The National Urban League has been awarded a $2.7 million two-and-a-half-year grant for its project to improve student reading achievement and increase urban communities' knowledge about the No Child Left Behind Act, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced today.

"The National Urban League is one of the nation's premiere civil rights organizations and has a vast network of people across the country," Paige said. "I'm confident that they'll do an outstanding job of expanding their literacy efforts and increasing many urban communities' knowledge of No Child Left Behind."

The National Urban League will use the grant to add eight Reading Information Centers to an existing project; enhance their after-school programs in four communities; and engage parents, caregivers, and communities in a conversation around the opportunities available to them under No Child Left Behind.

The grant is from the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), which supports nationally significant programs and projects to improve the quality of education and to help all students meet challenging standards. Activities funded by FIE grants provide professional, curriculum and assessment development, and demonstration programs aimed at improving elementary and secondary education.

The National Urban League is dedicated to ensuring that children are well-educated and equipped for economic self-reliance in the 21st century. To carry out this mission, the league's affiliates enact programs that serve children from kindergarten through high school, and on through college. For more information, visit www.nul.org, or contact (212) 558-5300.

More information about the No Child Left Behind Act is available at www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml?src=pb.

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