How do you define student success?  Is it doing great on annually administered standard tests?  Or, is it having your child become a lifelong learner?  At IEM  we believe strongly that teaching our kids to love learning for a lifetime will not only help them have a happier, healthier, more successful life…but that this is what our society as a whole needs now and into the future.

Since embracing the standardized test as its Holy Grail, our public education system as a whole may be graduating more kids out of high school.  At the same time, our colleges and universities are graduating fewer engineers, scientists, and others on whom our productivity as a nation will depend.

In a 2004 report by the California Department of Education, it was stated that 25-33% of all high school students in California will not graduate. However, across the country as school districts report their graduation and drop-out rates, invariably it is the charter schools that are reporting significantly higher graduation rates than their traditional public schools. In fact, WestEd, an education research firm funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recently reported that 12 new small high schools they support in New York reported 90-100% graduation rates, with 80-90% of those graduates being accepted into college.

That isn’t a coincidence.  As parents derive more choice in education, their children are being offered the systems, curriculum, and learning opportunities that help them succeed.

IEM supports student success by assisting parents, local school administrators, teachers, and community members create healthy, sustainable, and challenging educational environments in which learning is stimulating, lasting, and fun. And this begins by giving parents a choice.