Educational Innovator: Phillips Academy’s (MS)² Program

Test Innovators believes in the power of education to shape the future of our society. Our Educational Innovator series highlights a program, school, or individual that is contributing to the advancement of education in a unique way, whether through groundbreaking curriculum, technological innovation, or other revolutionary projects. This week, we spoke with Dianne Domenech-Burgos, director of the (MS)² program at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

Andover’s longest-running educational outreach program, Mathematics and Science for Minority Students-–(MS)², for short—advances diversity in math and science fields by developing the competencies and self-confidence of outstanding high school students of color.

The ongoing lack of diversity in STEM is a problem that permeates workplaces and institutions of higher education across the country. Though Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities make up around 35% of the U.S. population, they are consistently marginalized in the science and engineering workforce. “The majority of the reason for the gap is that students are not prepared,” Dianne Domenech-Burgos, director of the (MS)² program, said. “If they’re coming from the urban public school system, they don’t always get the skills that they need–and the math and science knowledge that they need–to do well in a STEM field.”

To help bridge this gap, the program seeks out underrepresented public school students in targeted areas of the country, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Memphis, Louisville, Cleveland, Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., and nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts, as well as Native American reservations across the country. Over the course of three summers, selected scholars live on campus at Andover and are challenged intellectually and exposed to peers and educators with diverse backgrounds, life experiences, and aspirations. Students take math and science enrichment courses, English courses to develop sound writing skills, and a college counseling course to help them with the college application process. After high school graduation, many students go on to attend Ivy League schools and prestigious liberal arts colleges across the country.

(MS)² was founded in 1977 by lifelong educational reformer and Andover’s Head of School at the time, Theodore Sizer, who collaborated with other faculty members to address the issue of inadequate representation of marginalized individuals in science fields. Forty years later, the program has helped over 1,200 Black, Indigenous, Latinx public high school students develop STEM skills, and has inspired a movement of similar programs, such as the High School High Scholar (HS)2 program at Colorado Rocky Mountain School.

To Domenech-Burgos, the most inspiring part of her work is seeing the individual transformation that can take place through the program. “We’re taking kids from New York City Public Schools, from Native American reservations, some who have never left their home before or gotten on an airplane,” Domenech-Burgos said. “After the program, they’re at schools like Yale, Brown, Stanford, Bates College, and Bowdoin… It is an amazingly transformative experience for these students. On top of that, the nation is privileged because they are going into STEM fields!”

Even after the three-year program is completed, (MS)² keeps in touch with students to ensure their continued success through their college experience and beyond. Domenech-Burgos tells the story of one student who came from a public school in Washington, D.C. and was accepted to Brown University on a full scholarship after completing the program. “During his summers, I made sure he did internships,” Domenech-Burgos said. “He interned at Facebook, he interned at Google, he interned at Twitter, and he is a senior now graduating–all three companies have offered him a job. He is graduating from Brown and getting three of the best job offers you could possibly get for a STEM professional. Those are the types of stories that keep me going every day. It’s not just one story, there are countless stories of (MS)² alums who are now doing well.”

Participation in the (MS)² program is free for all selected students. You can learn more about the program at www.andover.edu/ms2.