Rep. Fattah Celebrates GEAR UP Successes Coast to Coast

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As GEAR UP students nationwide march across the stage to receive their hard-won high school diplomas, Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA), architect of the widely successful college readiness program, is traveling to meet and congratulate some of these new graduates.

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Since being signed into law in 1998, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) has prepared some 12 million students from inner cities and low income families, starting in the sixth grade and continuing through high school graduation, to enter college – and to succeed.  GEAR UP is the largest pre-college awareness program in the nation's history, operating in 49 states with a federal investment totaling almost $3 billion.

"GEAR UP is the perfect example of what we can accomplish when we put the dreams and aspirations of our children's future first," said Fattah, who created GEAR UP and guided it to enactment. "We have created a college-going culture among young people who never thought they could take that next critical step in education."

"When we help these young people achieve their potential we are helping to keep the United States number one in the world," Fattah said. "Make no mistake, to compete in the global economy we must use every resource, and that means every young person who might have been written off. With GEAR UP we are writing these young people back in for our nation's advancement."

Fattah, a nine-term Congressman and nationally recognized leader in education reform, has made it a point throughout his career to meet with GEAR UP students and their instructors. In recent months that has taken him to New York City and Oklahoma as well as Germantown High School in his own Congressional District in Philadelphia.

In the coming week, Fattah will keynote the graduation ceremonies honoring about 80 GEAR UP students from Fairmont Heights High School in Prince Georges County, Maryland, taking place this evening (June 3) in Hyattsville. About 1,300 students at Fairmont Heights are enrolled in GEAR UP in all grades.

On Tuesday, Fattah travels to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he will meet with GEAR UP student leaders representing more than 1,400 GEAR UP students in three local high schools. Among this year's GEAR UP graduates from the Yale University-GEAR UP Partnership, more than 90 percent intend to continue on to college.

"This is graduation season, and there is great news about GEAR UP from coast to coast," Fattah said.

Fattah pointed to Valley High School in Elk Grove, California, outside Sacramento, a school with a troubled history, that is graduating its first cohort of GEAR UP students – those who have been in the program since seventh grade. Valley High reports that an astonishing 94 percent of seniors from that first GEAR UP cohort received their diplomas last month.

Closer to home, Dundalk High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, another challenged school, is reporting that 71 percent of its first GEAR UP graduating class this spring plan to attend college – up from 50 percent a year ago. Those students are in line for $1.25 million in college scholarships to continue along an educational path that many have could never have envisioned without GEAR UP.

"To really make a difference in a child's life," Fattah said, "we must instill in them the unwavering belief that if they dare to dream, if they work hard, and are given the tools to achieve educational success, then they will be able to go to college. That's what GEAR UP is all about."

NOTE – Contact Ron Goldwyn for details on Congressman Fattah's upcoming GEAR UP appearances.

SOURCE Office of Congressman Chaka Fattah