Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An Interview with Scott Bess, Head of School, Purdue Polytechnic High School Background In 2017, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation awarded a $1.25 million three-year grant to support the launch and replication of Purdue Polytechnic High School Indianapolis (PPHS), a first-of-its-kind urban high school model aimed at developing a new generation of talent with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills to meet the needs of an evolving workforce.  Combining personalized learning with project-based curriculum, Purdue University created this model to establish new pathways for Indianapolis’ low-income, under-represented minority students to continue their higher education at […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. In 2017, more than 1,700 people died of a drug overdose in Indiana—an all-time high. This surge in overdose deaths has been driven by opioids, which now account for more than 80% of overdose deaths. Along with effective substance use prevention and harm reduction strategies, properly addressing the opioid epidemic requires ensuring access to effective treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder. That includes those in the criminal justice system. A large share of individuals in prisons and jails have misused opioids, and it’s estimated that 24%-36% of all heroin addicts pass through the criminal justice system each […]