The Southern Regional Education Board – SREB
by Lloyd Smith
“Nearly 3,000 students in the 16-state SREB region drop out of high school every school day.” - SREB, 2011
An estimated one in four high school students drops out of school every year without graduating; this is alarming. Another alarming fact is that those who do graduate are increasingly entering the job market or college bereft of adequate math, writing, and reading comprehension skills, even though our current economic state is extremely competitive for those holding these skills with degrees. Why do we need to know SREB? Who is SREB? What does SREB do? SREB is an educational organization committed to helping states solve these deficits in drop-out rates and lack of basic learning skills.
SREB is the nation’s interstate consortium for education of all levels. Founded in 1948 by consortia of 16 member institutions, SREB is a nonprofit and non-partisan organization laboring to vastly improve pre-K-12 and postsecondary schools in these and other areas. Directly working with state policy makers, educators, and schools from Texas to Delaware to improve and enhance teaching acumen, effective learning, and developing greater student achievement. Their work touches every level of education within the region, and acts as a catalyst for education advancement. This advancement started with no pre-K programs existing, as well as slender numbers of adults holding college degrees. Remarkably, SREB can now boast that their member states have the best pre-K programs in the nation and one in four adults now hold bachelor degrees. SREB has and is continuing to make a difference in the lives of people, communities, and states within the consortium.
SREB (or the “board”) has an as ambitious mission as the Lumina foundation. The board looks to lead the nation in education attainment and progress. They provide the research and information needed to assist state leaders in making sound policies and effective actions in education across the region. SREB also gives reports on member state progress and student success, which boosts morale and achievement. The reports include data collected and analyzed in pre-K through year 20 in education, and SREB is able to do this in the field by working directly with schools, administration, faculty, and students. Along with these feats, the board enhances and advances leadership within member states’ institutions, and trains many thousands of educators annually. SREB is devoted to the future of the southern region.
In the region the board effects online learning in all levels of education, and increases students’ access to online learning. This new wave of educational delivery is directed at the adult learner as well as the young. The adult student initiatives increase education attainment throughout the area. SREB goes further providing extensive resources for all areas of online learning for both student and teacher. The board reaches out as far as the doctoral level with their SREB-AGEP (Alliances for Education and the Professoriate) Doctoral Scholars Program through a grant from the National Science Foundation. The Southern Regional Education Board has an extended reach into all areas of educational systems throughout the nation. They are making a difference in the region’s attainment of education, and develop, implement, and sustain cost guidelines for member state’s virtual classrooms and schools. They are truly an educational technology cooperative, whose goal is to positively affect online education and educational cost disease.
SREB information retrieved from:
SREB report, “Cost guidelines for state virtual schools: development, implementation and
sustainability”, August 2006. Retrieved from: www.sreb.org
