American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen: Station Grants

Public media has long been a trusted educational resource, providing students of all ages with programming and teachers with tools to help them better educate America's youth. Building on this reputation of trust, CPB launched American Graduate: Let's Make it Happen to deploy public media's network of locally-owned and operated radio and television stations to address one of the most challenging issues of our time, the dropout crisis. American Graduate supports the ongoing development of national and local content, engagement of local communities, and development and use of multimedia tools to deliver locally customized solutions that address the dropout crisis. CPB has worked with over 75 stations nationwide; including 25 communities that made an initial two-year commitment and took part in an early assessment confirming public media's vital role in helping communities work together to solve issues locally. American Graduate stations laid the foundation for sustained effort. As we look at a phase two plan involving new and continuing stations around the initiative, CPB seeks to tackle a larger set of connected issues impacting communities related to the dropout crisis, expand work in existing areas and in new communities for long term national results, and incorporate a community level framework for impact measurement. CPB will fund grant programs to support additional national and local content, expand stations' footprint across the country reaching greater geographic diversity and more students, and maintain teacher and parent resources for use in and outside the classroom based on assessments of community-level needs. CPB anticipates awarding grants to new stations or returning American Graduate stations. CPB is open to collaboration among multiple stations and community partners.