Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. This week, ISTEP+ results for the 2016-17 school year were released, and the figures are deeply troubling. Consistent with last year, only 51% of Hoosier students in Grades 3-8 passed both the Math and English/Language Arts (ELA) portions of the ISTEP+. The results are far worse in 10th grade, where only 34% of students passed both the Math and ELA portions of the test. While it’s tempting to dismiss these results as the product of a flawed state test, that would be a mistake and a disservice to students, parents, teachers and school leaders. Recall that Indiana recently […]

Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An interview with Jonathan Wright, The Ruth Lilly Deputy Director for Horticulture and Natural Resources, Newfields Background Newfields, a place for nature and the arts, is a cultural campus that is home to The Indianapolis Museum of Art, the historic Lilly House, The Garden and The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. In Fairbanks Park, guests can experience woodlands, meadows, and the shoreline of a 35-acre lake as well as site-responsive artworks, all on 100 acres. The Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation has awarded grants to the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art And Nature Park at Newfields […]