An interview with Dr. Terris Ross, Managing Director of the AIR Opportunity Fund, American Institutes for Research
When Terris Ross stepped into the brand-new math, science, and engineering magnet program at Suncoast High School in 1989, she had no way of knowing how profoundly it would shape her future. She also had no way of knowing she would be the only Black ninth grader in the program that year.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today without my magnet school experience,” Ross says—an experience that ultimately launched her into a career devoted to ensuring every student has the opportunity to discover their potential, just as she did.
Today, as Managing Director of the AIR Opportunity Fund at the American Institutes for Research, Ross leads a $225 million investment effort focused on expanding access to high-quality education, strengthening communities, and turning research into measurable improvement. But long before she shaped policy and systems, Ross was a teenager navigating a school that both challenged and transformed her.
Her story (and her work) capture an essential truth about magnet schools: they are proof points of what public education can be when access, equity, and excellence are intentional, not accidental.ut belonging into daily practice, ensuring students feel seen, supported, and set up to succeed.
Ross remembers the academic rigor of her program vividly, as well as the feeling of isolation that sometimes came with being one of the few Black students in advanced coursework.
“There was one of us in each grade level,” she recalls with a smile. “We leaned on each other.”
But belonging came from other places, too: fellow Black students in the school’s International Baccalaureate program, extracurriculars like band and cheerleading, and, most profoundly, from one math teacher who believed in her ability even when she doubted herself.
As a ninth grader taking Honors Geometry and Algebra II simultaneously (and still considered “behind” her peers already taking Pre-Calculus), Ross hit a breaking point. “I told my teacher, Mr. David Williams, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ He looked at me and said, ‘I know that you can.’ If he had agreed with me that day, I would have quit.”
That moment redirected her life. Ross would later return to Suncoast as a math teacher, teaching alongside Mr. Williams, who had since been named Florida Teacher of the Year. “A real full-circle moment,” she says.
Her message to educators today is clear: students don’t only need access; they need adults who see their brilliance before they see it in themselves.
Part of the work has been debunking the myth that advancing equity requires lowering standards, an assumption Ross calls both harmful and false.
While directing research at the National Center for Education Statistics, she oversaw analyses revealing significant disparities: even among students who scored in the top half of 5th-grade math assessments, Black boys were far less likely to be enrolled in Algebra I by 8th grade. Later, analyses of federal Civil Rights Data Collection showed persistent gaps in access to Advanced Placement courses for students in high-poverty and high-minority schools.
“These aren’t gaps in ability,” Ross says. “They’re gaps in opportunity to learn.”
Magnet schools, when supported through thoughtful policy, offer a direct antidote. They were founded on the idea that diversity and rigor are mutually reinforcing, and that public schools can be engines of innovation and inclusion. But sustaining that mission requires structural support: equitable admissions criteria, transportation, funding models aligned to student need, and state and district policies that protect access with integrity.
“Access to excellence should never depend on a ZIP code, a lottery, or a parent’s ability to navigate bureaucracy,” Ross insists.
The AIR Opportunity Fund is investing in work that helps communities translate high aspirations into practical tools and tangible outcomes. Recent investments include:
The early results are promising. For example, community school efforts supported in the Mississippi Delta, Arkansas, and Louisiana are showing reduced absenteeism and rising school ratings. And new national analyses show that underrepresented minority students who take AP Calculus or AP Physics are significantly more likely to pursue and complete STEM degrees—sometimes at rates exceeding the average.
Ross lights up when she talks about these findings. “That resonated so deeply with my own story,” she says. “AP Calculus and AP Physics changed what was possible for me.”
When asked what leaders can do in the next year to expand access to high-quality education for all students, Ross offers a crisp framework:
For Policymakers: Examine admissions, transportation, and funding policies to ensure they don’t inadvertently exclude students who could thrive.
For Advocates: Tell the full story of magnet schools, not only their academic outcomes, but their civic, creative, and community impact.
For School and District Leaders: Lead with fairness, study your enrollment data, partner with researchers, elevate student voice, and position magnet programs as innovation hubs rather than isolated bright spots.
Reflecting on her own journey, from a ninth grader questioning her place to a national leader shaping opportunity, Ross returns to a simple, powerful idea: “The promise of magnet schools isn’t just preparing individual students like me for success. It’s showing what’s possible when public education is designed for opportunity, not just access.”
Her call to action is equally clear: Let’s make sure the next generation isn’t “the only one” but one of many, thriving in schools that reflect and celebrate the richness of our communities.
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