Dive Brief:
- President Barack Obama — accompanied by district leaders, mayors, athletes, and business leaders — on Monday announced the expansion of the $200 million "My Brother's Keeper" initiative at a school in the District of Columbia.
- The expansion sees 60 of the United States' major urban school districts sign on to the outcome improvement effort aimed at black and Latino boys.
- Nonprofit and private organizations will also support the effort, including the National Basketball Association (as well as two players associations), AT&T, the Emerson Collective, and the College Board.
Dive Insight:
This is a big deal for the initiative, as major urban districts tend to be places where minority youth fall through the cracks more easily. Among the partnerships forged with various organizations is a campaign that will see the NBA and its teams work with at-risk schools to create incentive programs and "lessons in leadership and teamwork" workshops, a $50 million contribution from Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective for a competition to design high schools that better serve underprivileged youth, and a $1.5 million "All In" push by the College Board to raise the number of boys of color who enroll in one or more Advanced Placement course.
