Written by: Benjamin Reese
Why did Jesus have to walk so much? Someone calculated that Jesus walked 3,125 miles during his ministry, and he was insistent that he do so. After a night of prayer he told his disciples, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do” (Mk. 1:37). This statement is curious because the disciples had just told him that people were looking for him (Mk. 1:36). In other words, they were telling him that he could have stayed put, and people would have come to him.
Jesus knew, however, that not everyone had the ability to come to him. Like our own world, Jesus lived in a world of unequal access to educational opportunities. If you were near Jerusalem or another major city, you had access to good schools; even then, you needed the money for admittance. In order to overcome this inequality, Jesus went where the people needed him.
What is the Education Gap?
In our world, we call this unequal distribution of educational resources and the resultant effect on a student’s performance the achievement or education gap. Certain populations have less access to opportunities because of their socio-economic status, or even location, and this creates a “gap” between these groups and others in terms of performance. For our organization, this problem has motivated us to find creative ways to get out and bring education to people. This has engendered a number of different programs, delivery systems, and projects all aimed at narrowing this gap.
G.O.D. Int’l Afterschool Program CASE Responds to the Education Gap Locally
Take CASE for example. Every Monday through Thursday, staff and volunteers drive to 4 different schools in Davidson County. From 4-6PM, they offer a free after-school program that provides homework help, academic lessons, and enriching activities. Students learn to think critically, solve problems, and work together. All the schools we work with are Title I schools, meaning that the school has a high concentration of low-income students.
Programs like CASE are all the more important after the Covid-19 lockdown. The lockdown (not surprisingly) affected student performance across the board, but it especially affected those populations that are subject to the education gap. Even during Covid, we were able to creatively offer both after-school and summer programming that served our CASE students.
G.O.D. Int’l Programs Address the Education Gap in Developing World
Our work to counteract the negative effects of lockdown and narrow the education gap is not limited to students in America. At the peak of the covid pandemic, 94% of students, or around 1.6 billion children, experienced school closure. Even to this day, around 700 million children are still studying from home. This has left families trying to navigate remote learning in an uncertain context. These are not just statistics for our organization. Our conversations with our cooperatives and friends in India, Uganda, The Philippines, and El Salvador has brought the many negative consequences of the lockdown into focus. In order to meet the educational needs of our friends, in the 2021/22 academic year we provided $80k in scholarships so that students could study online at The Institute for G.O.D. and The Academy for G.O.D. We’ve worked hard to offer online education that is easy to navigate, fun, interactive, and effective. It’s another way we are bringing education to where it’s needed most.
Children of the Miller family, Kazeema, Jenrose, Mac Mac and Exodus, have been able to participate in online education through the Academy for G.O.D., despite schools in the Philippines closing for long periods of time since 2020. The Millers minister with G.O.D. Int’l, operating the Tahanan Community Center.
The Education Gap & Summer Programming
Just as the Covid-19 lockdown greatly affected certain populations, these populations are also affected by summer learning loss, which refers to the performance loss that happens during summer breaks. On the other hand, students with access to summer camps or other educational programs experience decreased loss during the summer months. This is why we have made it a priority to offer summer programming like Camp Skillz.
There are so many ways we are bringing education where people need it most. The education gap is real, and we need your help to make sure all people have the opportunity to quality education.
Our Big Payback Goal to Close the Education Gap
Closing the education gap is our focus of this year’s Big Payback Fundraiser. This 24-hour regional event on May 4-5, 2022, hosted by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, invites Nashville nonprofits to raise awareness and funds for important causes. It’s our goal to raise $75k so that we can increase the amount of scholarships we offer, and continue to provide quality education opportunities to the disadvantaged. We invite you to join us on this day and help us in our efforts to close the education gap!
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