THINK (The Hope in New Knowledge) is our main education and youth development program that utilizes tutoring and mentoring to raise students' in-class grades so they can promote and graduate to the next level. We follow a Basic Skills, Homework help and Mentoring curriculum. THINK tutor/mentors break students into small groups to work on basic skills for the first half of the program. These basic skills are directly connected to the Illinois Learning Standards and are comprised of exercises in reading, writing and math compiled by certified teachers and teachers in training. In the second half, we review the students' homework or work on key concepts identified by the students' teachers, making certain to note skill deficiencies so as to strengthen them through our basic skills review. For the remainder of the time, THINK incorporates fun and engaging activities (from brain teasers to a pick-up basketball game) to keep students' interest. We feel that these mentoring activities are the core of our program. Mentoring through games and activities creates a deeper bond between the student and the tutor, and sparks in the student a real love for learning.

At its December 15, 2004 meeting, the Illinois State Board of Education acted to add the MGR Foundation to its approved list of Supplemental Educational Service (SES) Providers. Under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, supplemental educational services are intended to increase the academic achievement of eligible children in reading and math through after-school tutoring and other high-quality academic programming. In fact, under the NCLB Act, each SES provider applicant must:

• have demonstrated success in improving academic achievement;
• use research-based strategies designed to improve academic achievement;
  
• offer instruction consistent with academic content and achievement standards of the State of Illinois;
  
• remain financially viable; and
• offer educational services consistent with Federal, State, and local health, safety, and civil rights laws.
  

The Foundation is honored to be included as an approved SES provider since this affirms our ability to provide high-quality research-based academic services to children that need it the most. By also being SES (Supplemental Educational Services) approved, we have had to submit to rigorous standards that establish both our effectiveness and our connection to the Illinois Learning Standards.

MGR Foundation Provides

Short/Long Term School Outcomes:
Increased attendance
Higher individual and overall grades
Increased graduation and promotion rates
Focus on school's at-risk student population
Detailed student progress monitoring
Accountability and reliability
Reduced problem or delinquent behaviors

Evidence of effectiveness
This was our third year running the THINK tutoring/mentoring program full-time in three Chicago schools. We feel that the fact that we recruited over 20 students per site is an accomplishment in itself. However, we realize that recruitment is not enough. We also witnessed academic improvement. By the middle of the school year, student progress reports reflected definite positive changes in reading and math skills, from improvements in class participation to higher marks on tests.

In addition, the majority of THINK students participating in our Test Prep program improved their scores on the ACT component of the PSAE standardized test. THINK Test Prep ran twice a week for 12 weeks. Students took practice tests at the beginning of the program and half-way through the program, and then took their ACT portion of the PSAE exam at the end of the program. Tutors prepared students for the types of questions that would be on the test, shared test-taking strategies and "tricks," and practiced test-taking with the students under the clock so that students became accustomed to working under timed pressure. The combination of test prep sessions proved to work, as shown in the table below:

Overall Results and Individual Cases:
The following is a sample of select THINK students' performance followed by the overall program statistics.

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School Evaluation Data Overview:
Total number of students: 57
Maximum number of THINK sessions attended by one student: 39
Minimum number of THINK sessions by one student: 1
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 1 or more times: 4.04%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 5 or more times: 13.85%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 8 or more times: 13.95%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 10 or more times: 17.75%

Other Key Statistics:
35.09% of THINK DuSable students improved from an F or a D.
63.63% of our 10+ attendance session students were F/D students.
56.14% of THINK students were F and D students with an average of 3.12 Fs or Ds per "F/D" student.
As shown above, many of our students with significant results were F/D students.

Phoenix Military Academy High School: Data
The following is a sample of select THINK students' performance followed by the overall program statistics.

Phoenix Military Academy Data Overview:
Total number of students: 51
Maximum number of THINK sessions attended by one student: 29
Minimum number of THINK sessions by one student: 1
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 1 or more times: 3.08%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 5 or more times: 8.43%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 8 or more times: 19.37%
Overall improvement percentage for all students tutored 10 or more times: 29.05%

Other Key Statistics:
50.98% of THINK Phoenix students improved from an F or a D.
60% of our 10+ attendance session students were F/D students AND improved from an F or a D.
78.43% of THINK students were F and D students with an average of 4.27 Fs or Ds per "F/D" student.
As shown above, many of our students with significant results were F/D students.

Not only is the THINK program helping students with their grades, we are helping those that are truly at-risk, those considered lost causes by other such tutoring programs who often select the highest achieving students in low-income schools.

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