GEAR-UP Kentucky schools announced

A third round of GEAR-UP Kentucky schools has been announced by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.

GEAR-UP Kentucky – Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs – is a federally funded program to increase college and career readiness among some of the state’s more economically challenged public school students. It works on changing the entire school culture to create what I call a ‘Culture of Can.’ That’s a positive attitude where everyone from faculty to students to school support staff believe even kids from challenging backgrounds can succeed in college and careers and work hard together make that a reality.

You can learn more about GEAR-UP at its dedicated web site.

Here are the schools in GEAR-UP 3.0. It is clear from this listing that GEAR-UP isn’t waiting until high school to start working on a better attitude about college and careers.

GEAR-UP Schools List 2012

The Bluegrass Institute shares the conviction that student attitudes towards college and careers need to be fostered from the first days that children enter school. We saw that attitude in action when we visited Dewey Hensley’s J.B. Atkinson Elementary School in Louisville several years ago.

While GEAR-UP’s web site indicates this national effort is still working to develop performance metrics, the general concept looks very promising.