Donna
Rodrigues delivered the opening speech at Exceeding Expectations, a May
2004 meeting of the partners and schools in the Early College High
School Initiative. With over $50 million in investments from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the
Ford Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the initiative is
creating some 150 schools in this decade. Now a program director at
JFF, Rodrigues drew on her experience as founder of the University Park
Campus School to discuss what it means to do this work from a
practitioner's point of view. Located in one of the most economically
disadvantaged sections in Worcester, Mass., University Park sends a
powerful message of possibility to urban schools across the nation:
academic achievement for all students is within reach.
