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College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Center for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics

Math Corps

The WSU Math Corps, founded in 1991, is a combined academic and mentoring program for Detroit public school students in grades 6 through 12. It features a summer camp, year-round Saturday programs and enrichment courses for elementary school children. Over the years, the Math Corps has posted dramatic results.

  • Test scores in the Math Corps' six-week summer camp typically rise from pre-camp averages of 25% to post-camp averages of 90%.
  • In post-camp evaluations, typically 98% of the students give the program A's or B's (with 80% giving A's); parent ratings are even higher.
  • Since 1995, best estimates place the high school graduation rate for Math Corps students at about 90%, with about 90% of those students going on to college (80%) or the military (10%).
  • Over the last five years, Detroit high school students who had participated in the Math Corps for at least three summers achieved a 21 median score on the ACT math exam – far above Detroit's overall average and on par with statewide and national scores.

Built on these results, Math Corps has garnered widespread acclaim and received national recognition. The program's success is the subject of the Emmy-winning documentary, It All Adds Up, by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sue Marx, which has been shown on PBS stations across the country. It has been featured in several stories on CNN and was one of three programs highlighted by President Bill Clinton at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative conference.

Math Corps at Wayne State University

Applying to Math Corps

For more information on how to apply, visit mathcorps.org or contact us at 313-577-2609 or mathcorps@wayne.edu.

Super Saturdays

WSU Math Corps Super Saturdays Program runs for 18 weeks during the school year, with separate programs in the fall and winter. Super Saturdays is open to previous summer camp students, keeping their mathematical skills sharp throughout the school year. Additionally, by maintaining a relationship with parents and students in the months between summer camps, Math Corps is able to stay involved and up to date with the students' lives.

The fall program focuses mainly on ACT preparation, providing high school students an opportunity to enrich their knowledge and skills in order to excel on the math portion of the ACT exam. The winter program functions both as a follow-up to the previous summer camp and as a prelude to the next one. Another function of Super Saturdays is to train current ninth graders to become teaching assistants for the summer camp through an internship during the winter Super Saturdays Program.

Because Math Corps functions in part by having the older students teach the younger students, having a group of highly skilled and caring teaching assistants is critical to Math Corps' success.

Summer Camp

The WSU Math Corps Summer Camp is the centerpiece of the Math Corps. This six-week program serves a total of approximately 400 middle and high school students at two sites on Wayne State's campus. Each day of the camp has a morning and an afternoon component. In the morning, the focus is entirely on the middle school kids. In the afternoon, the middle school students participate in a variety of hands-on activities, while the high school students engage in two Mathematics courses of their own, one of which is an advanced course at the college level. Instruction is provided through a variety of formats and includes topics in the fundamentals of mathematics and exposure to advanced topics as well. The curriculum used is unique and has been developed over the past 20 years within the Math Corps itself.

About fifty college students, most of whom are typically former Math Corps students themselves, work as instructors and mentors. The students are broken into teams with each team having ten middle school students, five high school students who are paid as teaching assistants (TAs) and one college student (CI) at the head. The CIs and TAs not only serve as teachers and role models for the middle school students, but in many instances, as essentially "big brothers" and "big sisters".

For over 20 years, the Math Corps has, through its summer camp, Saturday programs and Elementary School Outreach Program, posted dramatic results for thousands of Detroit public school students.