One of Argument-Centered Education’s several new partner schools, heading into the 2017/18 school year, is Jones College Prep High School, in Chicago.  The year-long partnership will focus work with the English Department, and its objectives include building a scope and sequence for student acquisition of college-ready academic argument skills that integrates Jones English curriculum vertically, and enhancing the rigor and argument-centeredness of literary study at Jones.  Recently the Science Department has sought a place at the table and expects to be included in the ongoing services partnership this year, too. 

“We are very excited to be working with Argument-Centered Education,” says incoming chair of the Jones College Prep English Department Ebikepreye Ogundipe.  “We are eager for our teachers, beginning with the 10^th grade, to be provided with new argument writing resources and to have their instructional capacities to focus on critical thinking and argument expanded.  I am also interested in Argument-Centered Education’s support on our more systemic use of data to drive upgraded instruction and student performance.”

“We at Jones College Prep have been using argumentation in our instruction extensively for some time,” according to Advanced Placement teacher and former department chair Brady Gunnik.  “But we felt that Argument-Centered Education will help take our department to the next level.  In the spirit of always innovating and improving, we are looking forward to the partnership with ACE.”

Jones College Prep is in fact already one of the top high schools in Illinois, being named in the top 10 by Newsweek for five straight years.  Its ACT scores, and other factors, place it in the top 100 high schools in the nation, according to US News.  Dr. P. Joseph Powers, principal of Jones, said he was “extremely impressed” with Les Lynn, and that he looks forward to measurable advances in student college-readiness and teacher professional capacity through this external partnership.