Ignite! fires dreams and promise of today's youth

[Carol Holst <kceh@airmail.net>]

Excerpt from today's Viewpoints.
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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com ;| Section: 
Viewpoints, Outlook


Feb. 13, 2004, 11:27PM

VIEWPOINTS

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Ignite! fires dreams and promise of today's youth

With the recent vote by the Houston Independent School District Board of 
Trustees, Ignite! has formally received recognition for its successful 
efforts in implementing its innovative instructional courseware (Early 
American History) in 23 member schools. The positive vote by the board 
was a vote in favor of two important considerations.

First, the decision recognizes that innovative teaching and learning 
practices made available to the district should be offered to as many 
schools as possible in a transparent and open process.

Second, the benevolence of community support for educational initiatives 
within our city should be openly entertained as an available catalyst to 
help our Houston-area public schools succeed.

We applaud the HISD Board and [Superintendent] Dr. Kaye Stripling for 
the leadership to make available a curriculum that delivers real, 
measurable student achievement gains.

Ignite! courseware is driven by a belief that children -- all 
children -- are blessed with the capacity to learn, and that they learn 
in different ways.

Ignite! has spent the last four years creating core curriculum through a 
reliance on solid instructional research, expert teaching practices and 
a talented staff of professional educators.

Our curriculum is fully aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and 
Skills test. The courseware uniquely uses multiple-learning mediums such 
as animation, video, song, charts, graphs and text to allow teachers a 
practical opportunity to deliver required academic objectives to 
students.

In our efforts with HISD, an experienced staff of instructional 
designers, teachers and support professionals collaborated with the goal 
of enabling measurable academic achievement gains across a diverse 
population of HISD students.

We have succeeded in that goal.

We are grateful to be part of a giving effort that supports the 
community's educational priorities through the leadership of public and 
private collaboration.

This group effort recognizes that our city's next generation of leaders 
are our current classroom learners.

We are fortunate to be blessed with a city filled with generous 
corporations, individuals and enterprises that believe in helping 
fulfill the dreams and promise of today's youth.

Their support in this program will yield results that go beyond improved 
grades and academic progress.

The children inspired by this program will believe in themselves and 
give back to this community in ways we can't yet imagine.

Neil Bush, chairman, Ignite! Inc., Austin
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 President's Week! Half Off
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com ;| Section: 
Viewpoints, Outlook
This article is: 
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2401751