Corey Alderdice, director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, was a featured speaker during the recent “Closing the Excellence Gap: Building the Pipeline” Summit.
The two-day summit brought together more than 100 principals and administrators from top-performing STEM and magnet public high schools from across the nation to Washington, D.C., to discuss ways to better serve low-income, high-achieving students and strengthen the school-to-workforce pipeline. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and Coalition of Leaders for Advanced Student Success (CLASS) Coalition hosted the summit.
Alderdice said being asked to participate as a speaker shows that ASMSA’s effort to promote both access and success for those students hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“It was an honor to be able to share the great work our faculty and staff are doing to bridge the excellence gap for students at ASMSA,” Alderdice said. “Our school has always had a commitment to reaching students for whom the program can be a truly transformational opportunity. It's exciting when others take notice.”
The Cooke Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. The CLASS Coalition is a group of principals and directors with an agenda to support and advocate for these students.
“The ‘Closing the Excellence Gap Summit’ is a one-of-a-kind event that brings school leaders from the nation’s best public high schools to D.C. to meet with policymakers, collaborate on innovative ways to help low-income, high-performing students succeed, and develop new strategies to ensure students are prepared for competitive careers after graduation,” said Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Executive Director Harold O. Levy. “Some of the brightest students in America come from low-income families; they deserve equal educational opportunities so they can fully develop their talents. Together with the CLASS Coalition, we’re working to remove barriers and help these students gain admission to the most selective high schools and study at the top colleges, both as a matter of fairness and because these students can help build a more prosperous future for our country."
“The CLASS Coalition is thrilled to join the Cooke Foundation in hosting the second annual ‘Closing the Excellence Gap’ Summit,” said Crystal Bonds, President of the CLASS Coalition and principal of the High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College in New York. “We’re looking forward to robust discussions and exciting events that, ultimately, can help shape how high schools around the country are helping all students, regardless of background or circumstance, reach new heights of achievement and excellence.”
The summit, held Feb. 25-26, gave the administrators the opportunity to visit with key education policymakers on Capitol Hill, including Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murphy (D-Wash.) One of the keynote speakers was Eric Waldo, executive director of first lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative.
The group learned about cutting edge research as well as sharing and identifying best practices for supporting high-achieving, low-income students.
“The continued conversations, discussions, and debates with peers from across the nation are a reminder that the work schools like ASMSA does is critical in developing the talents of students from rural, underserved, and other distinct communities where resources are not always readily available,” Alderdice said.
The Cooke Foundation works toward helping students with financial need to realize their full academic potential through its Young Scholars Program. Since it was founded in 2000, the foundation has offered more than $130 million in scholarships, comprehensive counseling and other support services to students in the eighth grade through graduate school.
The foundation has also provided more than $80 million in grants for noteworthy and innovative initiatives that support such students. Among those is Project HELIX at ASMSA, which enters the second year of its pilot funding in 2016.
Project HELIX is a free two-week residential camp at ASMSAS for 40 rising sophomores who come from low-income backgrounds. Preference is given to students from the Delta region of Arkansas. Students explore a variety of topics in problem solving, design thinking, quantitative analysis and leadership development.
The camp takes place July 10-22, but support for the students continues over the course of the fall semester with academic and college counseling, ACT prep and other activities as the students consider application to ASMSA. Students must qualify for free or reduced lunches to participate in the program.