Ellen Lau, Preservice Teacher, Chicago, Illinois

Ellen Lau knew she wanted to teach in a high-need school – but she also knew she needed some direct exposure to the challenges high-poverty schools face. To get that experience, she signed up for ACI’s High-Need Schools Internship while she attended Knox College. This ACI internship provides junior and senior education majors and minors with an immersion experience in an academic day camp serving low-income and minority youth. A program of ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools, which seeks to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers, reinforced Ellen’s commitment: “Learning about the inequalities in education has given me a need to address these issues and help those students who need to be helped the most,” she says. Ellen graduated from Knox College with a degree in secondary education and is looking for a job in a high-poverty high school.