Three and a half years ago, the Math Corps, based on its reputation, was given the extraordinary opportunity to create, develop and operate the entire mathematics program of a Detroit charter middle school, University Preparatory Academy (UPA). The idea was to see to what extent the Math Corps' philosophies and curriculum, which have proven so powerful in summer and Saturday programs, could work in an actual school on a day-to-day basis.

The results to date have been dramatic. The first cohort of students to go through the entire program, from sixth grade to eighth grade, graduated last June. When these students first entered UPA as sixth graders, their mathematics backgrounds corresponded to second, third, and fourth grade levels. Three years later, 68 percent of those students graduated UPA as eighth graders, having successfully completed at least one semester of high school algebra, with 43 percent having completed a full year. And of those who completed a full year of algebra, 71 percent passed Wayne State’s Proficiency Exam – a feat managed in fall 2006 by only 48 percent of college students who took the exam. About three-quarters of the students were brought up to grade-level by graduation and no student, including the very weakest, ended up more than one year behind.

This year, it's projected that 80 percent of the program's eighth graders will graduate in June, at or above grade-level, with 50 percent having already completed a full year of high school algebra. While bold predictions should be viewed cautiously, it is not beyond reason to believe that the WSU Mathematics Program at UPA may provide one answer to the nation’s middle school mathematics crisis.