Three R's, Studied With a Fourth: Rigor

Its goal is to immerse promising low-income students in a rigorous academic program to ready them for a challenging high school curriculum and educational paths beyond.

New research on middle schoolers supports programs such as Higher Achievement, said Michael Petrilli, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, an organization that studies education.

Many school systems have dumbed down their middle school curriculum because of research that purported to show that brain development slows in children in that age group, leaving them less able to learn, Petrilli said.

That research proved to be "nothing but bunk," he said.

"The idea that early adolescence is a time when you just can't push students to learn very much . . . just isn't true," he said.

Academic rigor is the soul of Higher Achievement, its leaders say. Children spend 650 hours per school year in the free program, in addition to 900 hours in school. Students who apply to the program are interviewed and chosen on the basis of their potential and hunger to learn. About half of those admitted are C and D students.

"Intellectual capacity is built through effort," said Maureen Holla, the program's executive director. "Hard work builds intellect. The harder you work, the smarter you get."

During the school year, the children meet three days a week from 3:30 to 8 p.m. for homework help, instruction in math, literature, science and other subjects, and mentoring time with volunteers. During the summer, the program runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week.

The intent, Holla said, is to "flood" children with academic opportunities.

"We are very rigorous and very deep," said Carlos Garcia, chairman of Higher Achievement's board of directors, who has been involved with the organization since the 1990s.

"This is a critical intervention in a child's life, and time on task really matters," he said. "You have to really, really envelope them in this environment."

Just over half of all Higher Achievement scholars, as they're called, increased their standardized reading scores in recent years after joining the program, and 62 percent boosted their math scores.