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"ABCmouse.com is a global education initiative of Age of Learning, Inc. Our goal is to help children build a strong foundation for future academic success by providing a comprehensive and engaging online curriculum to greatly assist early learners to succeed in pre-k, kindergarten, and early elementary school programs. ABCmouse.com is subscription-based, with no advertising, pop-up ads, or links to other sites. Children can learn and explore with their parents, or on their own (depending on age and ability), in a safe and secure online educational environment. We named our site ABCmouse.com because here children can learn important educational basics (often referred to as "the ABC's") through the use of a computer mouse, thus ABCmouse.com. At ABCmouse.com, the computer mouse comes to life as ABC Mouse, who serves as our site ambassador and guide to early learners everywhere."

"Our Strategy: The National Urban League employs a five-point approach to provide economic empowerment, educational opportunities and the guarantee of civil rights for African Americans. Education and Youth Empowerment ensures the education of all children by providing access to early childhood literacy, after-care programs and college scholarships. Economic Empowerment invests in the financial literacy and employability of adults through job training, homeownership and entrepreneurship. Health and Quality of Life Empowerment promotes community wellness through a focus on prevention, including fitness, healthy eating and access to affordable healthcare. Civic Engagement and Leadership Empowerment encourages all people to take an active role to improve quality of life through participation in community service projects and public policy initiatives. Civil Rights and Racial Justice Empowerment guarantees equal participation in all facets of American society through proactive public policies and community-based programs."

The Promising Practices Network (PPN) is a group of individuals and organizations who are dedicated to providing quality evidence-based information about what works to improve the lives of children, families, and communities. Who runs PPN? This project is operated by the RAND Corporation, the nation's original "think tank." RAND is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. Long recognized as one of the world's premier research organizations, RAND produces work of enduring value-research and analysis that is prized and respected for its quality, innovation, comprehensiveness, and objectivity. The wide dissemination of its findings is an equally important part of RAND's mission: research must be readily accessible to policymakers if it is to have impact on the public good. RAND brings to PPN extensive experience in the child policy arena, with more than 150 researchers and consultants working in areas such as child health, juvenile justice, education, child care, labor, and demographics. RAND's analysis has shaped public policy on a range of problems facing young people, including prenatal health, substance abuse, firearms violence, and early childhood interventions.

"The U.S. Department of Education is developing a new National Educational Technology Plan to provide a vision for how information and communication technologies can help transform American education. The plan will provide a set of concrete goals that can inform state and local educational technology plans as well as inspire research, development, and innovation. A draft plan is expected in early 2010. To gather input about improving education through the innovative use of technology, edtechfuture.org collected statements, written resources, and examples from the public from August 30-December 6, 2009. The comment period is now closed as the plan development team reviews submissions from the field. Thank you to all who shared their experience and expertise."

"The graduates of today and tomorrow enter into a world that requires them to be engineering-literate and technologically savvy. The integration of engineering education in grades P-12 will better arm students with essential tools and skills to enter into the workforce or postsecondary education. Additionally, due to a 20 percent slip in the number of engineers graduating from U.S. institutions and with more than half of the U.S. workforce in the sciences and engineering approaching retirement age, the need for a diverse group of students interested in and prepared to study engineering in college is ever growing. It is essential that young engineers from the U.S. be involved in the next generation of innovative ideas that support our society's needs. This interest and drive to participate in engineering must be fostered at an early age. INSPIRE is dedicated to addressing the downward trends in engineering interest, preparedness, and representation; to transforming P-12 education to include engineering; to preparing a globally competitive engineering workforce; and ultimately to creating a society of engineering-literate citizens."

"Hello, kids! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Benjamin Franklin. I will be your guide throughout this site. You probably know me best as a Founding Father and from my "shocking" kite experiment. I have been chosen to represent GPO Access since I was involved in setting up the first public library in America and my work during the early days of government printing has led some people to give me the honorary title of "first public printer" of the United States."

"American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO The American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was founded in 1916 and represents nearly 3,000 local affiliates nationwide, 43 state affiliates and more than 1.4 million members. Five divisions within the AFT represent the broad spectrum of the AFT's membership: pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; and nurses and other healthcare professionals. In addition, the AFT represents approximately 80,000 early childhood educators and nearly 250,000 retiree members. The AFT is governed by its elected officers and by delegates to the union's biennial convention, which sets union policy. Elected leaders are Randi Weingarten, president; Antonia Cortese, secretary-treasurer; Lorretta Johnson, executive vice president; and a 39-member executive council. Many well-known Americans have been AFT members, including John Dewey, Albert Einstein, Hubert Humphrey, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, former Senate Majority Leader and Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield, former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, and former United Nations Under-Secretary and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche."

"Half the Sky offers the love and concern of family for thousands of orphaned children in China who have lost theirs. Our goal is to ensure that every one of China's orphans has a caring adult in her life. We provide individual nurture and stimulation for babies, innovative preschools that encourage an early love of learning, personalized learning opportunities for older children, and loving - and most important, permanent - foster homes for children whose special needs will keep them from being adopted. To learn more about our beginnings and how far we've come in our effort to reach the thousands of children who wait in China's welfare institutions, read our story"

"The Accident Cynthia Howroyd, a speech language pathologist and clinical director, created AutismPro after becoming frustrated with her attempts to provide efficient and affordable guidance to those working with children with autism. In 2001, Cynthia was working with no funding or trained autism personnel on staff when she became unable to travel for several months due to a car accident. While she recuperated, she used the pause in her hectic schedule to think about how to continue to meet her clients' needs. She began imagining creative ways of applying technology to the problem. A Unique Approach Understanding how the expertise of professionals, the internet, expert system software, and online learning might be combined into a single solution, she developed the vision of a 'virtual autism clinic' that would dramatically increase accessibility to treatment guidance. Success! After three years of struggle and determination, Cynthia gathered a team of experts to begin Virtual Expert Clinics Inc. in 2004. In 2006, Virtual Expert Clinics launched their first product, AutismPro Professional, designed to help caregivers design and deliver tailored intervention plans for young children with autism. Helping Schools and Clinics With strong interest from school districts and early intervention centers across North America and worldwide, Virtual Expert Clinics has developed a package of software and consulting, training, and program-design services to help these institutions deliver autism programming to improve child outcomes. A Growing Group of Worldwide Users AutismPro is being used by over 1,000 individuals and organizations in a dozen countries. Virtual Expert Clinics has established high profile re-seller partnerships in Poland (SOTIS), Australia (Autism Spectrum Australia), and The Netherlands (Fontys University)."