Absolute Return for Kids Us Inc

Filing Period

Sep 1, 2011 to Aug 31, 2012

Signed

Apr 8, 2013

Return Version

2011v1.5

Gross Receipts

$3,267,363

Mission

Major Activities

Activity 2

See schedule ointernational educationbuilding upon the success of the teaching leaders program in the uk, ark us has supported leading educators (le) in the us. Le, a national middle leadership program for americas disadvantaged schools, offers a rigorous two-year participant experience to build the skills of mid-level teacher-leaders in three key areas: school culture; leadership and management; and learning and teaching. In response to the needs of districts, schools, non-profits, and other organizations looking to develop teacher-leaders, in 2012, le launched the leading educators strategic support initiatives, which allows schools and districts to improve the efficacy of a broader set of teacher-leaders than those selected for the le fellowship. Since inception over 8,400 students have been directly impacted by a leading educators fellow and over 42,000 students have been indirectly impacted. Arks two education programs in india aim to have an immediate and profound impact on childrens life prospects. Arks english literacy program, aspire, gives children from deprived backgrounds the opportunity to improve their life chances by becoming proficient in the language. The phonics-based interactive teaching method used achieves rapid results, but until now, it was not widely accessible to children in government and low cost private schools. This year ark, through partnerships with two state governments and the bharti foundation, trained over 430 teachers and reached 18,500 students. Arks school access program, enable, offering children an affordable and quality primary education, is now being piloted in one of the poorest parts of delhi. The right to education act in india requires private schools to set aside a quarter of their places for non-fee paying children, in reality, take-up of these places has been slow. To ensure vulnerable children can benefit from the new law, ark identifies affordable schools with good standards, promotes them to poorer families and offers vouchers to cover additional schooling expenses such as uniforms and text books. The pilot of 635 pupils completed their first year academic year across 69 schools, retaining 97% of children enrolled. Both education programs offer long-term affordable approaches to indias education challenges and have the potential to expand nationally. Working in a unique public-private partnership with the ugandan government, ark and local organization peas (promoting equality in african schools) has launched and will run a network of state-funded secondary schools in rural uganda over the next five years. A high quality secondary school education transforms a childs life chances in africa. This is especially true for girls, for whom every extra year of secondary school adds 15%-25% to future earnings lowers the risk of hiv infection, leads to fewer unwanted pregnancies and minimizes the risk of suffering infant mortality. In conjunction with peas, our innovative new project in uganda will operate within the governments pioneering public-private partnership policy which encourages collaboration between non-state organizations and the government to deliver universal secondary education. The first two secondary schools opened in march 2012, where over 400 students are now enrolled. Ark will open a further eight schools by the end of 2014.

Filer

EIN

13-4147912