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SALT LAKE CITY -- A low-profile education foundation based in Salt Lake City is making a big difference in the lives of students here and across the country.
Over the past decade, the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation has contributed more than $1 million to classrooms nationwide.
Founding president Sarah McCarthey grew up here and wanted to help innovative teachers. With tight education budgets, a $30,000 grant helped the Salt Lake Arts Academy design a creative course plan.
During their 8th-grade school year, students at the charter school focused on westward expansion and the transformation of the Salt Lake Valley from Pioneer times to present times.
Truman Carter, a recent Academy graduate, says it was a hands-on project that incorporated a wide range of subjects.
"I thought it was a good chance to get out in nature and hike and get some exercise and experience nature," he said.
A $30,000, three-year grant from the McCarthey Dressman Foundation enabled teacher Jeni White to create interdisciplinary projects that got the kids out of the classroom.
"Our main goal was to integrate our curricula more clearly so the kids developed a much deeper understanding of critical issues for our area," said McCarthey.
Issues important throughout the west: mining, water use and sustainable living.
They went into the mountains and made their own journals. They recorded their observations as though they were the first to arrive on the Wasatch Front. They debated issues and presented the results for their parents and friends.
Sarah McCarthey is a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Friday, she came back to Salt Lake to meet with trustees and select next year's grant recipients from a pool of more than 300 applicants.
"What we really want to focus on is teachers," said McCarthey. "So, the grants are for teachers to do the work they do best, which is working with kids."
Most schools today struggle to come up with money for innovative teaching. Teaching scholarships, academic enrichment grants and teacher development grants help teachers come up with education plans that might otherwise be too expensive to carry out.
"We like to see programs that are doing things that are much more about looking across the curricula, about bringing people together for interdisciplinary projects," McCarthey said.
That kind of learning inspires the students to examine their own education. Tanner Holcomb, a recent Academy graduate, said the project gives him a different perspective on upcoming school projects.
"In the future, instead of just doing an essay," he said, "I might do a whole journal and go out into the field."
E-mail: jboal@ksl.com
