Issue: Academic Achievement & Opportunity Gaps - Let's Attack This!

 A 'forever problem' in the Evanston community - and to be fair, this tends to be a major problem in nearly all racially diverse communities around the country - are the academic achievement gaps that exist between white students and students of color. These gaps already exist in kindergarten, and remain, if not expand, as students go through the K-12 education system. 

Despite numerous programs, speakers and consultants, and other attempts to make a dent in these gaps, the differences remain the same now as they were thirty years ago. It is a horribly frustrating and persistent problem, because when certain groups of students are two or three academic years behind others, by the time the students make it to the high school they will be limited in the opportunities to pursue academic and other related interests...an opportunity gap opens up for students of color that do not typically limit the good majority of white students. This can be in the form of honors and AP classes, academic clubs, teams, and competitions, and ultimately places limitations on options for college and the workplace. 

The one program that has made a difference, and even eliminated the achievement gaps between kids of color and white students, was Project Excite. This ran from 2000-2017, and had good success for nearly all its participating students. It was funded almost entirely through Northwestern University (NU) and run through its Center for Talent Development (CTD), but around 2017 NU decided it wanted to pursue a slightly different pathway and pulled its funding, despite Excite's success. Since then, some of us have tried to resuscitate it each year, and were about to begin a club-style solution, but COVID shutdowns prevented this from happening. For the last 1.5 years, we are in three elementary schools and working with 3rd and 4th grade students. Below is a video describing the original Project Excite model. 

Let's make use of a model that has worked in the past, and reignite it to help as many students close the gap as we can, and help them take advantage of any and all opportunities we offer at ETHS!! We can do this, and students will be leading the way to help make it work!

Here's a photo from one of the Excite sessions with 3rd grade students. 

Here is a presentation of recent achievement data and how Excite relates.