This fantastic project by Droga5 is probably one of the most amazing, successful and influential projects on urban, social and educational regeneration I have seen to date. I should have posted this ages ago as it won some serious prizes, notably a Black D&AD pencil ….
The Million is a newish program that rewards New York City public school students for their academic achievements by connecting the things they like outside of school to their performance in school.
Short-term incentives encourage a long-term interest in learning and success.
It’s so simple and begins with a free, limited-edition personal mobile device.
It’s aim is to tackle the low literacy, science and maths issues in New York and the surrounding areas. Through this program, students in New York are eligible to receive a free personal mobile device for use outside of school. Based on their scores on a series of performance indicators – such as class work, attendance, and behavior – students earned “points” or airtime on their Million phones, which can be used for making calls, sending text messages, downloading ringtones and music, and other functions. Frequent rewards periods remind students of the link between learning and earning.
Students are evaluated on a set of specific performance indicators measured by each school. Two indicators, behavior and attendance, are measured across all participating schools. In addition to behavior and attendance, each school also measured three unique indicators based on school-specific priorities – such as math or social studies performance. Through the program, administrators have easy access to a wealth of data on their students’ performance and progress over the course of the pilot.
