Aaron Lieberman

1993

Aaron Lieberman

Jumpstart

http://www.jstart.org/

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Education & Youth Leadership

The Bold Idea:

In the Carnegie Foundation's Starting Points publication, teachers reported 35% of American kindergarten children arrive at school unprepared to learn. These statistics are even more alarming for children from low-income families. A 1993 study showed that about 50% of all poor children start first grade up to two years behind their peers in preschool skills. Since these early inequities in skill persist an increase with time, a child's performance in preschool is directly linked to success later in his or her school career.

Jumpstart is a national organization that recruits and trains achievement-oriented college students to deliver an innovative early learning program via a yearlong mentoring relationship with a three to five-year-old child. Jumpstart provides individual attention to develop a child's language and literacy, social, and initiative skills. Its outcome-based model includes a comprehensive package of training, curriculum, and assessment strategies for both summer and school year programs. As of 2003, Jumpstart is serving 4,500 children in 15 states and 120 early learning centers across the country.

Biography:

Currently Aaron Lieberman is CEO of Acelero Learning, an early stage company that helps local communities manage high-quality Head Start programs across the country.

Aaron founded Jumpstart in 1993 during his senior year at Yale University. The idea for Jumpstart came out of experiences Aaron and Jumpstart's co-founders had at Ramapo Anchorage Camp in upstate New York, a summer camp for preschoolers with special needs. After graduating from Yale, Aaron taught for a year as a lead preschool teacher at the South End Head Start in Boston, where he received his Child Development Associate Degree from the Council on Early Childhood Professional Recognition.

As Jumpstart has grown from a campus-based program to a national network of universities, Aaron has been increasingly recognized as a national leader for his entrepreneurial approach to education. Aaron has received several national awards including the Do Something Brick Award, Echoing Green Public Service Fellowship, Youth Service America's Social Entrepreneur Award and was named as one of 30 national education leaders selected to serve on the U.S. Department of Education's Back to School Steering Committee. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Jumpstart, Ramapo Anchorage Camp and New Leaders for New Schools.