Straights A’s but sad

Hi there,

If you’ve read the manifesto on our site, you know that a big driver behind Forge Prep was my daughter.

TBH, as I dig into the data on female students in our schools, it is a bit perplexing.

53% of high school girls are persistently sad or feel hopeless (source: CDC).

BUT, at the same time, these same girls are absolutely crushing school.

▪️ 70% of valedictorians are female.
▪️ Girls average a 3.23 GPA. Boys average 3.0.
▪️ 85% of girls graduate. 78% of boys do.

They're outperforming on every metric school was built to measure.

And, yet somehow, still miserable.

(related: see last newsletter on developing optimistic kids)

So the only question worth asking now is…..WTF?!!

Grades clearly aren't the answer.
In fact, they seem to be part of the trap.
Doing-as-your-told for "perfect" performance ends up hurting more than helping.

Research on 16-year-olds found that boys overestimate their creative abilities while girls underestimate theirs.....even when actual performance is equal or better.

It's called the "confidence gap."

It's a massive barriers girls hit on the way to real achievement.
And great grades clearly don't seem to fix it.

You know what does?

Making things.

In fact, studies on adolescent girls in creative problem-solving environments show increased confidence and greater willingness to take on new challenges.

Action creates confidence.

They don’t need fake achievement (grades).

They don’t need praise.
They need to be doing.

We built Forge Prep around that single insight. Every project (what we call a Challenge) ends in something real, with her name on it.

Instead of beating meaningless benchmarks, she builds things people actually need. So while 53% of her classmates are miserable chasing and even crushing the benchmark, she doesn't have to be.

Big partner announcement

I’m excited to announce that one of the Challenges that Forge Prep students will work on next year is a market research project for FC Gotham.

FC Gotham won the National Women’s Soccer League Championship last year and have been on an epic run. We’re really looking forward to our students working on this.

More on the challenge below but for those who have never been, I recommend attending an FC Gotham game. Their home opener is on March 21st, and you can get discounted tickets for just $22 here.

“My kid loves school”

65% of parents think their 10th grader loves school.
Only 25% of kids actually do.

The decline starts in middle school, but all too often, we miss it entirely.

Breaking news: Water is wet

In case you're one of those people who can't believe what you're seeing unless there is a research study, here you go

Mobile short-form video is not good for our brains
Get this isht away from our kids especially

Just 1 of the many reasons for our pretty strict phone policy at Forge.

FC Gotham project - What students will learn

The research work we’re doing with FC Gotham aligns perfectly to Forge’s ethos that students learn best when they’re doing real work.

Here is some of what they’ll learn through this project:

• Designing surveys that produce valid, unbiased results

• Understanding sampling, margin of error, and statistical significance

• Collecting, interpreting, and synthesizing data from multiple sources

• Turning data into clear, compelling visualizations

• Analyzing data and building a coherent argument from what it shows

• Writing to persuade a professional audience, not a teacher

• Building and presenting a strategic recommendation to an actual organization

• Understanding why sports businesses succeed or fail in competitive markets

• Distinguishing between what data says and what it actually means

• Defending their thinking in front of professionals who push back

If you think your child would love to learn this way, we should talk.

Seeing friends

Growing up, I saw my friends almost every day. Seems quaint now.

Forge is built around getting some of that back. Real proximity. Real time together. Kids working alongside each other all day. Who have enough agency over their schedule that it actually feels like theirs.

The stuff that happens in that proximity is hard to name. But it’s very valuable and certainly doesn’t happen if you’re sitting silently in rows & columns of desks listening to a lecture.

That’s all I got for you today.

Forge ahead,

Anand

Co-founder, Forge Prep

P.S. If you want to read our prior newsletters, you can see them all here.