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SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today announced 22 grantees will receive $5.7 million in Migrant Education Even Start (MEES) grants. For the list of grantees, please visit Funding Results: Migrant Education Even Start.

"Migrant families must move from town to town to earn a living and that is very disruptive for their children because of the loss of continuity in their education," said O'Connell. "The Migrant Education Even Start grants help level the playing field to give these children a chance to catch up and meet the same challenging state academic content and achievement standards that all children are expected to meet."

A child is considered a "migrant" if the parent or guardian has moved during the past three years mostly to follow seasonal work in the agricultural, dairy, lumber, or fishing industries. The MEES program is a home-based and school-based family literacy education model. Migrant parents may receive services to enhance literacy levels, expand parenting skills, and learn English-as-a-second language. Their migrant children aged from newborn to 7 years old may receive early childhood and preschool services. In fiscal year 2005-06, the latest data available, about 11,967 parents and 11,135 children enrolled in MEES.

MEES is a federal grant authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act that was modeled after the William F. Goodling Even Start Family Literacy programs. That program was named in honor of its original Congressional sponsor and advocate, William F. Goodling.  Projects are funded collaboratively by the California Department of Education, Even Start Office, the California First 5 Commission, and the Migrant Education Regions. There are 23 Migrant Education Regions at 332 sites statewide.

In this round of grants, local educational agencies with established regional migrant education offices already funded through the California Department of Education were eligible to receive continued MEES funding. Allocations were based on the number of sites, parents, children served, and the number of identified migrant children, 3 to 7 years old. For more information on MEES, please visit Past Funding Profile (ID 1077): Migrant Education Even Start.

"The Migrant Education Even Start grant is also one tool to help us narrow the persistent and disturbing achievement gap that exists not only between rich and poor students, but also between students who are African American or Latino and their peers who are white or Asian," added O'Connell.

O'Connell is addressing the achievement gap by holding an unprecedented meeting of the minds of national education stakeholders during his Achievement Gap Summit this November. For more information, please visit Closing the Achievement Gap - Initiatives, Projects, & Programs.