In 2006, Midtown and the Houston Independent School District got a magnet school to end all magnet schools. The Houston Academy for International Studies educates the lucky kids who get picked to attend, making them not just intelligent and capable members of our society, but of a global one.
Students at HAIS take four years of foreign language instruction—not just the one or two that’s required by most public high schools these days—and are obligated to participate in the Model United Nations class to discuss world affairs and theorize how to solve them. These kids are encouraged to seek travel scholarships, and students have gone to such amazing places as Thailand, China, Cambodia, Italy, Slovenia, Egypt and Spain.
The Texas Education Agency considers HAIS an “exemplary” school, and this past summer HISD named the Houston Academy for International Studies a 2014 Blue Ribbon School. But the awards are preceded by a commitment to educating these young adults—not just by ensuring they are prepared for a global participation, but by ensuring they are prepared for the next step in their education.
HAIS students can count on receiving an education that doesn’t just make a college education likely, it makes a college education expected. Class sizes are small to ensure an individualized education, which is part of their mission statement, but students are expected to have a hand in their own education by participating in service-learning projects (at least two), fulfill a Texas Scholars curriculum, and complete a 180-hour internationally-focused internship to graduate.
All these requirements are designed to successfully place students on the ACT COMPASS test and get them into the right college—and graduates from this relatively fledgling endeavor have attended schools like Georgetown, Notre Dame, Penn State, St. Edwards, A&M, UT and St. Thomas (just to name a few). Students even have an option of enrolling in courses and getting college credit (up to 61 college credits are available) from HCC during their high school career or staying on for the 5th Year Scholars Program where students will be enrolled “primarily in college credit bearing courses, with individualized support provided by HAIS.”
But this education isn’t just for the privileged in the community. In 2006, 75% of the school’s freshman class were low-income, and 95% were racial and ethnic minorities. This college preparatory functions as a lottery, and students’ achievements become expected upon their enrollment. This equal-opportunity education dominates many of the other public schools in HISD, not just providing an exemplary education for the young men and women who want to achieve it, but standardizing success as a minimum requirement for life as a 21st century global citizen.
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