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How the Program Helps
Our recipients generally come from among the Bay Area's worst-performing
public schools; whereas all evidence from the private schools the Guardsmen
support indicates they are doing a superior job imparting basic skills in
more disciplined environments. No parent has ever returned one of our kids
to public school out of dissatisfaction. The rapid increase of new applications
to our program, fueled entirely by word of mouth, also reflects the
effectiveness of the program's approach.
Independent research consistently shows improved
outcomes for disadvantaged children once shifted into private schools. Importantly,
research also indicates eventual performance improvements by public schools exposed to
competition from scholarship programs such as ours.
Our program is highly efficient, with more than 95% of funds going directly
to scholarships. This efficiency ratio is significantly higher than that
of the typical charitable group due to our lack of marketing expenses
and other overhead. The Guardsmen Scholarship Program is thus
dramatically more efficient than most other philanthropic efforts
aimed at education reform; its one-kid-at-a-time approach gives a
better chance in life to our recipients without incurring the costs
of reforming the entire public education system.
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