School the World

I believe that School the World has achieved substantial impact over 11 years and it is time for the world to know about it!

Through deep community engagement, we have built 106 schools and 56 playgrounds, stocked 519 libraries, trained 2,653 teachers and empowered 7,000+ parents, providing quality education to 11,948 children. When COVID-19 began, these community relationships allowed us to pivot immediately to reach students through WhatsApp, radio, phone tutoring and more. By 2025, we will reach 250 schools educating 25,000 children, indirectly impacting 125,000+ children.

More importantly, a retroactive statistical analysis at our first two schools showed higher 1st grade passing and school completion rates and reduced dropout rates (from 50% to 25% and recently orally reported as 3%). Surveys of students, teachers and parents showed improved morale, universal recognition of a parent’s role as the first educator, greater adherence to the school schedule and increased teacher accountability.

I would use the award funds to hire a writer to coauthor a book about the journey of School the World, scale our newest initiative to guarantee access to lower-secondary school and launch an advocacy initiative to promote education as the most viable solution to the Central American migration crisis.

At 43 years old, I was an attorney/executive at GE when I suddenly lost my brother and both parents in 21 months. Overwhelmed by the community outpouring to honor these lifelong public servants, I began to question my own path. 

I walked away from my legal career and what I thought would be a month off to rejuvenate turned into more than a year of traveling around the world. During my travels, I visited a Zambian village where children walked through crocodile-infested waters just to get to school and a Tanzanian classroom where 12 children shared two pencils. In Argentina, I saw children working under the hot sun and begging in the streets instead of going to school. Moved by the injustice of it all, I started School the World at 45 years old to help the poorest children know the joy of learning and realize the promise of education: a path out of extreme poverty.

Our goal is to prove with enough scale and data that simple resources and basic capacity-building can transform failing rural schools into centers of learning with ambitions and hope for the future. This is the solution to the Central America migration crisis.

Pre-pandemic, 258 million children were out of school (UIS data). Add another 1.6 billion due to COVID-19. Children in Latin America have already lost on average 4X more school days compared to the rest of the world (UNICEF). Even before the pandemic, in low-middle income countries, more than 50% of children could not read by age 10 (WorldBank). An OECD study in Guatemala and Honduras leads inescapably to the conclusion that few 15 year olds know how to read. This education crisis is urgent.  

School the World operates in the poorest parts of Guatemala, Honduras and Panama with marginalized, rural, and largely indigenous communities. Learning levels are low and resources scarce. Teachers are poorly trained and not accountable. Uneducated parents do not engage in their children’s education.

We believe that basic resources, coupled with capacity-building of parents and teachers, can dramatically improve the quality of education and lead to reduced dropout rates and higher completion rates. Our holistic programming begins with early childhood, ensuring school readiness; continues to primary school, emphasizing literacy and social-emotional learning, parent empowerment and engagement; and extends through lower secondary school, providing the digital and life skills needed to chart a path out of poverty.

Our work is innovative in several respects: 

1. We begin each intervention with a unique public-private partnership. Local government pays for 50% of infrastructure materials, philanthropy covers 50%, and the community donates land and labor. This simultaneously stretches philanthropic resources and broadens ownership in the school’s success.
2. Our strategy is unique and disruptive in the depth of commitment asked of local communities. With a written agreement, they donate land, labor and scarce funds for books and attend five years of parent training.
3. Our innovative library challenge invites parents to contribute what they can for books and we match this contribution by 5 in the 1st year, 4 in the 2nd, etc., building classroom libraries and a culture of investing in school.
4. Our parent training is innovative and disruptive, empowering parents to become “the first educators” and to hold truant teachers and complicit government agencies accountable. Empowered parents stop chronic teacher absenteeism, one of the most egregious failures of government for poor, marginalized rural communities.
5. Our innovative COVID programming ranges from WhatsApp support groups for at-risk girls, a “radionovela” for parents, inexpensive smartphones for scholarship recipients, a phone tutoring program, and a virtual “catch-up” teacher training program.

We focus on education because education increases income, delays the age of marriage, advances gender equity, reduces crime and violence and spurs civic engagement. It is simply the best return on investment. 

We begin with infrastructure, greatly valued by communities/parents. The construction allows us to build a relationship of trust and mutual respect. Our parent engagement starts with small contributions for books and continues with training on parents as “the first educators”, a child’s right to an education, and the obligations of teachers and the government. Meanwhile, our early childhood program works with mothers and infants (0-4) on key developmental milestones and school readiness.    

We improve teacher morale with new resources, and capacity with extensive training on early grade reading and math, classroom management, and socio-emotional skills. If these interventions do not convert a previously truant teacher, our newly empowered parents assert accountability and demand change. With children starting school ready to learn and developing the foundational skills in primary school, they will want to continue their education. At that point, we provide middle school scholarships or offer an independent study opportunity. Trainings are provided that cover teenage pregnancy, the rights of women and girls, and life planning.