Reversing Attrition
Psychometric & Pinpoint Learning
In a typical academic year, a school found in the highest crime and poverty location would be falling further behind grade level standards (eg. shown in blue). We were able to stop that and have every student show academic gain, as much as 4 years (100 points) and have every single child gain. This allows us to project that when a student experiences success in mathematics, they will close the ethnic achievement gap and reverse it by 10th grade. This will allow them to compete equally with children who come from affluent environments.
Psychometric analysis shows how students over time showed intense gain as they saw their efforts yield success. We reach a peak at day 15, where they encounter more difficult levels of arithmetic and level off with continued steady gain through the 43 day pilot.
For every new task we encounter, the brain devotes a large amount of blood glucose to that problem. With practice, fluency occurs and the brain uses a minimal amount of "power" to answer the problem.
Using the analogy of a rocket ship vs a glider, a rocket uses a lot of fuel to achieve liftoff and needs a sustained level of fuel to stay aloft while a glider can sail for hundreds of miles using the power of the wind to stay aloft. This minimal effort approach is what Fluintcy is all about, developing fluency in mathematics where simple math problems take minimal, leaving the majority of brain fuel for more complex mathematical problems and application.