About America SCORES
America SCORES inspires youth to lead healthy lives, be engaged students, and have the confidence and character to make a difference in the world.
America SCORES students—85 percent of whom live below the poverty line—improve academically, increase physical fitness, and have a greater sense of confidence and belonging.
How We Work
America SCORES serves over 13,000 high-need students at more than 300 public and charter Title I schools in 13 major cities.
1
We Build
Team Players.
SCORES students get 10 times more exercise than the national average.
Post-program running tests show that SCORES students improve their fitness levels no matter where they start.
2
We Inspire
Self-Expression.
SCORES students write more than 50,000 original works each year.
Many have published poems in magazines and participated in spoken-word events in front of audiences of hundreds.
3
We Create
Community Change.
America SCORES teams designed and led over 300 service-learning projects to improve their communities.
Student projects like ending hunger, creating sustainable gardens, and fighting illiteracy provided 200,000 hours of volunteer work last year.
Our Curriculum
America SCORES is the only urban youth development program with curriculum specifically aligned with the National Council of Teachers of English's 12 Standards for English Language Arts, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education's 5 Standards for Physical Education, and the National Youth Leadership Council's 8 K-12 Service-Learning Standards. In addition, our physical activity/health outcomes reach Tier I-III standards of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Program Results
88%
of students
Reporting higher self-confidence, saying that “America SCORES makes me feel good about myself.”
80%
Increase in classroom participation, according to teacher surveys, leading to a 77% improvement in academic performance.
89%
Of poet-athletes improve aerobic capacity.
73%
Of poet-athletes reach the "Health-Fitness Zone" for their age group.
Our History
Julie Kennedy, a former teacher at Marie Reed Learning Center, invented this complementary combination of activities in 1994 when she began working with a group of 15 girls with little to do after school. Ms. Kennedy learned that the team-centered relationships built on the soccer field translated into poetry workshops, and the development of teamwork and leadership prepared students to act as agents of change in their communities through service-learning projects.
America SCORES The program quickly expanded throughout DC, and in 1999 Kennedy began sites in Boston and Chicago, thus creating America SCORES, headquarters to 13 programs across the United States and Canada: Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, St. Louis, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, DC.