McGraw Hill, MLK holiday commission celebrate new scholarship opportunity
Colorado students will soon be eligible for a new scholarship tailored to historically Black colleges and universities. The Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission has been working with McGraw Hill to develop a curriculum centered around Dr. King's philosophy.
The curriculum "Civil Rights: A Global Perspective" dives into social justice.
"This curriculum focuses on students examining the principles of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Those principles are freedom, perseverance, hope, justice, and conscience," said Nicole Harris, vice president of School Impact at McGraw Hill. "Everyone needs to have those principles and be thinking about those principles as they're becoming active citizens in America."
Graduates of historically Black colleges and universities often leave school with more debt than their non-HBCU peers. McGraw Hill saw an opportunity to turn this curriculum into a way to make higher learning more accessible.
"In doing research and working very closely with the Ambassador Young Foundation, as well as the Thurgood Marshall Foundation, we know that students between their freshman year and their sophomore year of attending an HBCU have difficulties finishing because they run into financial barriers," Harris said.
McGraw Hill funds the curriculum. Now, they want to help students who complete it.
CBS News Colorado's Tori Mason traveled to Atlanta with the MLK Colorado Holiday Commission for the launch of the HBCU scholarship program in partnership with Ambassador Andrew Young.
McGraw Hill put the initial $50,000 into the Andrew Young HBCU Scholarship program. This will fund the first group of freshmen scholarship recipients attending an HBCU in the fall.
Out of all MLK Holiday Commissions in the country, Colorado's was the only state invited to attend the ceremony. McGraw Hill praised Dr. Vern Howard with the MLK Colorado Holiday Commission's work on the curriculum.
"There are several states that have the curriculum already," Howard said. "Illinois is one of them and Tennessee and Georgia, so we won't be the first in that area. However, I believe we will be the first to be able to not only get this curriculum to the high school level but then scale it to where it can be taught to elementary students."
Students must complete the new curriculum to be eligible for the HBCU scholarship. So far, Howard says Aurora and Buena Vista school districts adopted the pilot curriculum.
Their work continues to make it accessible in more schools statewide.
"The Colorado Board of Education has approved the curriculum to be taught in seventh grade social studies," Howard said. "So that's actually a real good leap. That's going to help us."
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