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As MESA's reputation has spread across the state and nation, some erroneous assumptions about it have developed. Here are four of the most common myths and our responses to them. MYTH 1: “MESA makes students feel good about themselves, but the program has no real substance.” MESA always has demanded that its students meet high academic standards to prepare them to major in some of the most difficult subjects that college offers. We in MESA believe that educational disadvantage can be overcome with hard work and academic support. MESA provides individualized academic plans, peer tutoring, hands-on science and engineering competitions and field trips to universities and industry sites. MESA offers a curriculum aligned with California’s content standards for math and science. The curriculum is developed under the direct guidance of veteran math and science teachers who are intimately familiar with the subjects and expert at motivating students. To ensure continuous improvement in the classroom, MESA provides teachers with professional development opportunities. Private industry is actively involved in MESA, so students experience the corporate standards of excellence they must meet after graduation. MESA does make students feel good about themselves; it does so by helping them succeed in meeting high academic demands. MYTH 2: “MESA serves students who already are academically successful and don’t need the program.” MESA helps students with potential but who need additional academic support to go to college. Most MESA students come from low-performing schools that don’t have a college-going culture and where college preparation resources are scarce. Many schools lack well-equipped science labs and other facilities. Many MESA students have been placed on the vocational track and despite their talent, are directed toward non-college jobs. MESA identifies these students and gives them academic and counseling support so they become college-ready. Many students who participate in MESA are used to low expectations, but with support they excel academically after they are challenged to meet MESA’s high standards. Many MESA students are the first in their family to take a rigorous curriculum to prepare them for college. MESA’s community college program provides similar services to ensure that promising students transfer to four-year institutions and major in science, engineering or mathematics. MYTH 3: “MESA has no statistics to back up its claims of success.” MESA maintains data to determine student academic success. MESA’s industry partners require these data to assess if the program is producing a satisfactory return on their investment of money and people. Here are key statistical outcomes: Even though two-thirds of the MESA schools are ranked among the lowest in the state, based on California’s Academic Performance Index, • Seventy percent of MESA high school graduates enroll in college, compared to 49 percent of all California graduating high school seniors, an increase of over 20 percentage points, and this is true for a group of students who, without MESA, would not go to college at all. • Fifty-seven percent of the MESA seniors who go to college major in science, engineering or math-related fields. • Twenty-nine percent of MESA high school graduates who are African-American, Latino or American-Indian are eligible for admission to the University of California. This eligibility rate is over 22 percentage points higher than the statewide rate of 6.2 percent for African-American and 6.5 percent for Latino students. • One hundred percent of MESA Community College Program students have transferred to four-year institutions as math-based majors for the last five years. • Seventy-four percent of the engineering baccalaureate degrees awarded to underrepresented students in the state in 2000-01 were awarded to MESA students. MESA produces these results at an annual cost to the California taxpayer of only $357 per student. MESA was named as one of the nation’s most innovative public programs by Innovations in American Government, a project of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Ford Foundation. MESA also has received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. MYTH 4: “MESA limits participation only to certain underrepresented groups of students.” MESA is open to all students who come from educationally disadvantaged circumstances regardless of race, gender or ethnicity. MESA uses an extensive checklist of indicators to determine eligibility, including income, school environment (e.g. availability of science labs, overcrowding, academic performance) and family history of education. MESA serves approximately 52 percent Latino, 18 percent Asian-American, 12 percent African-American, 12 percent white, and four percent American-Indian students. In reality, MESA is one of California’s premier academic success stories. It has improved the lives of thousands of Californians, enhanced the skills of workers available to industry and created tax-paying, productive citizens who continue to make California one of the world’s largest successful economies. MESA produces the scientists, engineers, and technology professionals that our state needs. Quite simply, MESA works.
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