Women of 280: Michelle Mauro - GradePower Learning of Birmingham

Michelle Mauro is committed to fostering learning in the students she works with at GradePower Learning. Mauro is quick to point out their program is different from the typical tutoring service. 

“In our experience, tutoring simply doesn’t work. In fact, more often than not, ‘tutoring’ is counterproductive to the learning process,” she said. 

“At the core of our programs is an underlying philosophy to teach students how to learn. This gives students a sense of control over their own minds and builds authentic self-esteem. It’s important to note that most other commercial tutoring programs use rote learning, behavior modification processes, or mastery through repetition.  Each has been proven ineffective and don’t lead to long-term success. Before we opened GradePower, many of our families had no choice but to find this out the hard way. Now, their kids are with us and are seeing real progress not just with class grades, but with benchmark tests such as ACT, Stanford, and Iowa,” she said. 

“Like many families in our area, we understand that well-educated youth are crucial to the health of our region. Statistics show that, in Shelby County alone, more than 6,000 school-aged kids are underperforming in the classroom and need the specific solutions we offer.  Further, another 3,000 have potential to attain even higher educational standards.”

GradePower is a member of the Oxford Learning family, which was founded in 1984 in London, Ontario, Canada, by Dr. Nick Whitehead. The U.S. 280 location opened in April of 2013.