It's a foggy Friday afternoon in San Francisco. A handful of teenagers hovers near a corner store, listening to rock music and killing time. But across the street, the buzz of kids tap-tapping on computer keyboards generates a different kind of sound. "Got a 90 percent on my math lesson," shouts Rea, age 10. Two twenty-something instructors rush over to give her high fives. She is awarded two shots at an indoor basketball hoop. Sinking one, she returns to her computer to tackle another 10-minute reading lesson.
This is Score@Kaplan, an after-school computer-based reading and math program designed to help kids improve their grades. Founded in 1991 by Alan Tripp, '85, MBA '89, Score is more than an alternative to video games, mindless television and hanging out. Tripp started Score to put technology to work on the country's growing educational crisis. His goal: to make scholastic activities feel like basketball practice.
Andre, 11, laughs about how easy math can be as he drags cartoon pictures of soda bottles across his screen in order to answer a multiplication problem that is set in a fictional grocery store. Before coming to Score, he was well behind his classmates in math. Now into his second year with the program, he consistently makes B's instead of C's. "Kids typically will make a full grade level of improvement in either reading or math in just three months if they come for two hours a week," says Tripp.
While working in research at the technology investment bank Hambrecht & Quist, Tripp discovered that kids are entertained but rarely educated by most so-called educational software. Then a computerized curriculum developed by Stanford philosophy professor emeritus Patrick Suppes captured Tripp's imagination. Suppes's program was comprehensive and innovative. The computer program actually grew with its pupil, adjusting its lessons as a student progressed. But unlike desktop computer learning games, Suppes's software costs more than $2,000 per station.
Tripp pictured putting Suppes's curriculum in an environment where guidance and fun were built around the product--and where parents would foot the bill. In 1991, after working two years with the Boston Consulting Group, Tripp licensed the software and opened the first center in 1992 in Palo Alto with his own savings. Months later, he showed a center full of kids to William Hewlett, '34. Hewlett invested $100,000, enough for Tripp to open a center in Menlo Park. Within two months, it was a financial winner, and the company began to expand rapidly.
Score now operates 18 centers in the Bay Area, Southern California and the Northeast. In April 1996, Kaplan Educational Centers bought the company. Known nationwide for preparing high school and college students for entrance exams, Kaplan wanted to expand its reach to a younger market.
With an infusion of Kaplan capital, the company plans to open a new center every two weeks this year and is also publishing three books about the program's philosophy; they hit bookstores this spring. Tripp has stayed on as executive vice president and general manager.
In addition to the software product, Kaplan was attracted by Score's "people assets," says new president, Robert Waldron, formerly with the parent company. Teachers are called coaches, mirroring the sports metaphor used at each center. They are recent college graduates who have pioneered Score's team-oriented approach to learning.
The staff controls all aspects of the centers as a team, including its compensation, which is collectively tied to each center's financial success. Says Ali Johnson, '96, a new Score employee: "The people are the best thing about the job. You learn to depend on your team for survival."
All four of Score's regional managers and about 40 of Score's current staff members are Stanford graduates. The company lured 20 graduates from the class of 1996, making it one of the year's top alumni employers.
The connection between Score and Stanford goes beyond the company's founder and its staff. Among the five members on Score's advisory board are former Stanford admissions director Fred Hargadon and current director of freshman admissions John Bunnell.
Rob Zaeske, '95, says it's easy to find Stanford graduates looking for work that is both fulfilling and enjoyable. But at other universities he finds he often has to package Score as a business opportunity rather than a chance to have an impact on education and kids. "Maintaining our culture is one of our biggest challenges as we expand," says Zaeske, who recently moved to Baltimore to head the recruiting office efforts.
Gail Derecho, '94, deferred admission to Harvard Law School to remain as Score's director of new product development. "What has kept me working sometimes 80 hours a week is the dream of making a national impact," she says.
But the program's high tuition ($94 per month for two one-hour visits) may be a real barrier to its goal of reaching a large number of school kids who need help. The company ends up serving well-off suburban families but is out of reach to the less fortunate.
Tripp and his staff have responded to this criticism with scholarships and programs to reach lower-income students. For example, it recently opened a center inside a Sonoma, Calif., elementary school. The school is paying the company a nominal fee to operate the center for its students during the day. In the evenings and on weekends, Score will run the center for profit and share the earnings with the school. A similar venture has just opened at a Catholic school in Brooklyn.
"Score is demonstrating a learning system that is innovative, cost-effective and actually works," Tripp says. And if the company can find the right mix of homework and hoops, it just might lure a few more kids away from the corner store.
Deborah Claymon, '92, is a senior editor at The Red Herring magazine.
