Center for Social Innovation

The Problem

When he was 16, Saaris was put on the fast track with advanced-level courses that would prepare him for college. His best friend, although equally bright but low-income, was not. “I’ve watched in the intervening years as my friend has struggled to make up for what was lost at that juncture,” says Saaris.

Aware of how one simple scheduling decision could become a powerful point of divergence in one’s life path, Saaris went on to become a high school teacher in South Carolina. In his first year, he took note of an African-American student who was slated for remedial instruction but who was clearly capable of much more. Saaris literally walked the young man down to the school office to switch his roster to advanced-level courses. That low-tech, low-cost intervention completely changed the student’s life.

Such experiences led Saaris to conduct in-depth research revealing that while African American, Latino, and low-income students are about as likely as their Caucasian or upper-income peers to attend schools that offer Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses, at least 580,000 of those who could handle the rigor miss out on such courses every year. That’s because such students are often much less informed about the AP/IB program, its benefits, and how to register. Those particularly affected are first-generation college goers, English language learners, and students whose parents and peers are unfamiliar with AP/IB.

Such students can also face an expectation gap. Some teachers are less likely to expect these students to complete pre-college-level work, even when the student is seriously interested in going to college. Lower expectations lead to less encouragement and under enrollment in AP/IB. “This creates a vicious cycle,” says Saaris."

Schools could—but typically don’t—put in place systems to ensure these capable students are enrolled in the high school classes that will best prepare them to achieve their college goals. Saaris has founded Equal Opportunity Schools to assist schools in developing these systems.

The Novel Idea

Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) is an organization that is upgrading the education of minority and low-income students who can handle academic challenge by shifting them into their school’s most rigorous, high-quality courses.

The organization aims to close race-and income-based enrollment gaps in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes in 4,400 target high schools by 2020. These schools have the largest enrollment gaps and contain 86 percent of the “missing” students who have what it takes to succeed in such courses.

Most school leaders are aware of enrollment gaps in AP and IB courses in their schools and many are convinced of the importance of closing those gaps, but they often don’t believe they can be closed effectively in the short term. EOS uses research, case studies, and detailed analysis of each school’s own data to demonstrate both the feasibility and strong positive impact of addressing gaps within one year. The organization shows, in particular, that successfully moving these students into AP or IB classes will lead to increases in student engagement and motivation, higher high school and college graduation rates, and improved critical thinking skills and college readiness.

First getting the school leader behind the initiative, EOS helps him or her to solicit the support of other local stakeholders. From there, the organization works with teachers, communities, and student groups—or advises a principal or point person—to develop a viable action plan. Team members help the school set ambitious but feasible, measurable goals and tailor student recruitment strategies to the school’s specific cultural environment. In settings with a strong equity-minded teaching staff, for example, EOS may suggest teachers do grassroots outreach to students. In other settings, they may advise guidance counselors to conduct one-on-one meetings with potential AP/IB students and their families.

EOS also helps schools improve their AP/IB programs, collaborating with teachers to ensure that curricular content is accessible to first-generation college goers and those coming into AP/IB from non-honors classes. It supports quarterly progress checks on students through exams and informal conversations. Finally, it strategizes on how to provide extra support for struggling students, such as after-school “AP Labs” and weekend review sessions.

EOS already boasts impressive pilot programs in South Carolina and California and plans to work with a growing number of schools each year, scaling its efforts for maximum impact, until it reaches all 4,400 schools targeted by 2020. “Once schools are shown that the process does work and that the positive impact is so great, they’re not likely to slide back, which is what allows us to move on to new settings quickly and efficiently,” says Saaris. Saaris received Stanford Graduate School of Business' Social Innovation Fellowship to get the nonprofit off the ground and is soliciting grant funding. Further financing will mostly come through consultancy fees paid by school districts.

“I feel an incredible urgency around this work,” says Saaris. “Most students are right across the hall from the education they deserve.”

The Innovator

Reid Saaris studied government and teaching at Harvard, where he graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in government and the certification to teach secondary school social studies. His summa cum laude thesis received the Thomas Hoopes Prize for excellence. Our Latest Generation: The Civic Greatness of Young Americans disputed the idea that young Americans are disengaged and apathetic, and traced political inequalities back to inequity in educational opportunities.

After graduating, Saaris coached soccer and cross-country running and taught history, economics, philosophy, and psychology at a large, rural high school in South Carolina for three years. In his last year, he was promoted to an administrative position, heading the AP and IB programs at the school. “I was committed to ensure that no student in my school would be overlooked for participation in AP or IB because of the color of their skin or the size of their parents’ income,” he says.

When the IB program grew by more than two times to become the largest in the state, Saaris believed he had found a relatively simple, high-impact reform that could transform the lives of missing students across the country. He founded Equal Opportunity Schools, and wrote a paper for the Education Trust in Washington, D.C., on the “missing” students' problem. While attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business School and School of Education, he has been running EOS’s first district-level pilot in California. He graduated with a joint MBA/MA in June 2010, and now embarks on EOS’s first funded year.