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Grantee Spotlight: Purdue Polytechnic High School Indianapolis – Building Skills for An Evolving Workforce

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 […]

One solution to Indiana’s high school dropout challenge: reinventing the high school experience with Purdue Polytechnic High School

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. In 2016, Indiana had a four-year, non-waiver high school graduation rate of 82.4%, and an adjusted graduation rate of 89.1%. This means that more than 10% of students – or a total of 8,626 students in 2016 – did not complete high school in four years. While some of these students may eventually graduate in five or more years, some portion has simply dropped out of high school. Given that most jobs in the 21st century economy require – at minimum – a high school diploma plus some form of post-secondary education or training, dropping out of […]