College For All Children – No Excuses!Our VisionWhat do we see our students becoming?
We are lifelong leaders and servant-leaders empowered by education to transform our local and global communities.
Our MissionHow will we get there?
IDEA Public Schools prepares students from underserved communities for success in college and citizenship.
Our Big GoalWhat’s our bottom line?
100% of our students will matriculate and succeed in the university of their choice.
ProgressHow are we doing so far?
100% of last year’s first graduating class of seniors (from our Donna campus) are currently attending university. All but one is a first generation college student. We continue to deliver some of the highest results in the Rio Grande Valley; our economically disadvantaged students are excelling in all subject areas, leading the pack in math and science, as this graph shows:
ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS: 2007 TAKS
Barriers to College
What are our students up against?
Living in poverty is an everyday reality for all too many children in the Rio Grande Valley. About 8 in 10 children in the Rio Grande Valley come from economically disadvantaged families, and approximately 30% of Hidalgo County residents live below the poverty level, compared to only 13% of people nationally. In 2005, Hidalgo County was ranked as the poorest county in the nation (of counties with a population of 250,000 or more).
What does this have to do with education? Statistics show that children growing up in low-income areas—in South Texas and across the country—are performing at much lower levels of achievement than their wealthier counterparts. Nine-year-olds growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. As they continue through middle and high school, the achievement gap widens even further: only about half of all economically disadvantaged children graduate from high school, and those that do graduate will perform, on average, at an eighth grade level in both reading and math. These disparities severely limit the life prospects of the 13 million children growing up in poverty today—including many living here in the Rio Grande Valley.
However, our results prove that socioeconomic background should not and will not limit our students. IDEA Public Schools are dedicated to preparing children from traditionally underserved communities to defy the odds and break the cycle of poverty by getting a college education. We also hope that many of IDEA Mission’s graduates will eventually “come back home” and, empowered by their primary, secondary, and college education, lead and serve in their own Rio Grande Valley community.
