SEATTLE – The Gates Foundation and the state plan to spend nearly $12 million for an early learning center in the White Center neighborhood south of Seattle known for poverty and failing students.

A foundation grant announced Wednesday will pay for construction this year of the Greenbridge Early Learning Center, which will have space for parenting classes and preschool programs. Another foundation grant plus about $2 million in state money will come through the ThrivebyFive nonprofit organization for services for pregnant women, young mothers and children in their first years.

ThrivebyFive says White Center was chosen because one in five children below the age of 5 lives in poverty and just 17 percent of fourth-graders passed assessment tests in 2007.