SCORE! Educational Centers

SCORE! employed methods of positive reinforcement to help students set and achieve academic goals. After ten-minute computer lessons, called "learning workouts", students obtained SCORE! cards, small magnetic squares emblazoned with the SCORE! logo, which were earned for scoring over 70% on a lesson or making basketball shots. Students saved these cards at home or redeemed them for prizes (balls, Disneyland tickets, etc.). Because students spent most of their time at the computer, basketball shots broke up the lessons and allowed students to let out active energy. Shots were awarded for doing well on lessons or completing a full hour of lessons. The SCORE! coaches also awarded students with high fives. With help from their SCORE! coaches, students set long-term goals in an academic subject, measured against national curriculum standards. Students tracked their long-term progress on the "SCORE! Mountain" located in the learning center—a "goal program that rewards completion, helping students to set and pursue academic goals: students attained bronze, silver, gold, and even 'top of the mountain' goals when they completed a certain number of sessions, advancing them up a wooden mountain to the summit."[2] Positive reinforcement was a strong part of the corporate culture, as documented in Harvard Business School Case Studies in 1999 and 2000.[3]

By developing a retail business model to deliver educational software for a monthly fee, SCORE! made available to individual consumers access to a large personalization software system that was originated by Stanford professors, Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson, and was previously only available to select schools and the Education Program for Gifted Youth. In 1963, IBM had established a partnership with Stanford University's Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences (IMSSS), directed by Suppes, to develop the first comprehensive CAI elementary school curriculum which was implemented on a large scale in schools in both California and Mississippi. In 1967 Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC, now Pearson Education Technologies[4]) was formed to market to schools the materials developed through the IBM partnership. As a student worked on the CCC software, the system learned the user’s strengths and weaknesses and created customized lessons based on criterion-referenced testing that produced on a personalized profile for each student.[5] The instructional design, based on automated personalization, was considered innovative in the early 1990s, compared to the traditional classroom model of instruction where students would cover educational material together at the same pace.[6] Based on computer-generated progress reports that CCC measured against national curriculum standards, typical students at SCORE! who worked for six months, or forty computer-hours, increased the equivalent of approximately two years in a classroom in math or reading.[7]

Score revenues declined 41% in the first quarter of 2009, and operating losses at Score increased from $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2008 to $17.6 million in the first quarter of 2009, inclusive of restructuring charges. At the end of March 2009, the Washington Post Company approved a plan to offer tutoring services, previously provided at Score, in Kaplan test prep centers. In conjunction with this plan, 14 existing Score centers will be converted into Kaplan test prep centers and the remaining 64 Score centers will be closed. The plan is expected to be substantially completed by the end of the second quarter of 2009. Washington Post recorded $11.5 million in asset write-downs, severance and accelerated depreciation of fixed assets in the first quarter of 2009, including a $9.2 million write-down on Score’s software product. Additional operating losses of approximately $19.2 million are expected to be recorded during the remainder of 2009; these estimated losses are related to the wind-down period of the 64 Score centers to be closed, including $15.0 million related to lease obligations, severance and accelerated depreciation of fixed assets. Poor upper regional management and internal weak structures eventually led to a class action lawsuit for violating labor laws brought on by Score! employees which settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. [1]

• Inquiry education
• Philosophy of education
• Personalization

• Kaplan website