U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today announced a $500,000 grant to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Institute to help create the Partnership for Excellence in Latino Higher Education, a three-year initiative to increase parental involvement in K-12 schools in Latino communities across the country.

Inspired by the historic No Child Left Behind Act, the partnership seeks to develop effective outreach strategies to Latino parents in order to empower them with information and resources to increase the success of their children in school.

"The No Child Left Behind Act will help ensure that every child -- regardless of race, income or zip code -- receives a quality education," said Secretary Paige. "But if we're to achieve this bold goal, we must get parents and entire communities more involved in their children's education.  This grant will help us unleash the power of parental involvement in Latino communities throughout the United States."

"We are proud to have this opportunity to work with the Department of Education to close the information gap for Latino students and their families," said Sara Martinez Tucker, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.  "HSF and our public sector affiliate the HSF Institute are committed to ensuring greater academic success for this generation of college going Latino students."

Research has shown that parental involvement plays a key role in children's academic achievement and that an effective method for actively engaging Latino parents is to provide them with the information and effective resources necessary for them to play an active role in their children's education.  Much of what is currently available is not user-friendly, culturally relevant or distributed effectively.

The grant is from the department's Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), under the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.  The funds will be used to research and analyze the scope and effectiveness of existing resources; develop new materials; and create and implement a distribution strategy based upon need assessments in Latino communities.

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