The diagonal line in Arkansas separating academic and economic strivers from those less likely to make the grade--and then land a decent job--runs roughly from Texarkana in the southwest to Blytheville in northeast. "The wealthiest people live above that line," said Dr. James Jennings, a history professor and education department chairman at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. He had drawn that line in 2006, based on his first-hand and empirical knowledge of parents, students, teachers, schools and the long-haul impact of unabated poverty in the 41 Arkansas counties that are part of the Mississippi Delta, an area below that diagonal line. With that understanding--and research on narrowing the achievement gap that he began conducting as a Vanderbilt University doctoral student--Jennings in 2007 piloted a project that has been measuring double-digit increases in student academic performance. Above the Line, Jennings' instructional model, started as a three-week summer session for 25 of the lowest-performing third-graders in Forrest City, Arkansas. Above the Line's groundbreaking cornerstone is its testing of elementary students' competency in literacy and math and middle-school students' proficiency in literacy, math and science at the start of the school year.