Young people who enter the Simpson Street Free Press program acquire essential vocational and academic skills through writing and publishing a newspaper. The Simpson Street Free Press has a strong track record of strengthening academic skills and preparing students for college. Perhaps even more important is the growing influence our young writers have on their peers. Our organization has two missions:

Mission #1: Provide a challenging academic experience for our teen writing staff.

Students develop precisely the sort of skills they need to do well in school, get into college, and get good jobs. Intensive academic lesson plans are the backbone of the Simpson Street Free Press. These lesson plans are executed by a professional teaching staff in a business office atmosphere. Students use worksheets and develop outlines as part of the writing process. We teach our young writers to pull out main ideas, write good lead sentences, and organize their writing in a coherent way. Our strategy is to teach across the curriculum. Students learn history, geography, and the arts and sciences while practicing the basics: writing, reading, researching, critical thinking, and using computers. Our student writers are required to revise each of their articles many times prior to publication. Working for the Free Press is a real job for kids. It is a professional position with real deadlines and real responsibilities. The assignments are challenging and the work is demanding. Dozens of academic success stories begin at the Simpson Street Free Press. Many of these success stories occur among our most at-risk students. Participation in the Free Press program has proven time and again to maintain, improve, and enhance academic performance.

Mission #2: Spread a positive message of youth achievement, academic success, and community service throughout Madison and Dane County.

The student writers of the Simpson Street Free Press play an important role among preteens and teens in Dane County. They are role models in the truest sense of the term. Drugs and alcohol, school violence, and a minority achievement gap are often part of life for young people in Dane County. Free Press teens lead their peers in a different direction. They effectively spread a message of achievement and success throughout Madison and Dane County. The message of the Simpson Street Free Press is clear: drugs, alcohol, and smoking are bad; history, science, and community service are cool. And academic achievement can be, and is, cool for all kids. These messages resonate with young readers across Dane County. Our writers are effective role models because they are real and because they are local. They seem “just like us” to kids who read the paper.

Simpson Street Free Press circulation is 22,000 and growing. Young readers pick it up at hundreds of locations throughout the Madison area. Through ongoing collaboration with the Madison Metropolitan School District, the Free Press is delivered to all Madison schools. Dozens of Dane County teachers use the Free Press in their classrooms. Curriculum guides, produced by our teaching staff, complement each publication of the Simpson Street Free Press and facilitate its use in classrooms.