The Harry Singer Foundation Proposal For Education Reform

Another Way 1997 fictional account  a Wellington Publications book page 57.

The Tutoring Center was actually Mapleton's alternative school which had more than 200 computers, several small video rooms and a counseling area manned 24 hours a day by retired volunteers. (Lots of older people didn't sleep through the night.) The volunteers were the mentors and the computers were the tutors. Mapleton residents from age eight to eighty could acquire knowledge at their own speed. Child prodigies had acquired post graduate degrees recognized by the finest universities in the nation sitting next to formerly illiterate, but motivated drop outs who could unobtrusively continue their education without stigma. The curriculum for residents under age 18, without a high school diploma, was the same curriculum required of students in Mapleton's regular schools. The educational software was equipped with a smart tutor, which tested the student's knowledge as a prerequisite for more advanced courses and provided remedial supplements for the areas where test results spotted weakness. Students advanced at their own speed. Two Mapleton students had been accepted for graduate work at Johns Hopkins University at age twelve.

Community celebrations were held twice a year where degrees were awarded and accomplishments acknowledged with great pomp and circumstance. When the elevator stopped, Phyllis was replaying the good food, music, dancing and joy of the last gathering where she had come with hundreds of others to celebrate. One of her former students, who ten years earlier, during his sophomore year, had become involved with a gang and drugs and dropped out of Mapleton High, was awarded a B.S. in biology that day. She had been as proud of Mike as she had been of her 77 year old mother-in-law who the same day had received a masters degree in Chinese history.