The educational advancement alliance, INC., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization, located in west philadelphia, proposes to continue its partnership with the national aeronautics and space…

The educational advancement alliance, INC., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization, located in west philadelphia, proposes to continue its partnership with the national aeronautics and space administration (NASA) in performing the student and teacher support services project. The program is designed to address academic deficiencies, improve teacher and student skill level in the areas of math, science, and technology, increase high school graduation and college admission rates of its participants and to continue to attract a diverse population to careers in science and technology and other NASA-related disciplines. The purpose of the project for student and teacher support services is to provide public school students and faculty with the academic assistance, counseling and career guidance, motivation and enrichment needed to continue their educational and personal growth. EAA has established and implemented a series of programs to accomplish this purpose. The programs address the needs of students and through academic, career, personal, and financial aid counseling; basic skills instruction and tutoring; after-school, and summer academic programs; workshops and cultural/recreational activities. These activities are all designed to enable students to overcome obstacles to academic progress, to introduce them to or further develop their interest and skill level in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, beginning at the pre-k and elementary levels, to create a positive learning environment, and to ensure that students are successful in completing high school and are prepared for college. Eaas programs also serve to address the need to cure resource deficiencies, and level the academic playing field in a manner that can improve the competitive advantage of historically disadvantaged and diverse populations. Extensive monitoring and evaluation techniques are employed to ensure that empirical evidence of program accomplishments can be recorded. The project activities are coordinated with the schools throughout the school district of philadelphia, local colleges and universities, historically black colleges and universities (hbcu), and other academic programs in order to leverage all available resources toward the improvement of program participants' academic performance. EAA employs educated and experienced personnel and consultants including program and project directors, program managers and assistants, instructors, tutors, curriculum coordinators, reading/writing specialists and peer mentors to work closely with the students in delivering services. Training and evaluation is ongoing to maintain a high performance level. Special attention and focus will be placed, where appropriate and feasible, to employ and engage persons who are members of groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in technical disciplines. There remains a pressing need for a student and teacher enrichment project in and around the city of philadelphia to address the academic needs of the students described herein. Continued funding of the student support services project will enable EAA and NASA to establish additional services and to improve and expand those current services as necessary. While EAA has strengthened its relationships with cheyney, delaware state, drexel, lincoln, temple universities, and the university of the sciences in philadelphia, we anticipate that NASA will once again be our primary sponsor for these programs. EAA continues to investigate and identify complementary funding sources and have submitted a number of proposals for competitive grant funding. EAA actively solicits your input, feedback, and suggestions as we seek to continuously improve our NASA-sponsored programs. As a part of NASA's existing network, we continue to expand our utilization of the programming that is offered via the website. We have also taken advantage of the opportunity on a number of occasions to bring students, faculty, and EAA staff t