The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

The Top Blogs on YES Prep’s The Answer for 2010

December 29, 2010 by Jeremy Jones

The holiday season and the new year always bring about some reflective nostalgia that compels us to think about the best and worst from the previous 360 or so days and ponder what life will be like in the upcoming year.  There are some very definite and measurable ways that YES Prep will be changing in the next year that get this author very excited and will push me and my team to perform at levels beyond what we have ever operated.  For starters, we will officially enroll our 5,000th student.  That is halfway to our goal of serving 10,000 students in the Houston area.  Next, we will be sending 100% of our students to college from three fully grown YES Prep campuses in three very different Houston neighborhoods.  Southwest joins Southeast, our flagship campus, and North Central as a fully grown campus and graduates its first class of students.  Finally, we will be opening our 9th YES Prep campus on Jensen in Houston's north side.  So, as we look forward to a semester full of firsts, we look back at a 2010 calendar year through our most popular blog posts.

Number One:  YES Prep on the Oprah Show

Our family and friends love reading blog posts about our accomplishments and being on the Oprah Show early in the 2010 semester was a nice recognition of everything we have accomplished in the past decade.  The show mostly focused on the acclaimed public education documentary Waiting For Superman, but just before the show ended, YES Prep's Founder and CEO Chris Barbic was surprised with a $1 million gift from Oprah's Angel Network.  This might be the top highlight of the school year and we were so fortunate and honored to be celebrated in this way. 

Number Two: The 100 Percent Promise

Another national media outlet, US News & World Report, published a two page article about the hard work and dedication of our teachers and students.  That dedication and relentless pursuit of results has led to a decade of closing the academic achievement gap in Houston and serving as a model for the possibilities in public education.  One hundred percent of YES Prep's graduating seniors have been accepted to top colleges and universities across the country.   

Number Three: Visiting YES Prep Alumni in their first semester at Dartmouth College

YES Prep teacher and ELA Course Leader Katie Norwood visited some YES Prep North Central alumni in their first semester at Dartmouth College this year and came away with some very profound thoughts on the work she is doing and the possibility of eliminating the achievement gap with the collective effort of teachers at YES Prep.  This blog post is one of my personal favorites because of the emotional impact it has had on its readers and the thoughtfulness with which Mrs. Norwood approaches her work.

Number Four: Five YES Prep teachers are awarded with $20,000 prizes from the Kinder Family

Each year, the Houston education and philanthropy community recognize five YES Prep teachers for their dedication to students and our mission with a $20,000 cash prize.  Among this year's winners were YES Prep Alum and current YES Prep West Dean of Students Joel Munoz and long time Spanish teacher at YES Prep Southeast Karen Autrey. 

Number Five: YES Prep named one of Houston Business Journal's Best Places to work in 2010

Often times, critics in the media and educational establishment will argue that the charter school movement isn't sustainable because of high teacher attrition rates or "creaming" students.  Both criticisms are myths, although our teachers do work very hard and our students ARE the best in the city.  One of our most proud accomplishments in the 2010 calendar year, the Houston Business Journal put us on their Best Places to Work in 2010 list.  We were the only school to have ever made the list and the only non-profit on the list other than hospitals, proving that not only do our teachers and school leaders work hard, but that they are happy to be doing that work as well.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading our top blogs of 2010 and we are anxious to share more in 2011!

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