Growing up in Queens, Karim Abouelnaga attended an underperforming high school. Half of his graduating class received a diploma and less a fifth were considered college-ready.
He himself went on to Cornell University, where he decided to do something about the achievement gap he'd seen firsthand back at home. While still a student, he started Practice Makes Perfect, a nonprofit that centers on summer education for low-income students in New York City.
Practice Makes Perfect's goal is to close the achievement gap that widens in the summer months, when low-income students tend to fall behind their more affluent counterparts. It aims to do that, in part, by putting college and high school students in middle school classroom as mentors, alongside full-time teachers. Abouelnaga believes this inter-generational approach can create ties that go beyond the traditional student-teacher dynamic.
“Our brand is relationship-driven," Abouelnaga, 23, told NationSwell's Chris Peak. "There’s so much emphasis on technology and testing, that we can't forget how much relationships matter in education.”
Now in its fifth year, the program is helping 325 students from third to seventh grades in various high need locations in New York City, including Brownsville, Brooklyn; Jamaica, Queens; and the South Bronx. And the results are promising. Last year, middle schoolers' math scores increased by three percent on average, while reading scores went up seven percent. Likewise, high school student mentors improved their SAT scores by an average of 170 points.
For all the progress he's seen so far, Abouelnaga hopes to have an even wider impact. “There’s 1.1 million schoolchildren in New York City,” he said. “We haven’t even scratched the surface.”
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