The Ventures In education program is built on a successful twelve-year experience of establishing academic rigor in poorly performing high schools. It is based on the fundamental premise that all children can master a rigorous curriculum--one that provides adequate preparation for careers in a high technology society. Ventures will work with seventy economically disadvantaged senior and junior high schools in five geographic locations, to implement school-wide an academically rigorous, science- intensive course of study. (The students enrolled in these schools are from minority and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.) A comprehensive approach will be employed attending both to the content of the science and mathematics courses, and to the development of the academic skills underlying successful performance. An extensive program of teacher enhancement will include direct in-the classroom guidance and assistance. This intellectually demanding curriculum will be supplemented by school-based summer programs for entering 9th- and/or 10th- graders and a residential college-based summer program for rising 11th- and 12th-graders. The participating seventy senior and junior high schools are located in Alabama, Arkansas, New York City, Washington, D.C., and on the Navajo Reservation. When the programs are fully implemented, they will enroll a total of 40,000 students and will graduate annually 10,000 youngsters. Each year, of those 10,000 graduates, 25 percent--or 2,000-3,000 students--will have completed a rigorous college preparatory program, designed to enable them to succeed in college courses necessary for careers in science, engineering or mathematics. Most of these students will be from minority groups that currently are under-represented in the scientific labor force. Thus, Ventures will significantly advance the NSF objective of reducing, or eliminating, the gap in minority science participation before the year 2000. In addition to providing an excellent education to thousands of America's future scientists, the project seeks to seed a national model which will move the public schools from the current phase of failure and frustration to one of solid academic success. By institutionalizing rigorous science curricula in seventy schools in five geographically and ethnically diverse sites, Ventures intends to crystalize the reform agenda around the issues of academic rigor and excellence for all students.
