SEATTLE — The Road Map Project’s latest report on the state of education in King County’s areas of highest need shows some progress, but much more work needs to be done to close race and ethnic opportunity and achievement gaps. The project focuses on students in South King County and South Seattle, where 92 percent of the county’s high-poverty schools are concentrated and where the homeless student population has more than doubled from 2,000 to 4,500 since the project began in 2010.

As the greater Seattle area experiences historic economic growth—about 740,000 job openings are expected in the next five years—many of the Road Map Project region’s families are not sharing in the prosperity. Poverty has shifted out of Seattle as housing prices continue to climb. What’s more, the Road Map region’s students are not being adequately prepared for the local knowledge-based economy: among students who entered ninth grade in the 2006-07 school year, only 31 percent have earned a postsecondary credential by their mid-twenties—far shy of the project’s goal of 70 percent by 2030.

“The biggest challenge for our region is making sure our greatest assets—the diverse young people who are growing up here—are set up for success,” said Tony Mestres, president and CEO of the Seattle Foundation, a longtime Road Map Project partner. “We need to give students the opportunities and supports they need to reach their full potential and to access the jobs being created right in our own backyard.”

[For more of this press release from The Road Map Project, go to http://www.roadmapproject.org/...ains-for-the-region/]