Roughly 40% of NYC public school students don't graduate high school.  5 Regents exams are required for students to graduate and be able to attend college, and these exams continue to be an obstacle for students throughout New York.  Title I public schools across the city struggle to provide youth with tools and resources to pass.

 

Fresh Prep is a hip-hop based curriculum that has been proven effective to increase struggling students’ performance on the Regents Exam, making graduation a reality for youth in danger of falling behind academically and in their future professions. 

 

Every Fresh Prep pilot participant had failed the Regents exam as many as five times, but after completing the Fresh Prep program, 80% of students passed, including 100% of special needs students.  94% of students in the English Fresh Prep program passed the exam, including, again, 100% of the participating special needs students. This program is changing the future potential for participating students and helping to break the cycle of poverty for disadvantaged students in NYC. That’s why Urban Arts Partnership became the first arts organization ever funded by the results-driven, competitive Robin Hood Foundation in the Fall of 2009. 

 

Listen to song samples "Cold Cold World" and "Paris Tokyo (Globalized Modernized World)" from the Fresh Prep: Global History course.