September 2009

Message from the director
Terese Rainwater

In the last four years, the State Scholars Initiative (SSI) has made impressive strides. We’ve grown the program to 24 states, with partnerships in every region in the country. We’ve increased the number of SSI school districts to 949. Today, some 600 companies nationwide are sending volunteers into participating schools, selling students on the value of a rigorous curriculum. And the ranks of SSI students have swelled into the thousands with more graduating as Scholars every year.

As importantly, SSI has made a diligent effort to collect data showing the program really works. Data harvested from 2006 through 2008 representing over 1.4 million course enrollments in 10 states show that the majority of SSI students are successful in their courses – including the most rigorous ones. Lastly, through the National Summit on Rigor and Relevance that SSI hosted last year, we’ve been able to carry our message about the importance of a rigorous curriculum and the value of using business volunteers to deliver that message to students to a broad audience of influential decision makers.

As the national program winds down, we want to thank everyone who has participated – those who work for state partnerships, our business volunteers, students and parents, teachers and counselors, data analysts and policy leaders. In this final newsletter, we review the 2008-09 accomplishments of the 18 states currently participating in the program. In addition, we take this opportunity to highlight the efforts of some of the individuals and companies who’ve made SSI a success.