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On September 23, 2011, PREP-KC hosted a 5-Year Anniversary Event to celebrate the successes of the first phase of the work and talked about how the strategies have evolved, including the following areas of focus over the next five years: 1) increasing rigor in Math to ensure all students are prepared to succeed in college level Math before graduating high school 2) creating early college opportunities at scale and 3) providing college/ career exploration & readiness experiences to put all students on the path to success in college & high quality career pathways.
Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Open Education Solutions and former Director of Education with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke about PREP-KC's successes and how to harness technology and use it to enhance classroom learning. In his words, "This [PREP-KC] is really one of the great success stories in American education"
A few highlights from his speech included:
"PREP-KC is really a gift to this community. I can't really think of analogous organizations- I'm not sure I know of another metro area, particularly one that straddles two states, that has a metro wide organization that is a guardian of what we call 'the other people's children agenda'- the kids that may not always be visible to community leaders, kids of color, kids that are growing up in poverty. To hold those kids in trust and to advance an academic agenda of all kids college and community ready across multiple school districts is really a gift."
"This is a great American education improvement story and I'm looking forward to even more."
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