Houston Endowment grant helps Rice University train K-12 school leaders
Innovative program combines business sense and educational entrepreneurship

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

Thanks to a $3.475 million grant to Rice University from Houston Endowment, more than 100 Houston-area K-12 school leaders will have the opportunity to learn better management and other skills through the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program (REEP).

REEP is an advanced-degree and certificate program that prepares educational leaders to close achievement gaps and improve high school graduation rates. Offered through Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, REEP equips its students with the business, innovation, organization and financial management tools they need to develop hands-on solutions to problems facing schools.

The Houston Endowment grant, with support from Rice University, will help fund enrollment and tuition fees for more than 100 participants. The latest grant is in addition to a $7.2 million grant Houston Endowment awarded REEP in 2008, bringing the endowment’s funding of the program to nearly $10.7 million.

“Rice University has a longstanding role in helping improve K-12 educational experiences and outcomes in Houston, and fundamental to that is the quality of the leadership of our schools,” said Rice President David Leebron. “We are proud to partner with Houston Endowment to build management skills that will translate into better schools and better educations for the community’s young people. For higher education to succeed in its mission, we need high performing K-12 schools, and this investment in school leadership is an investment in the future of our young people who are the future leaders of this city.”

“This generous grant from Houston Endowment enables REEP to dramatically increase the pool of school leaders who are able to drive student academic performance,” said Andrea Hodge, executive director of REEP. “Our goal is to produce enough leadership talent to touch and improve every underperforming school in the Houston area.”

REEP combines the faculty from the Jones Graduate School of Business with more than 30 leading educational researchers, practitioners and policymakers from around the country to provide a unique experience for its participants.

Hodge said REEP is the country’s foremost development program for highly motivated educational leaders who are committed to affecting positive change. She said the program offers a unique, multidisciplinary approach that goes beyond the traditional educational framework.

More than 50 school leaders have already participated in REEP and 35 more will begin the program this spring and summer. The grant will support another two cohorts. REEP offers three pathways:

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