CASE STUDY
ACADEMIC RESCUE
MISSION TO MEXICO
Among Applied Scholastics delivery options are projects to export Study Technology directly into troubled classrooms. Known as “academic rescue missions,” they train teachers and students in severely underperforming schools threatened with loss of accreditation or funding.
Central Mexico’s state of Puebla, described as “lagging behind the rest of Mexico,” reported that some 17 percent of all students drop out before completing primary school. A high percentage are functionally illiterate.
A 2010 rescue mission, initiated and led by two graduates of the Applied Scholastics Delphi School and titled “Entiende Mas, Logra Mas” (Understand More, Achieve More), changed those statistics dramatically. The project was piloted in Aquiles Serdan Elementary School. Initial delivery taught Study Technology fundamentals to 300 students in 30-minute slots spanning four weeks. Students were then tested on standardized national exams and, as Puebla educators noted, “It was quite enough to see results.” Aquiles Serdan Elementary School moved from the lower-70th percentile to the top-rated school in its district.
A large primary school, Jesus Reyes Heroes, did the same, through the use of Study Technology—specifically, 450 students learning the definitions of words in the subject of mathematics. That school rose to number one in its district on national achievement tests.
With that came confirmation from the Ministry of Education that in Puebla schools adopting Study Technology, the percentage of students scoring at the Good and Excellent level on a standardized national test increased 23 times more than the national average increase.
Such results led to 600 teachers representing a cross section of schools statewide receiving training on learning and literacy tools. Their graduation ceremony was a state function, with Puebla’s Minister of Education presiding and authorizing state funding to immediately double the number of Study Technology-trained teachers by the end of the school year. His conclusion: “This is what Mexico needs.”
Teachers from Puebla state continue to enroll on Study Technology courses for educators, making a brighter future possible for students by giving them the tools to learn and apply any subject.
