Before he was born, Charles McVean’s mother, Ella, taught students in a one-room schoolhouse in a small Missouri town. When McVean grew up and teased her about that old-fashioned method of schooling, his Mom pointedly told him that he had no idea how rich that environment was for teaching, because older students helped teach the younger ones. “We only learn to teach by actually teaching,” she told him.
They are words McVean has harnessed and put into action with a comprehensive student-to-student tutoring initiative that grew into a program called Peer Power. Education is a preeminent issue in the Mid-South, and Peer Power tackles it with solutions that are elegant and powerful. Top students in underperforming high school are recruited and interviewed for positions as tutors in the program, for which they earn $10 an hour. Each tutor leads a team of about 12 students who are struggling with academics. Teams of scholars — the name given to the students who are being tutored — compete for prizes, and those prizes are real, not some gold star or a homework pass from English.
The prizes range from cold, hard cash to tickets to Grizzlies games, canoe trips, and other outings. “We [reward] them how you would your kids if they are doing well in school,” says Bill Sehnert, Peer Power executive director. Students who improve their ACT scores receive $25 for each point increase. On average, students improve their ACT scores by 3 points.
The program started when McVean, chairman and CEO of McVean Trading & Investments, LLC, was considering making a contribution to his alma mater, Vanderbilt. McVean says, “I asked myself, who needs help more, my second alma mater, or my first alma mater, East High School?” The answer was easy.
When McVean attended in 1961, East taught students from the first to twelfth grades, so initially, he had planned to start with first graders. But East hadn’t taught elementary school students since the 1984-1985 academic year. This put a different spin on his project. “I had no earthly idea how to start with a group of ninth graders,” McVean says. He started out by hiring Sehnert. Peer Power opened for business in January 2005.
Once the program was underway, it became apparent there was not a homogenous group of students. Some were performing at eighth-grade level, while some had math skills in the fourth-grade level. “We realized the brutal reality of the challenge,” McVean says.
Each Peer Power chapter is independently managed by its school’s principals and teachers in order to maximize flexibility, local involvement, and financial sustainability. Each team has a “Faculty Champion,” who works with the program to keep tutors abreast of what the scholars are studying in class and are paid for their extra work.
While sessions vary from school to school, generally they meet after school, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, from 2:15 to 3:30, when they study math, science, and English.
There are also programs and enrichment activities open to students of other area high schools, including Science Saturdays and Career Saturdays, ACT Prep, Summer Math Camp, and a Summer Tutor Institute, during which the paid students receive their training.
The program is ideal for tutors who are considering careers in education. “For a youngster who is inclined to become a teacher, their best possible experience is Peer Power,” McVean says. Most tutors are 15 to 17 years old, though there are a few 14-year-old tutors. The paid high school tutors must maintain their ranks as honor students. Some college students are also paid tutors, and they must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA.
The program touts an impressive 100 percent entry rate for tutors entering college, and most of them receive scholarships. “If they don’t get a scholarship, [it would be because] they are lazy,” Sehnert says.
The Peer Power budget for each school ranges from fifty thousand to several hundred thousand. The program has grown exponentially. The first full academic year it was in operation, 2005-2006, 100 students participated. By the 2012-2013 school year, more than 1,000 students were receiving tutoring services.
The bedrock of the program is a structured environment, where role models have strict rules for behavior. “If there is no law and order, nothing is going to happen,” McVean says.
Many of the students who are having trouble achieving academically come from single-parent homes, and often that parent is spending so much time trying to make ends meet financially there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to help the children with homework. Often it’s difficult to carve out family time.
In addition to academic setbacks, the lack of supervision sometimes results in juvenile delinquency. Peer Power helps kids stay busy with an educational activity. “Turning around one of these kids who is headed for jail is a huge contribution to society, financially as well as otherwise,” McVean says. One reason the program is so successful is that the tutors become surrogate parents and the team becomes a surrogate family.
McVean’s philosophy with the operation of the program is simple. “The top end of the kids in low-performing schools are the hardest working kids, and they can and will help their fellow students if allowed,” McVean says. “Our better inner city youth are perhaps our most under-appreciated and under-utilized assets in our country today. Peer Power proves it for sure.”
Innovators: Charles McVean and Bill Sehnert
Innovation: Peer Power, an educational program empowering students to teach other students.
School Chapters: Tennessee: Brewster Elementary, East High School, Lester Middle School, Northside High School, Westwood High School, and Whitehaven High School. Mississippi: Blue Mountain High School, H.W. Byers Middle and High School, and Shelby Middle School.
Address: 850 Ridge Lake Blvd., Suite 1, Memphis, TN 38120
Phone: (901) 761-8463
Website: peerpowerfoundation.org
