Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools to focus on achievement gap, STEAM education

The Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools will focus its efforts for the foreseeable future on the achievement gap and STEAM education, according to Executive Director Stephanie Hayden.

“We just felt that it was true to our mission and our vision for all schools to be successful, and so we knew the achievement gap had to be part of our focus moving forward,” she said.

STEAM refers to the traditional STEM education – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – but also includes the arts, because the Foundation views creativity as an important factor in education.

“We felt that having STEAM as a focus would provide opportunities for children to explore career paths that they might not explore,” Hayden said. “We want to ensure that the educators are prepared not only to educate our inventors and scientists and those people of the future but also our musicians and business leaders.”

FMPS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving educational experiences for Madison students. It raises private funds and uses them to award grants for “creative and innovative projects,” that aren’t covered by the MMSD budget, Hayden said.

In addition to providing grants to projects related to STEAM education and the achievement gap, Hayden said the organization wants to get every school “adopted” by a local business under its “Adopt-a-School” program. She said this program can “significantly contribute” to reducing the achievement gap. 

Editor's note: the third paragraph has been changed to clarify the origin of the term "STEAM education."