90% chance that a
poor reader at the end of 1st grade will be a poor reader at the end
of 4th grade. (Juel, 1988)
- A majority of reading problems
can be prevented in preschool and the early grades. (NRC, 1998)
- Children in high-quality
preschools display better language, cognitive and social skills than
children who attended low-quality programs. (Cost, Quality and
Outcomes, 1999)
- low-income students lag behind their
counterparts by an average of 20 percentile points on national
assessment tests
- The
immediate benefits
of early childhood reading are higher math and reading scores, lower
grade retention rates, lower special education referrals, and lower
dropout rates.
- The long-term benefits of early readers are
higher graduation rates, higher earnings, lower unemployment, and
lower crime rate.
- "Two thirds of students who can not read
proficiently by the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare,"
said Louisa Moats, EdD, a nationally-acclaimed reading specialist.
- It is almost without exception, that
illiterates feel ashamed, stupid and unwanted. They tend to
disengage from society, are truant from school, join gangs and
become involved in drugs, and crime.
- Over seventy five percent of children are in
private child-care centers, where educational quality varies widely.
Only about 7.4 percent of the area's child care facilities have
preschool programs accredited by the National Association for the
Education of Young Children. In the Houston area, for example, most
of those are in Houston's more affluent west-side neighborhoods.
- After learning how to read, only 15 percent of
those in penal institutions are ever arrested again as opposed to
over 70 percent when they remain illiterate.
- Increasing literacy has also been shown to
benefit children in other subjects, such as social studies, math and
science and increases their ability to be employed as adults.
- At least 50% of the unemployed are
functionally illiterate.
- On average, a functionally illiterate adult
earns 42% less than a high school graduate.
- It is estimated that $5 billion a year in
taxes goes to support people receiving public assistance who axe
unemployable due to illiteracy.
- People with less than 6 years of schooling are
4 times more likely to be receiving public assistance than those
attaining 6 years or more.
- 27% of army enlistees can't read training
manuals written at the 7th grade level.
- 55% of all children in poverty live in
single-parent households headed by women, and 40% of all single
mothers have an 8th grade education or less.
- Youngsters whose parents are functionally
illiterate are twice as likely as their peers to be functionally
illiterate themselves.
North Forest School District (Houston
Texas)
(Largest Black Managed School District In
The State)
The following Information was released from the
2007 TEA AEIS Report.
163Total Graduated S.B. Smiley High School: 7
were college ready
171Total Graduated Forest Brook High School: 7
were college readyy
2007 Region College Ready (Math) 55%
2007 North Forest College Ready (Math) 15%
2007 Region College Ready (English) 55%
2007 North Forest College Ready (English)15%
2006 Region College Ready (Math) 55%
2006 North Forest College Ready (Math) 8%
2006 Region College Ready (English) 50%
2006 North Forest College Ready (English) 8%
North Forest students:
96% Economically Disadvantaged
North Forest students: 65% At-Risk (students who have not been adequately served by social
service or educational systems and are at risk of educational failure
due to lack of services, negative life events, or physical or mental
challenges, among others.) |
