Cisco Makes National Impact
When Tylicia transferred to third-grade at Occohannock Elementary in Virginia’ s Northampton County, her teachers described her as polite but extremely quiet in class. She was failing math, but wouldn’ t ask questions when she needed help.
Two months into the school year, Tylicia had what her teacher describes as a breakthrough moment. She had created her own place value chart on a white board to work through a series of ST Math problems on the computer.“ It wasn’ t a strategy any one had given to her, and she was able to explain to me how she was using this tool she’ d created,” says third-grade math teacher Jenna Bassette.“ She was problem solving independently.”
“
Based on the at-scale national data and Arizona outcomes, both quantitatively and anecdotally, I came away impressed with the potential impact ST Math can have on our schools.
-- Rich Crandall, Director of the Wyoming Department of Education and former Arizona State Senator
“
Tylicia is one of 6,000 Virginia students who began piloting ST Math in 2012 with a grant from the Cisco Foundation. With the 22-school Virginia pilot, Cisco and MIND Research aim to repeat the successful outcome of their partnership in Arizona schools, launched in 2011. Results there prompted then-State Senator Rich Crandall to take notice and tour schools implementing the program.“ Based on the at-scale national data and Arizona outcomes, both quantitatively and anecdotally, I came away impressed with the potential impact ST Math can have on our schools,” he said.
This is exactly the kind of meaningful difference Cisco and the Cisco Foundation intended to make through their repeated investments in MIND Research’ s programs, according to the foundation’ s executive director, Peter Tavernise. One of the Cisco Foundation’ s priorities is fostering excellence in science, technology, engineering and math – the so-called STEM fields – particularly for underserved students. To that end, Cisco and the Cisco Foundation have supported schools in California’ s Silicon Valley, Arizona and Virginia, as well as provided infrastructure for national and web-based delivery of
4