New York
A new report on New York State’s Science and Technology
Entry Program (STEP) and its college counterpart (C-STEP) shows that
these enrichment programs were responsible, in the words of the outside
evaluator, for “dramatically raising the academic performance of their
students,” most of whom are African American, Hispanic, and low-income.
The New York State legislature funded the STEP program in 1986 in
response to statistics showing that very few African American and
Hispanic students were becoming scientists and doctors. STEP’s aim is
to groom students for the scientific professions.
“The reason these programs have been so fantastic is that they
[have] provided opportunities for youth that they never would have
had,” says Dr. Marlene Klyvert, a STEP program director.
Klyvert is assistant dean of special programs and associate
professor at Columbia University’s School of Dental and Oral Surgery.
Her STEP program works with students beginning in the seventh grade.
Despite annual funding battles and the apparent indifference to
them on the part of a great many schools, STEP and C-STEP are still
operating twelve years after their inception, and have chalked up some
remarkable successes. In 1995-96, for example, 74.7 percent of C-STEP’s
784 graduates were either in graduate school or employed in scientific
fields. Two of the students have won the prestigious Westinghouse award
for high school science projects.
Klyvert’s program runs from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. every day for a
month in the summer, plus a year-long program every Saturday. The
younger students work on math and science in the morning and spend
afternoons on scientifically-related field trips. Older students are
paired with research scientists to work on specific research projects.
