AT&T announced a plan to donate $100 million over four years to programs aimed at boosting high-school graduation rates. Called AT&T Aspire, the program includes grants to schools and non-profit organizations, job shadowing for 100,000 students nationwide and the underwriting of national research exploring the drop out rate.
“In the United States, 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. This has implications for individuals and for our nation’s global economic leadership,” said AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, in a statement. “Investing in a well-educated workforce may be the single most important thing we can do to help America remain the leader in a digital, global economy.”
AT&T called its Aspire program “one of the largest-ever corporate commitments to high school retention and workforce readiness;” the program is set to begin later this month with the AT&T Foundation soliciting grant proposals from schools and local organizations focused on high school retention.
As part of the job shadowing initiative, the company will work with an organization called Junior Achievement to pair AT&T employees with students in grades 9-12, “so that students can…see first-hand the kinds of skills necessary to be successful in the workplace.”
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