Akira DeLoach, a senior at Enterprise High School in rural Mississippi and a student in the Global Teaching Project’s AP Physics 1 class there, has earned admission to the Class of 2026 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Akira plans to major in Mechanical Engineering. Akira’s achievement is extraordinary—MIT is widely regarded as the world’s top university for both Math and Science, and MIT admissions are highly selective. Last year, over 33,000 of the world’s best STEM students applied to MIT, but only 1,365—just 4.1 percent—were admitted. The admissions rate for Akira’s class will be even lower if long-term …

Matt Dolan, CEO of the Global Teaching Project, was recently featured on Kari Alexander’s podcast, Kari the Light, which profiles ordinary people doing “extraordinary things.”

Earlier this week, a team from the Washington bureau of cable news network News Nation came to the town of Marks in the Mississippi Delta at the invitation of the Global Teaching Project.  The News Nation report that aired was prompted in part by our essay on Marks and the ongoing struggle for Civil Rights and educational equity. The focus of the News Nation story was the need to expand and improve broadband internet in rural, high-poverty communities, a key step in addressing educational disparities and, given pending federal legislation, an appropriate topic for White House correspondent Allison Harris, who …

During the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, over 100 students, Mississippi-based teachers, and tutors from Yale, the University of Virginia, Harvard, and Scripps gathered virtually to work on AP Physics and AP Computer Science, as well as to learn about developing the study skills, resilience, and grit needed to excel academically and later in life.

Happy New Year! A year ago, no one could foresee the trials that 2020 brought. However, the extraordinary response of our students, teachers, tutors, and administrators was entirely predictable, because their character already had been evident. We are extremely proud of their hard work and commitment. We cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how to respond. It is natural to become disheartened in the face of adversity. To summon the resolve to overcome that adversity is the essence of heroism, as history has amply demonstrated. In 1834, not far from where I write this in Maryland, a young …

According to new data from the College Board, the entity that administers Advanced Placement exams, the Global Teaching Project’s Advanced STEM Access Program stands out favorably both in Mississippi and nationally in two critical respects: Continued Growth:  Amidst the pandemic, schools across the country are limiting their academic programs and reducing their AP offerings, with the sharpest declines in areas of greatest need.  Yet the Global Teaching Project is expanding educational opportunity by sharply increasing the number of students served. Nationally, fewer schools are offering AP courses this year—AP Physics 1 and AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) offerings have declined 5.1% and 16.1%, respectively.  In …

Fewer than 0.3% of Mississippi public high school students even attempt the challenge of the AP® Physics 1 exam. Among all 38 Advanced Placement® subjects, AP Physics 1 has the lowest average score and the lowest percentage of students who achieve a “qualifying” score—the minimum required to earn college credit. AJ Tutor and Rylee Chisholm, currently seniors at South Pontotoc (MS) High School, took on that challenge—during a pandemic—and excelled. Both not only earned qualifying scores on the AP Physics 1 exam, they also were among the very few students statewide who achieved top results on the test. AJ scored …