LEARNGraduate thousands of L.A. High School Students with an Awesome Teacher & an Innovative App
Our proposal is to take otherwise non-graduating students and help them graduate by focusing on the fail they received in biology class (often the only obstacle between them and a diploma).
In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
Central LA
East LA
San Gabriel Valley
San Fernando Valley
South LA
County of Los Angeles
City of Los Angeles
LAUSD
How do you plan to use these resources to make change?
Conduct research
Engage residents and stakeholders
Implement a pilot or new project
Expand a pilot or a program
How will your proposal improve the following LEARN metrics?
Percent of community college students completing a certificate, degree, or transfer-related program in six years
Youth unemployment and underemployment
District-wide graduation rates
Academic Performance Index* scores
College matriculation rates
Student education pipeline (an integrated network of pre-schools, K-12 institutions, and higher education systems that prepares students for seamless transitions between high school, higher ed
Describe in greater detail how you will make LA the best place to LEARN.
It's difficult for any human being to sit in a classroom for six hours a day. They should have to do endure that to graduate from high school; however, by focusing one a huge requirement for high school graduation (passing biology), we can not only make students smarter with the notification and feedback system we've developed to make every student engage socially (but privately) in biology class. By focusing on biology class, we think we can help these kids graduate from high school and change the trajectory of their lives.
We'll work with who we feel is one of the most accomplished science teachers in the nation who has achieved goals no on would have ever thought possible. Not only does he teach, but it turns out most of his students are teachers too. The 8th Graders teach the sixth graders all the math, science and writing to get every student at a level most people would have a hard time believing. We think his approach and what we discovered in the field are aligned. We think its the magic behind what many consider impossible. We're duplicating this process with our software, and we believe that by giving our tool away to students and teachers that we can begin to truly achieve 100% graduation rates. Of course, we have to gather the data, learn from our mistakes, and work with some of the best programmers (founding CEO of Pandora.com, Jon Kraft, and the guy who built one of the most secure websites in the world (stamps.com). We will talk to teachers and students everyday to make sure we're doing it right. Once we get it right a year from now, we'll be able to duplicate our success year after year, and apply what we learned by working with other teachers in other subject areas.
Please explain how you will evaluate your work.
We wil evaluate our work by comparing results with students who use our platform to students who use another learning platform. We think LAUSD is probably tackling this problem now on some level. Our Learning Xprize insights surprised even us. This got us pretty excited and even inspired some legends in the tech industry to work with us. We think it could be done in a much more effective way by segmenting the biology content and assessment in a way that is delightfully simple and clear. By working closely with 2-4 high schools and their counseling staff, we will compare the performance of 200-400 students who use our app compared with those who don't.
How can the LA2050 community and other stakeholders help your proposal succeed
Money (financial capital)
Volunteers/staff (human capital)
Publicity/awareness (social capital)
Education/training
Technical infrastructure (computers, etc.)
Community outreach
Network/relationship support
Quality improvement research