Project Excite => Elevate Evanston

 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. 

Here is a description of present day achievement gaps we want to end as soon as possible:

A Community Assault on Gaps: The Elevate Evanston coalition

One aspect of the original Project Excite that was most frustrating to Doc V was the inability to scale it up to help more students. There were, primarily, funding limitations that we faced. And when NU decided to move funding to another effort, we did not have the means of continuing at that time. Attempts to bring it back in 2020 were buried in the COVID shutdowns. 

But now, with Project Excite back in three schools - thanks to support from Foundation 65 - we are in the process of scaling this effort across the entire community and District 65. We are creating ELEVATE EVANSTON, a community coalition of programs and nonprofits, who are figuring out how to combine resources and what we all do, to help as many students and their families as possible. 

This page will be dedicated and updated as Elevate Evanston, EE, forms and evolves. The initial groups that will make up the EE coalition are: 

We will all have as our foundation the mission of overcoming and breaking down academic achievement gaps. A direct consequence of beating down achievement gaps will be beating down opportunity gaps when students enter ETHS. AND, a direct consequence of defeating opportunity gaps will be the real possibility of reaching a level of racial equity the community has been looking for forever. 

As former Secretary of Education Rod Paige said: 

“I feel closing the achievement gap would do more for advancing the traditional, historic African-American goal of full citizenship and racial equality than any other strategy.”

Additionally, Paige believed narrowing the achievement gap would alleviate societal ills by advancing the potential of every citizen.

“After all,” he said, “education levels drive so many factors, including the wage gap, stereotypical thinking, propensity for crime, and health issues.”

To get a sense of a more realistic mindset for working with students, I outline my approach in this TED Talk. Project Excite is the example.