Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. It’s well known that good jobs often require a strong understanding of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Yet K-12 performance in STEM lags in Indiana, driven in large part by substantial disparities across race and income. In 2017, only 51 percent of Indiana students passed the math portion of the ISTEP+ in grades 3-8. The pass rate for students with free- and reduced-price lunches was just 36 percent. And the pass rate for black students was 25 percent—less than half the rate for white students. Raising STEM achievement, particularly for low-income and minority […]

This week, teachers, school leaders, community organizations, philanthropic organizations, policymakers, and parents joined The Mind Trust for an evening of celebration and recognition of the progress Indianapolis has made in education over the past nearly two decades. The energy in the room was high but the message was clear: we have made tremendous progress when it comes to K-12 education outcomes, but we have much more work to do. During the evening, Former Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said that every student – regardless of income, race, or zip code – deserve access to a well-rounded education, including a rigorous curriculum and social and emotional supports. And while […]