The Michigan-based philanthropies the W.K. Kellogg and Kresge Foundations are each donating $25 million to improve early-childhood education in Detroit.
Increasing access to early-childhood education and improving the quality of those programs are a big part of their Hope Starts Here Community Framework. It was devised through a yearlong process that brought together more than 18,000 people from across Detroit to brainstorm on the problems facing young children and families in the city and how to solve them. That group included parents, early-childhood educators, health-care providers, and representatives from local and state government, as well as leaders from the business community and philanthropic organizations.
The need in the city is great: More than 60 percent of children 5 and younger live in poverty, about 13 out of every 1,000 babies born in Detroit die before their first birthday, and 87 percent of Detroit’s 3rd graders are not reading at grade level.
