After 20 years in the city, our corps members and alumni have made an indelible impact on Houston and continue to lead breakthrough initiatives. The Houston Independent School District’s (HISD) school improvement officer Jeremy Beard (Los Angeles Corps ’92) created the Apollo 20 program to turnaround 20 of the most underperforming schools. At the same time the HISD chief talent officer, Ann Best (Houston Corps ’96) is working on changing the recruitment, professional development, and compensation of teachers to ensure Houston brings in and keeps the best talent to serve our students. 

Alumni-led charter school systems are providing transformational change for their students. By 2014, YES Prep will send roughly the same number of low-income students to college as all of HISD’s other 34 high schools. According to a recent Mathematica study, 85% of KIPP middle school students matriculate to college compared to only 40% of low-income students nationwide.

And yet, there’s still much to be done. One of the biggest challenges is the huge increase in school-age immigrant population. Many of the new students have limited education and knowledge of English. This growth, combined with tough budget cuts, puts enormous pressure on the district. 

The challenges we face only fuel our commitment further. We’re bringing in our largest, most diverse corps to work alongside our dedicated alumni to do whatever it takes to lead our students to success.