Dallas City of Learning

MEDIA CONTACT Mario Tarradell Big Thought mario.tarradell@bigthought.org 469-­‐916-­‐9825 DALLAS CITY OF LEARNING, MACARTHUR FOUNDATION, JOHN LEGEND AND TOP U.S. COMPANIES UNITE TO BUILD NEW ‘ECOSYSTEM OF LEARNING’ ‘LRNG’ to Create 21st Century Paths to Success for All Youth (DALLAS, October 6, 2015) – Today Dallas City of Learning, managed by Big Thought in partnership with the Dallas Mayor’s office, along with three other Cities of Learning, national education, technology and corporate leaders, merged under the new LRNG initiative. LRNG is a bold new endeavor to close the nation’s opportunity gap – the sharp and growing divide between young people who have access to 21st century opportunities and those who don’t. The new platform takes effect in Dallas in Spring 2016. LRNG has joined forces with Gap Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs, Electronic Arts, the Schultz Family Foundation and Grammy Award-­‐winning musical artist John Legend, along with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, to launch a movement that combines in-­‐school, out-­‐of-­‐school, employer-­‐based and online learning experiences into a seamless network that is open and inviting to all youth. Locally, we thank the current support of Bank of America, Best Buy, City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, DART, Fossil Foundation, Microsoft, NBC Universal, and many more generous sponsors. “With the support of Cities of LRNG, we're now part of a national network that channels resources towards local cities, broadening our program offerings for students,” said Gigi Antoni, President and CEO of Big Thought. “Young people will be able to explore even more options, and earn digital badges credentialing their out-­‐of-­‐school learning from across the country.” LRNG is powered by Collective Shift, a new nonprofit funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation and dedicated to redesigning social systems for the connected age. Connie Yowell, former Director of Education at MacArthur, and Jessica Lindl, who ran GlassLab, a leading developer of next-­‐generation learning games, are the LRNG leaders. LRNG plans to progress rapidly by combining a city-­‐based strategy with global online reach. Collective Shift will scale the work of vanguard cities, including Dallas, as well as grow the program to 70 cities in three years. “Every young person deserves access to learning that engages, inspires and equips them to reach their full potential, and the LRNG goal is to make that a reality,” said Yowell. “Together with committed partners from every sector, we plan to build LRNG across the country and around the world.” Since 2014, Dallas City of Learning has served 34,743 students via 1,753 programs encompassing 285,140 hours of student learning while earning digital badges for exemplary work in science, art, computer literacy, design and many more. Since the DCoL launch, 37,727 digital badges were earned. “Dallas City of Learning, now Dallas LRNG, will continue to give youth the opportunity to learn in potent, pertinent and stimulating ways,” says Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. “By tapping into a variety of strong resources throughout the city – parents, schools, cultural institutions and corporations – we can broaden the reach of top-­‐notch education programming allowing every young person to keep learning.” Cities of LRNG will build on the success of a three-­‐year demonstration project in Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. that served more than 100,000 youth during recent summer programming. Cities of LRNG will network the rich learning opportunities available at schools, creative camps and classes, science museums, and workplace internships and link them to the larger LRNG ecosystem. LRNG will fulfill the promise of learning in the connected age, making in-­‐person and online experiences visible, available and inviting to all youth. Educational attainment is tightly connected to future earnings in the modern economy. But family income often predicts how high young people will reach. Only 9% of 24-­‐year-­‐olds from low-­‐income families held a college degree in 2013, compared to 77% of those from top-­‐earning families. Meanwhile, 40% of U.S. employers have jobs they cannot fill because applicants lack required skills. “We need all hands on deck,” Lindl said. “This is a challenge no one institution alone can address. LRNG is calling on businesses, cities, nonprofits and others to join us in transforming the learning landscape and closing the opportunity gap.” For more information about LRNG, visit www.LRNG.org and follow @WeAreLRNG on Twitter. ### About Big Thought For more than 25 years, Big Thought has worked to innovate education in Dallas by
providing youth with access to creative learning programs to help them imagine possibilities, excel
academically and contribute to their community. Driven by its mission to make imagination a part of
everyday learning, Big Thought develops campus and community based programs that impact academic
achievement and address youth development by connecting classroom objectives and traditional
teaching methods with arts, culture and creative learning. Through its partnerships, Big Thought serves
more than 100,000 Dallas children, families and teachers each year, both in and out of the classroom.
Learn more at http://www.bigthought.org/