Applying Group Effort To Group Excellence

Benjamin and Christopher Bhatti and Carl Dorvil

Growing up as first-generation Americans in Garland, Texas, the Bhatti and Dorvil siblings helped each other navigate school – studying and playing together and watching out for one another after class.

They continued the mentoring while at SMU, where the Bhattis – Vincent (’99), Benjamin (’03) and Christopher (’04) – and Carl Dorvil (’05) earned multiple degrees, and where Rachelle Dorvil is a senior.

"Each of us helped the next be his or her best at school and work," says Carl, a triple major in psychology, economics and public policy. "And then each had a responsibility to ‘pay it forward’ – to teach someone else how to study and schedule classes to balance campus activities and jobs."

Carl, now a student in the Professional M.B.A. program in Cox School of Business, and Benjamin, a Dedman Law student, also have applied that model to their work in North Texas. In 2004 they founded Group Excellence, which hires tutors – mainly SMU students – to teach math at economically disadvantaged public schools.

Funded through Texas Instruments Foun­dation, United Way and Advanced Place­ment Strategies, Group Excellence has expanded to eight middle and high schools, serving more than 1,500 Dallas-area students. During the 2006-07 school year, nearly 200 SMU students, recruited through the Hegi Family Career Development Center, worked as tutors.

"We’re bridging the gap between worlds with resources and worlds without," Benjamin says. He first became aware of that gap while serving with Teach for America in urban Atlanta after earning his Bachelor’s in psychology, with minors in philosophy and cultural anthropology.

Group Excellence trains tutors to be mentors, or "life coaches," teaching its "Smart Sports" math curriculum several hours each week after school. Students being tutored are divided into small teams according to needs and work on individualized "playbooks" to earn points and prizes.

The coaches aim to make learning fun, Benjamin says, but they also enforce rules, such as listening and behaving, cleaning up and helping each other learn. In the process, they have helped students raise their scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, not only in math, but also in reading and science. Tutored students at one middle school last year went from a 13 percent to a 65.2 percent pass rate, while passing rates of other students in their area declined by nearly 1 percentage point. "It works be­cause of the mentoring," Benjamin says. "Kids look up to the college students."

While Benjamin and Carl focus on expanding Group Excellence, Christopher Bhatti, also a Cox PMBA student and science teacher at The Hockaday School, has been adapting their model for high school students to serve as tutors in lower grades. He helped launch Science in the Community last year, sending 36 Hockaday juniors and seniors to tutor science at a Dallas elementary school.

"The high school girls get the chance to take a leadership role in science, and the middle schoolers are so eager to learn from them," says Christopher, who earned degrees in psychology and chemistry. This past summer he was awarded a Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility internship to build the program.

The three graduates say they learned the value of education from their parents, who made enormous sacrifices as immigrants – the Bhattis from a small village in India, the Dorvils from war-torn Haiti. And they recognized the influence of mentors while working as tutors at SMU’s Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center and as teacher assistants in the Psychology Department.

"SMU has given us the education and skills to go out in the community," says Christopher. "Now we’re helping to change kids’ and tutors’ lives – and the culture of the city."

Learn more at www.groupexcellence.org.