We believe all kids deserve access to quality education.
Education lays the groundwork for a strong community, which is why supporting education for Milwaukee’s youth is one of our top priorities. We focus on three key areas to help bridge a child’s educational success:
Quality Early Childhood Education
Quality education provides students the foundation to become future leaders, and research has shown that an education foundation is built strongest during the preschool years. That is why we are investing in high quality early childhood education, with a focus on expanding options for residents in our three Milwaukee neighborhoods of Amani, Metcalfe Park and Muskego Way. Combined with family support, early education can help close the achievement gap and make sure that students show up to school ready to learn and ready to succeed.
Our education efforts have provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to the following programs:
Utilizing collective impact to increase the number of high-quality early childhood education centers.
Early childhood education support for preschoolers in the Metcalfe Park neighborhood.
Early childhood education support for preschoolers in the Amani neighborhood.
Early childhood education support for preschoolers in the Muskego Way neighborhood.
Providing in-home trauma informed care to children 6 and under.
K-12 Pipeline Partners
By increasing the number of high-quality schools in the city of Milwaukee, Northwestern Mutual is helping to close the achievement gap and ensure all children can make the successful transition to college and career opportunities and contribute to the growth of Milwaukee.
The company is building on past education investments of more than $50 million over the past 25 years to target its partner schools in all three sectors of public, charter and choice that will act as educational pipelines.
In addition, Northwestern Mutual partners with organizations that provide academic, ESL, and teacher pipeline support to our K-12 pipeline schools so that they can continue to thrive and create a school climate that is conducive for success. We invest in large-scale efforts to drive systematic change and longer-term outcomes in schools, in addition to funding smaller, scalable programs that are designed to be replicable in schools to benefit students and teachers.
The majority of Northwestern Mutual’s partner schools serve more than 80 percent economically disadvantaged students, and many serve more than 90 percent. Our K-12 partner schools include:
- Acosta Middle School
- Augustine Prep
- Bruce Guadalupe Community School
- Carmen Schools of Science and Technology
- Cristo Rey Jesuit High School
- Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy
- Forest Home Avenue School
- Golda Meir Middle and High School
- Hmong American Peace Academy
- Kingdom Prep Lutheran High School
- Milwaukee Academy of Science
- Milwaukee College Prep
- Milwaukee Environmental Sciences Academy
- Notre Dame School of Milwaukee
- Pilgrim Lutheran School
- Prince of Peace School
- Rocketship Public Schools of Milwaukee
- Ronald Reagan High School
- Rufus King International High School
- Stellar Collegiate
- St. Marcus Lutheran School
- Wedgewood Park International School
Our K-12 pipeline partners:
Facilitating leadership programs to increase the number of high-performing schools
Support for the teacher pipeline in multiple partner schools.
Proud sponsors of the Clarke Street School City Year corps members.
Building elementary school literacy skills through arts infused projects.
Summer school program prepares future teachers and combats summer learning loss in students.
College Prep and access programs at multiple partner schools.
College prep and access programming via Sponsor-a-Scholar.
Post-Secondary Completion
Due to social, economic and racial disparities, talented yet underrepresented Milwaukee students often lack the access and support needed to achieve their full educational and career potential. Consider:
- Only 9% of Milwaukee students will earn both a high school diploma and a college degree.
- Only 14% of Milwaukee’s high school graduates will earn a two- or four-year degree.
- Only 12% of low-income students will earn a bachelor’s degree across the U.S.
That is why we’ve partnered with All-In Milwaukee to fund our Talent of the Future program. Our commitment of $1.6 million over the next four years will provide 80 diverse, first generation Milwaukee-area students with impactful scholarships as well as career leadership development, mentorship and internship opportunities at Northwestern Mutual.
All-In Milwaukee’s college completion and career placement program is the first replication of the Wallin Education Partners, which has a 92 percent success rate of scholars earning their college degrees within six years. In All-In’s first year, 90 percent of students met its requirement of a GPA of 2.5 or better.
In addition, we’re partnering with Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) to support a dedicated advisor for students from our pipeline high schools who matriculate to MATC. The ongoing, high-touch academic and career advising services will also be provided to high school students participating in dual enrollment.
Our investment in the MATC Promise helps to ensure that students stay enrolled, regardless of any financial challenges they may face. This funding also targets parents from pathway schools, resulting in a multigenerational impact on families from the company’s partner schools.
