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Before retiring, Dr. Robert Springer had a long career conducting research and development for the corporate sector. But before that career, Dr. Springer had a less-than-stellar high school experience similar to the experiences of the students he works with today as an RSVP volunteer in Arizona.
He barely squeaked out of high school with a C average. After graduation, he spent two years on a chicken ranch earning minimum wage before he realized that he need a college degree to succeed financially.
Today, Dr. Springer is the engine behind what has now become a statewide volunteer model to raise the math and science scores of Arizona’s high school students on the states standards test.
It all began in 1998 when his wife’s involvement in a local children’s charity and his own curiosity prompted him to call the local high school principal to see how students were faring academically. Dr. Springer learned that only 16 percent of 10th-graders had passed the math portion of the test that year. His response was to begin volunteering at the school as a math and science tutor. But he soon learned that he would need a lot more people power to really make an impact.
He recruited and now coordinates a team of 80 volunteers who tutor more than 600 students at five different high schools, and through an alliance with a software company, he has customized a software program to assist teachers and tutors in assessing students’ math needs and focusing attention on those concepts where they struggle most.
A controlled study conducted by Dr. Springer revealed that students being tutored in the program were 57 percent more likely to pass the standardized test than students without the tutoring.
“Seeing the scores go up gives me a lot of satisfaction,” says Dr. Springer. “I think, ‘There’s a kid who won’t have to work on the chicken ranch or at McDonalds or for very low pay.’” |
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